closet and kissing for the first time. And then the first explorations into what would’ve been
more, if all hell hadn’t broken loose, if Stef hadn’t been taken. If Lee hadn’t been left
unconscious and useless.
Those memories had torn him apart for years, but now they were just memories, nothing
more.
He’d been such a fool all these years, holding on to the past like that. He should never have
hidden the truth from his friends either. Especially not Nick. But the past was in the past, where
it belonged. Stefan was alive. And he’d found, loved, and lost Gev.
It slammed into him then, the cold, devastating awareness that he’d fallen in love with
Gev.
With a deep sigh, he picked up the papers that Gev had told him to take. His surprise was
genuine when he realized it was a copy of a journal. Stefan’s journal?
He started to flip through it, confused as to where it had come from. The first pages were
what any kid might write in a journal. It was kind of funny that Stefan had had one, but Lee
really wanted to know where it had been all this time. He continued to read, his stomach knotting
as he read about himself, realizing Gev had seen all this. Stefan hadn’t held back in describing
their times together. Nina, he assumed, must’ve read this too.
Where had they found it?
Lee looked out the windshield. How had things gotten so fucked up? He reached for his
cell and called Ramirez. He got her voice mail. “It’s Lee. I have a question to ask. Did anyone
ever show you—” He’d kept flipping through the journal as he talked, but everything suddenly
grayed around him as his eyes zeroed in on a name. Mr. K. He dropped the phone, everything
else forgotten as he read more. And as he read, his memories, so long cloaked where that time
had become a total blank in his mind, suddenly ripped apart.
“Oh, my God.” Mr. K.
Karsonov
, their math teacher. He’d been the one to take Stefan.
Lee picked up his phone and ended the call to Ramirez. He’d already failed Gev once; he
wasn’t about to do it again. He would tell Gev first and then tell Ramirez. He punched in Gev’s
number, begging him to pick it up. If he didn’t, Lee would kick that front door down.
“Come on, Gev. Dammit,
answer me
.”
Gev flushed the toilet, wiping his mouth with his arm. Still hunched over, he turned to the
sink, splashed his face, then halfheartedly brushed his teeth. The sour taste was gone, but his
stomach still clenched and roiled, his eyes were red, and his face hurt like hell again. He pulled a
towel off the rack and turned to brace himself against the sink, the towel to his face. For a
second, he wondered if he could smother himself, but he wasn’t the kind. He dropped the towel
and stared at the shower—the shower where he and Lee had finally pushed aside everything and
come together.
He’d been such a fool to believe that Lee had meant it. He had been playing Gev for a fool
from the moment he’d insisted on not leaving Gev alone. He hadn’t wanted to leave town,
because he knew Stefan was there.
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Carolyn Gray
Gev’s throat clenched painfully. His chest hurt so damn bad. He wanted to curl up in a ball
on the bathroom floor. He sank down on the bath mat, his back braced by the sink cabinet, an
agonized sob escaping despite himself. He gritted his teeth, grasping for the anger he needed to
hate Lee, but no matter how hard he tried to find that spark, he couldn’t keep hold of it long
enough for it to burst into flames.
Lee’s face, his agonized expression, kept searing itself into Gev’s mind. He pulled his legs
up and wrapped his arms around them, closing his eyes, forehead to knees. This was the worst
week of his life. He should never have sent for Lee to come back to the theater dressing room.
Then none of this would have happened.
He would never have given himself to Lee like that, damn his stupid subby ways. Lee was
everything he’d ever longed for in a sex partner, but now it was all crap. It’d been so awesome,
so damn hot. He’d felt no shame, then. But now? Humiliated, that’s what he was. He tried to
hold on to that, but like the anger, it flitted away, the persistent truth taunting him.
Being with Lee had been real. The look in Lee’s eyes—that had been real.
Misery tore at him; his stomach refused to unknot. He reached for some toilet paper and
blew his nose. He was sniveling like a stupid little kid whose favorite toy had been taken away.
And given to your older brother.
And Stef… Stef was
alive
. Gev was elated, yet he couldn’t help wishing Stef had never
come back. Gev knew the second his parents found out—especially his mother—life would
never be the same. He’d lost everything—his home, his best friend, the one man he’d always
wanted, and now his mother wouldn’t care about anyone but Stef.
He heard the doorbell ring; someone was leaning on it. Drew had given Lee her key, so
maybe it was her. He pushed himself to his feet and looked outside, but a tree and the angle
blocked the street from his view.
He pulled off his shirt—he’d gotten sick on it, brilliant—and went downstairs. When he
was halfway down, whoever was out there started to bang on the door. Gev jerked back, fear
stabbing through him.
He ran back upstairs, cursing his foolishness. He should never have sent Lee away. Then
he realized something that chilled him as nothing else could—the back door was still unlocked.
If the murderer went around back, Gev was toast. Khyra had gotten up from her pillow, a low
growl deep in her throat.
The banging started again. “Gev, open up, dammit.”
Gev stumbled down a couple of the steps, relief ripping through him. He’d almost run to
the door when he realized it was Lee banging on the door, but he pulled up short.
“I know you’re in there. Shit. Let me in. Please.” Lee pounded on the door a couple more
times. “The journal, Gev. I read it. I know what happened. Can’t you hear me?
I know what
happened.
”
Gev licked his lips, then reached for the front door, his hand trembling as he unlocked it.
Silence on the other side. Gev stood back, ready to bolt if Lee suddenly turned into the killer.
Which was ridiculous. But he watched, shaking and clutching the banister, as the doorknob
turned. Then the door pushed open, and Lee stepped inside, the booklet clutched in his hand.
Khyra ran up to him. He petted her absently as his head swiveled toward Gev, cowering like an
idiot on the stairs. He forced himself to let go of the railing and not to shiver as Lee frowned
when his gaze raked over Gev’s bare chest.
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173
“What do you remember?” he forced out, hoping to hell Lee didn’t realize he’d spent the
last twenty minutes throwing up his coffee.
Lee didn’t move from where he stood. When he spoke, his voice was soft, urgent,
pleading. Melting Gev’s hardened resolve. Destroying his accusations. “Mr. K. He was our math
teacher. Mr. Karsonov. Gev, he’s who took Stefan.”
Gev’s throat still clenched, making it hard to force the words out. “Why do you think it
was him?”
Lee looked up at him. “Please, come down the stairs. I won’t—I won’t do anything.”
Gev hesitated, then nodded. He went down the last few steps. “What do you remember?”
Lee looked wild-eyed, tormented. Gev’s heart clutched, the traitor. But his whole body was
betraying him, and he trembled with the effort to keep his distance while his heart and hurt
battled it out. “We were in the park. Stef was with his dog. I was going to my music lesson on
my bike.”
“You’d remembered that much already,” Gev said.
“Yeah, but then, reading that journal, I remembered the man’s face. I saw his
face
, and it
was Karsonov.” Agony rippled over Lee’s features. “Stef went with him willingly. I remember
shouting at him, pleading with him not to go, but Karsonov told him to get into the van. Stef
looked at me, said something like he wrote in his journal—that he couldn’t stay there anymore,
that everyone had lied to him.”
“
She
had lied to him,” Gev said.
“Who did he mean?”
“My mom, I think. I don’t know.” But he did know or at least suspect. “What else do you
remember?”
Stef had gone willingly.
“All these years, I knew there was no way I wouldn’t have seen who took Stef. I was
right
there
, looked straight into his eyes. Stef got into the van, and then Karsonov attacked me.”
Gev startled. He was a foot from Lee still, aching to hurl himself at Lee and tell him he
was sorry, but that stopped him. “What do you mean, attacked you?”
Lee looked at him funny. “He nearly killed me. I thought you knew that. I was in the
hospital for…a while afterward.”
“No, I didn’t know. I mean, I knew you’d been knocked out, but I didn’t know it was that
bad. Mom never said anything about you.” Horror and anger joined the hurt and heartache. So
much had been kept from him. “Is that why you weren’t at the funeral?”
“I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to go anyway. Your mom would’ve kept me
away.”
“Karsonov,” Gev said. “Russian.”
“Yeah? Is that important? I remember he had a pretty heavy accent.”
Gev sat down on the bottom step, rubbing his forehead. His head hurt. “I don’t know if it
means anything that Mom’s Russian, and he is, and she never showed the journal to the police.”
“What?”
Gev jerked his head up. “Yeah. I was going to show you that, and then I wanted to show it
to Detective Ramirez.”
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Carolyn Gray
Lee leaned back against the door, his expression hardening. He looked up at the ceiling.
Gev couldn’t take his eyes off him, the stabbing pain back now, the ache sharp and needling. Lee
was working through something; he could see that. He waited, watching Lee, aching as the so
fresh memories of Lee kissing him, making him come out in the garden, in the bathroom,
upstairs in the bedroom, assaulted the barrier he’d thrown up between them.
Finally, Lee spoke, but it wasn’t what Gev had expected him to say. He pushed away from
the door. “You need to take this to Ramirez. If you can’t get her, call Detective Harrison.” Lee
started to open the door.
“Wait, where are you going?”
Lee hesitated, his gaze softening, sad. “I’ve got to find Stefan. I let him go in the alley, and
that was a mistake. He’s the one person who can put an end to all this.”
Devastation raced through Gev. Lee was going to find Stefan. “Okay.” There wasn’t much
else he could say.
Lee looked at him once more, his eyes dark, glittering, expressionless. And then he was
gone.
For a long moment, Gev couldn’t move. He went back upstairs, almost on autopilot. He
would call Detective Ramirez, but not until after he’d confronted his mother. He had to do that
first, had to know the truth from her.
And then he would tell her about Stefan.
Long Way Home
175
Chapter Twenty
The problem was, Lee realized as he drove around the neighborhood, he had no idea how
to find Stefan now that he’d scared him off. In the end, he decided there was nothing he could do
but sit and wait to see if Stef showed up again. So after getting a cheeseburger and a coke—
which he found he could hardly touch, he was so heartsick—Lee parked the truck down the
street from Drew and Trish’s and waited. He was grateful for the dark windows.
He didn’t think Stefan had realized he was driving the truck. He wasn’t exactly the truck
type, though Stefan couldn’t know that. Stef likely didn’t know anything about him, and Lee
realized the Stefan he’d thought he’d known was in complete contradiction to the person he was.
Lee had been Stef’s best, closest friend. More than that. He’d told Stefan everything, and
he’d thought Stefan had done the same. Lee tried to think of a single time Stef had acted odd
about Karsonov, ever said anything about him, but he couldn’t think of anything. Whatever Stef
had learned, whatever reason he’d found to leave his home and family—and Lee—to go with
Karsonov so willingly—angrily, even, like he was pissed that Lee had shown up that day—he
couldn’t imagine.
That, Lee realized, hurt most of all.
A car drove past him, drawing his focus. It was Drew’s. She drove around the back of her
house, and he relaxed. At least Gev wasn’t alone in there now. He opened his cheeseburger and
stared at the oozing secret sauce, shaking his head. He ate too much junk food. He took a bite,
then stopped chewing as he realized Drew’s car was leaving again. He swallowed and set the
burger down.
He wasn’t sure why, but there was no doubt in his mind it was Gev driving Drew’s car.
“Dammit, Gev,” he murmured as he started the engine. Then, trying to be inconspicuous—which