“You were supposed to share.”

He pops another one into his mouth and chews thoughtfully, then sits back on his heels between my legs. He’s fully hard now, the head pushing against the elastic waist of his boxers. He digs through the bag and produces another orange one, eyes lit up with mischief.

“Want it?”

“Not if you expect me to share it, no.”

“What if I hide it?”

“Your mouth is not a hiding spot,” I shoot back.

He grins and pushes down the waistband of his boxers so the head of his erection peeks out. He places the candy on the tip.

“You know, if you want a blow job, you can just ask for one.”

“I’m not asking for a blow job. Just a kiss for a candy.”

Minutes later I’m naked and under Lance on the couch again.

Afterward I lie on his chest again, half asleep, and his phone starts buzzing on the table. The arm around me tightens as we look at the glowing screen. DO NOT FUCKING REPLY has messaged him once while he’s been with me since our dinner date. And just like at dinner, he shuts off his phone.

Mum comes up this time, but that doesn’t ease his tension at all.

“Do you want to get that?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to talk to her. We don’t get along that well.”

“Oh.” He said his mother wasn’t a good person before, but I never pushed. I’ve always gotten along well with my parents, even during my teen years when hormones made rational thought difficult. I think no matter how much attitude I copped, it didn’t come close to what my sister dished out, so I was still the angel.

Lance watches the phone until it stops ringing.

“Can I ask why you don’t get along?” Conversations about his family have been relatively limited, and his reaction to that phone call makes me question even more all the things he hides.

Lance regards me for a long while before he finally replies. “She has a mean streak.”

I cock my head to the side. “What kind of mean streak?”

He fingers a lock of my hair. “Before we moved to the States, she and my dad used to get into it a lot. Well—” Derision darkens his features. “My mum used to get into it with my dad. She’d get all pissed off and go at him, just fucking lose her shit. He used to laugh. I mean, she was a little thing. Not much taller than you, but she would just blow her lid. He never hit her back, though. Not once. Not that I saw, anyway.”

My stomach dips, thinking about how that would look to the child version of the man in front of me.

“But she wasn’t always like that. She had pills she’d take sometimes, and then she was a lot better, not so angry all the time—nicer but just kind of vacant. It was hard. I don’t know why my dad put up with it, or let her go off the meds or whatever, but he did. She had a lot of issues. Bad childhood and all that shit. Anyway, eventually she turned that mean streak on me.”

I put my fingers to my mouth. “She hit you?”

His eyes are sad. “It wasn’t like she could really hurt me, you know? Not after I got a little older. The words are the things that stick, though.”

When I put my hand on his chest, he picks it up and plays with my fingers.

“I had a younger brother. His name was Quinn.”

I frown at the past tense.

“He was eight when he died.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head, eyes still on my fingers. “I think it broke her mind. She kind of snapped and was never the same. That’s when she really started to go at me, after Quinn died.”

I want to ask what happened, but I don’t dare interrupt him.

“We came to the States to get away from the memories for her. Or at least that’s what my dad made it seem like we were doing. I think he’d had enough. He left us here, but she didn’t want to go back to the UK. My playing hockey was a good enough reason for her to stay in Chicago.”

He’s silent for a while, maybe lost in a memory.

“I thought it might stop when we moved in with my aunt, and it did for a little while, but she’d get so pissed when I fucked up at practice. After a while it was expected. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, something would set her off.”

My heart aches for him. “Did you tell anyone?”

“What was I gonna say? My mum beats the shit out of me? It was my fault—” He chokes on the words.

“What was your fault?”

He shakes his head taps his temple. “She messed with my head all the time, my mum did. That night I met you for the first time, I wasn’t supposed to be at that party. I’d snuck out of the house through my bedroom window, like teenagers do. Or like I did, anyway. There was some big tryout the next morning for the top league in the city—on my birthday, right? My mum kept telling me she knew I was going to fail, and then we’d have to go back to Scotland. She said I better not dare do that to her.

“I figured what was the point? I was going to screw it up anyway, like I did everything else, so I went out, got drunk, and ended up in that closet with you.” He smiles a little and brushes my fingertips over his lips.

“When I got home, my mum was waiting for me in the garage. She was so pissed. And she was wasted, or high—or both maybe. Like, so fucked up. That was the night my aunt found out what was going on. She walked into the garage right when my mom was in the middle of her smackdown. She had boxing gloves on so she didn’t mess up her nails. Usually she’d keep to areas that weren’t visible, but not that night.”