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it.”
     
    “A little? A lot. For good reason.”
     
    Dylan nodded, looking down at his mug, his attention wandering elsewhere. They were silent for a moment, and Holden felt that something was going desperately wrong here. Dylan was depressed and probably sleep deprived, but he wasn’t the type to open up to him. He knew that Dylan really didn’t like him that much, and yet he seemed to be confiding in him. Was he that lonely? Was he feeling that lost?
     
    Dylan sagged back on the sofa and stared at him almost boldly, his dark brown eyes set like stone. “You love him too. What would you do if you were me?”
     
    Holden stared back at him, but he was so flabbergasted by what Dylan had said it took him a moment to speak. “Uh, what? I don’t love Roan. I like the guy, but—”
     
    “Oh please, I’ve had enough self-deception from Ro. Please don’t you do it too.”
     
    “Dylan, I don’t. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me. He’s all yours.”
     
    He scoffed faintly. “You’re a gay man. I don’t have to explain the difference between love and desire to you. You can want a person without loving them, but the opposite also holds true. Look, I know you’re not a threat to our relationship, so I’m not gonna go crazy-ass jealous on you. I just want to know why you haven’t given up on him yet.”
     
    Holden wasn’t sure if he should be angry, offended, or amused. All three? (And actually, he wouldn’t mind doing Roan. Yeah, it’d be pretty weird considering their relationship now, but he’d always left the invitation of doing him for free open. Well, he was a good-looking guy, there was no getting around that, and Holden was always impressed by his humor, which could be incredibly sexy on a guy. And it was probably the lion pheromones or something, but he did have a mysterious kind of magnetism. You kind of wanted to follow him, let him take the lead.) “Why not get crazy-ass jealous? I mean, that’s the least a guy could want.”
     
    “Because Roan isn’t like that. He’s a nester. He grew up without a home, and now all he wants is a nice, stable home.”
     
    “Let me guess—you minored in psychology.”
     
    “I was trying to understand my dad,” he replied, a roundabout way of saying yes. “It didn’t work. And I’m not trying to offend you, although why you’d be offended by me saying you loved someone is a bit puzzling.”
     
    “I’m offended because you couldn’t be more wrong. He’s a friend, that’s all. I’m not capable of much more.”
     
    “Bullshit.” Dylan said without rancor. His voice was as weary as his posture, as the expression on his face. “You’d kill for him. I saw that when we were trying to solve the Newberry case without him. Even Dee saw it, and he gave me the oddest look. He asked me later if I was worried about that, and I said no, because I’m not. In a strange way, I wish I was.”
     
    Holden felt something cold settle in his gut, a twinge and a twist. This had all suddenly gone somewhere he didn’t want it to go, and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure why. It almost felt like the walls were starting to close in. “I’m not explaining myself to you. I like the guy a lot, but that’s the end of it. Full stop. And if you want my opinion, you either get used to him or pack your bags now. Is he a moody son of a bitch? Hell yeah. Either he’ll snap out of this on his own or he’ll need a shock to snap him out of it, but he’s been a morose-leaning bastard since I’ve known him.” Holden stood up, feeling angry now. Maybe because he always hated being told how he felt about something. It seemed presumptuous, insulting, and arrogant to tell him how he felt. He’d hated it when his parents did it, and he had grown no fonder of it as an adult.
     
    Dylan looked up at him with something like surprise, eyebrows rising slightly. “Holden, I didn’t—”
     
    “Save it. I’m not the person you should be talking to anyways. You want