HASTITY, WHAT IS IT?” he asks, trying to pull back to see my face. I don’t let him, just clench him against me, feeling the warmth of his neck against my cheek, the comforting strength of his arms around me, the smell of soap and shampoo. Oh, God, I recognize these smells, this feeling. I remember everything about him.

“My mom…” My voice is unrecognizable even to me.

“Is she hurt?” His voice is calm and quiet, even asking such a question.

“No!” I sob. “She’s fine.”

“Come on in, sweetheart.” Trevor disentangles himself from me, takes my hand and leads me into his apartment. I’ve never been here. His living room is painted a warm yellow, there’s a fireplace and a lot of plants, and I can’t see anymore because of the tears in my eyes. He pushes me gently onto the couch and leaves the room, returning in a second with a box of tissues, which he hands me.

“What’s the matter, Chastity?” he asks as I blow my nose loudly. I need several tissues to mop up my tears. My hands are shaking, and so are my legs. I can’t answer right away. “Chas, honey, what’s wrong?” Trevor kneels in front of me and takes my hands.

“She’s getting married, Trevor,” I whisper, then start bawling again. “She’s getting married to Harry and my father is so…he sounded so…and I just—I never thought—they loved each other—but now…”

Trevor slides onto the soft brown couch and holds me, letting me cry into his neck. He strokes my hair and murmurs things I can’t quite hear over the raw, seal-like barking of my sobs. He shifts so I’m closer, kisses the top of my head, and, crap, I give in.

I can’t hide from myself anymore. I love Trevor. Always have, always will. I never stopped, and right now, I love him more than ever. For twelve years, I’ve been trying to make him just one of the guys.

He’s not.

I love him. And like Mom’s love for Dad, that love might be worn down by time and dejection. Someday I might look at Trevor, my Trevor, the way my mom now sees my father…the man who used up her heart.

“Trevor, I—” My voice breaks off. I pull back to look at him.

He knows. I can see it in his eyes, he feels how much I love him still, and maybe he’s always known. He cups my face in one hand, his thumb sliding away my tears, stroking my cheek.

I kiss him.

It’s a kiss filled with longing and heartbreak and sorrow and hurt…and love, of course, because it’s burned in my soul, somehow, that I was meant to love Trevor, that no matter what he feels toward me, I love him with my whole heart and every molecule and muscle and fiber of me, every ounce of blood. And I don’t want that to be worn away.

For a second, he doesn’t move, doesn’t respond, and the echo of rejection starts to sound in my heart once again.

And then he kisses me back, hard and soft at the same time, his mouth desperate and hungry on mine. Oh, thank God, I think. Thank God.

His hands are on my skin, under my shirt, burning hot. I slide my hands through his thick, still-damp hair, opening my lips underneath his, and wrap my legs around him. My foot connects with the coffee table, which falls over with a thunk, but we don’t stop. There’s nothing that matters but us. The two of us, coming together again, at last. It’s been so long, but it’s like we were never apart. He feels so warm and smooth and hot and so, so good. So perfect. Absolutely right.

I yank his shirt open, tearing off a few buttons, but who cares? I’ve loved him for so long.

We’re not gentle, and we’re not graceful. We’re a force of nature as we pull off clothes and kick off shoes. Something else breaks, but it’s just background noise. The couch cushion slides and we roll onto the floor and don’t even come up for air. I can barely hear, my heart is pounding so hard. My skin is burning, and when I feel Trevor against me, his skin just as hot as mine, I suck in a ragged breath. “Chastity,” he says, his voice tight and rough.

“Please. Please, Trevor.” Please don’t stop. Please don’t send me away. Please love me again.

He says nothing more, his eyes dark and molten, and when we come together, I know that this is how it’s meant to be. That’s all. It’s just the way things should be. He’s my home, and I belong exactly where I am. Then my brain stops formulating thought, and only feeling is left. I love him so much my heart practically cracks in two.

It takes some time for my breathing to return to normal, for my vision to clear. Trevor is still, his heart thudding against mine, his face against my neck. His own breath is ragged, his arms still tight around me.

The couch cushions are in disarray, one of them lying partly on us, the others askew. The coffee table is on its side, and I can see a few broken shards of glass. I’m going to have a bruise on my hip, and I’m fairly sure I’ve left some gouge marks on Trevor’s back.

I want to stay in that moment of rightness, but reality is knocking. A prickle of guilt pierces the fog of perfection, but I can’t bear to let it in completely.

“Trev?” I breathe.

“Yeah.” He lifts his head and looks at me, his face serious, cheeks flushed. Then he takes a deep breath and gets up. “Do you need a drink?” he asks, pulling on his jeans. Without waiting for an answer, he goes into the kitchen.

It’s not a good sign. I put my hand to my lips, which still feel swollen and hot. I lay there for another minute, then scramble up, reaching for my shirt, my underwear, my shorts. My socks are still on. I dress hastily, glancing into the kitchen where Trevor stands in front of the sink, his hands braced on either side, the water running. The muscles in his broad shoulders are bunched and tense, and his head is hanging. He doesn’t fill a glass, doesn’t turn off the water. He just stands there, motionless, and I can feel the regret pouring off him in waves.

Say something, Trevor, I plead silently. Make this be okay. I want him to come to me, wrap me in his arms, tell me that this wasn’t a mistake. He does nothing, just stands there watching the water run.

Though I want to go to him, reassure him, touch him, I don’t dare. Not when he can’t even look at me.

Then I’m distracted by a sudden buzzing at my feet. I look down. Trevor’s cell phone, which apparently fell during our acrobatics, is vibrating on the rug. I glance again at Trevor’s tense shoulders, then reach down and look at the screen.

Incoming call from Hayden.

I drop it back on the carpet and kick it under the couch. Trevor will have to find it later, won’t he? He’ll have to search all over and wonder, What the heck did I do with my phone? Where could it be?

He’s still staring at the water.

I have two choices here. Leave with dignity or give it all I have. And you know what? Screw dignity.

“Hey, Trev?” I say gently. “Maybe you could come in here?”

He turns his head and nods once. Then he reaches for two glasses and fills them, finally deigning to return to the living room. He sets the glasses on the table, picks up the pieces of the glass that broke, then reaches for his shirt. He can’t button it, though, since I’d ripped the thing off. Then he straightens the couch cushions and sits down.

“Chastity,” he begins, finally meeting my eyes. My stomach plummets at what I see there.

“If this is the ‘we shouldn’t have done this’ speech, can I just say something first?” I ask. My voice is rough, even a little scared.

“You’re seeing someone,” he says quietly.

I look down. Of course he’s right. I, who practically beat my brother Mark to a pulp when he cheated on Elaina, have just cheated on my own boyfriend. Shame burns my face. I sit in the chair adjacent to Trevor and swallow. “I know,” I whisper.

“And so am I,” he says.

Crap. I take a deep breath. “Trevor, you must know that I’ve always lov—”

“Don’t, Chas,” Trevor says, staring at his knees.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say it, and don’t break up with Ryan.”

I don’t think there’s anything else he could say that would hurt worse than that. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. He looks up at me.

“I don’t want to be the reason things don’t work.” His eyes are intensely dark now, dead serious. “He’s a good guy, Chas. He can give you a lot that I never could. And he loves you.” He reaches over and takes my limp hand.

I’m not stupid. He loves you…and I don’t. No translation needed. My head hurts. My heart hurts, too. It actually hurts like there’s a bleeping ice pick stuck through it. I yank my hand back so hard that my elbow hits the arm of the chair with a thud. “So, okay, Trev,” I say, trying not to cry. “So we’re just going to, what, sleep together every decade or so, and I’ll be all messed up for another ten years and you’ll pretend to be my big brother?” My voice grows louder. “Huh? Is that how it’s going to go?”

“No, Chastity,” he says. “This won’t happen again. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. It shouldn’t have happened at all. You know it as well as I do.”

I lurch out of my chair. “It seems that I don’t know anything, Trevor, or else I wouldn’t have just shagged you senseless, now would I?”

“Chastity—” He stands, as well, holding his hands up to placate me, and I feel the strong urge to sock him a good one. “Chas, you—” He lets his hands drop and shakes his head.

“No, go ahead, Trevor. Say it.” I point a shaking finger at him. “If we were together and didn’t work, you’d be out your precious surrogate family. You’re afraid of losing them. At least admit that, Trevor. My family means more to you than I do.”

Trevor’s face changes. He takes a step closer to me. For the first time in my life, I see that he’s angry. Furious, maybe. “Wrong,” he growls in a voice I’ve never heard. “Very, very wrong, Chastity. If we were together and didn’t work, I’d be out you. You’re the one I can’t lose.”

My mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “What?”

“You’re the one who said we had too much to lose, remember?”

“But things are different now, Trevor. You can’t—”

His voice is sharp and hard and wrong. “You were right, that’s the thing. We’ll never disappoint each other this way, Chastity. We’ll never break up. Never get divorced.” He takes a step back, the anger draining out of him. “You can do better than me, Chas.”

“There is no better than you.” I say it with my whole heart, but he just shakes his head.

“You know how it would be. Firefighters make next to nothing. I’d be working two jobs, taking all the overtime I could get, and you’d start hating me after a while. Like your mom and dad.”

My eyes flood with tears. Again. He has a point.

“If we stay apart, we won’t end up like that,” he says, his voice gentle now. “I lost Michelle, I lost my parents, I don’t want to lose you, Chastity. I can’t.”

“Trevor,” I whisper. “I could never hate you. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

And that’s when the bleeping phone rings. Not the cell phone under the couch, but his land line. We stare at each other as it rings once, twice, three times. I can feel the blood being forced through my heart, the pulse thudding in my throat. Trevor’s machine clicks on.

“Hi, babe, it’s me. Just wanted to make sure we were still on for tomorrow. Call me. Love you.”

Trevor closes his eyes, and his shoulders sag. I have my answer.

“You know what, Trev?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper. “I’m gonna go now.”

“That’s not what you think,” he says.

Oh, for Christ’s sake. Of all the stupid things to say! Suddenly, my temper comes crashing through, and I’m buzzing with fury. “Really, Trev? Because what I think is that Perfect Hayden wants you back. And all that ‘don’t want to lose you’ is utter bullshit. But just in case it’s true, guess what? You did lose me. Just now.”

“Don’t say that, Chastity,” he warns.

“Bite me, Trevor,” I snarl. “I’m not your sister, I’m not your best buddy, I’m not your girlfriend. You’re right. Someone out there loves me, wants me, thinks I’m great. So get the fuck out of my way and let me go to him.”

He does just that.

I WALK ALONG THE FEEDER CANAL. Correction. I stomp along the feeder canal, furious. I’m so angry I’m practically levitating. Wish I had a punching bag I could lay into right about now. God! Did I learn nothing twelve years ago? Did I not remember how relieved Trevor was to break up with me? Fool me once, Elaina likes to say, shame on you. Fool me twice, I’m a bleeping idiot.

I sit down on the edge of the bank, the dew seeping into my jeans. My hands are shaking, and my cheeks are wet with angry tears. The tree branches rustle with a passing breeze, and a police siren sounds on the other side of town. I sniff, then fish a frayed tissue out of my pocket and blow my nose.

At least I know. I put it all on the line, all my love and wanting. At least I said what I’ve wanted to say forever. I told Trevor I loved him. There’s no “what if” anymore.

Things he said filter back into my consciousness. That he couldn’t lose me. Twelve years ago, when I was eighteen, I’d said that to him. There’s too much to lose. And I do understand what he means…that if we’re only friends, we can stay friends forever.

But we’re not only friends. I love him, and I offered him that love, and it wasn’t enough to overcome that fear of his. The fear of being alone. Of losing another person in his life. Keeping things safe is what Trevor prizes most.

It’s just that I thought maybe I was worth a little risk.

My breath is still hitching out of me in shocked little sobs. I can still feel Trevor’s skin against mine, still taste him, but to him, it’s a mistake. That hanging out at my house once in a while, watching the Yanks and shooting pool, means more than what just happened. That I’m more precious to him if I just stay one of the guys.

And then there’s bleeping Perfect Hayden. He once loved Hayden enough to ask her to marry him. He loves her enough now to be, at the very least, considering that again. Hayden is worth two tries. I’m worth none.

My cell phone rings, startling me. Maybe it’s Trevor. Maybe he’s sorry. Maybe…

Nope. “Hi, Ryan,” I say.

“Hello, sweetheart.” He pauses. “Are you crying?”

Fresh tears spurt out of my eyes. “A little,” I admit, guilt and shame washing over me.

“Is it your mom?” I don’t deserve the concern in his voice.

“I—yeah.”

“Want me to come over? I’m done at the hospital.”

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and look at the stars. “No, thanks, Ryan. I just need to be alone, I think.”

“I understand,” he says. “But I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Ryan?”

“Yes?”

“I’m really looking forward to going away this weekend,” I say truthfully.

“Me, too.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Good night.”

“Good night. I love you, Ryan.” I wince as I say it. Even though it’s not untrue, those words mean something very different from when I said them to Trevor a half hour ago.