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all of his social media accounts two years ago and he hadn’t shared this particular email address with anyone. It was the secret account he’d used only with Carson. He’d kept it on the off chance—the very unlikely, extremely off chance—his ex-boyfriend would try to contact him.
    He hadn’t heard from him in over two years. Brad had no idea how to get a hold of him, and God knew Carson wouldn’t want to get in touch. But Brad left the account open just in case.
    When his inbox had updated, he found the normal selection of spam offering him everything from penis augmentation to cheap medications from Canada. He deleted them as he scrolled down the page. Then he’d seen the name. Patricia Greene.
    How had his mother gotten this email address?
    Why would she email him?
    Heart pounding wildly, he’d clicked the message open and stared. It had taken a while for his brain to force the jumbled words into some kind of recognizable order.
    Words like
disrespectful
and
intolerable
jumped out at him. He was about to delete the message before finishing it when something else caught his attention.
Nolan’s appeal is being held in August.
We expect you to attend the hearing and present a united family front.
Your attendance is required.
If it weren’t for you and your deviant behavior
,
your brother wouldn’t be in this mess.
    The world around him paused, stilled as the last paragraph cycled through his brain.
    Appeal.
    Family support.
    Deviant behavior.
    And right there was the reason he’d hidden his homosexuality from the family. His mother had a deep, uncompromising hatred for gays. Deviant. Disgusting. Disgraceful. Brad figured it had something to do with her social ambitions, but even considering that, her views skewed further to the right than all but the most extreme of her conservative peers.
    He’d known how they felt, but he’d been an idiot. He figured he could still have a boyfriend. What they hadn’t known shouldn’t have hurt them, right? So he and Carson had sneaked around, kept everything on the down-low. They’d kept in touch with secret email accounts and disposable cell phones. It had been pretty exciting. And more than a little stressful. All their precautions hadn’t been enough, though. And because he’d wanted it all—his family’s ignorance and a relationship with Carson—Carson had nearly been killed.
    He slammed his laptop shut. He was breathing hard, sucking in oxygen through a constricted throat. The apartment was too small. He needed to get out.
    Without a real plan, he went to the armoire and snatched up his running clothes, then changed into them with a haste that made it difficult to get the shorts on without tangling them around his ankles.
    Digging into one of the pockets of his computer bag, he pulled out his iPod. One of the ear buds caught on the zipper of the pocket, pulling tight before it snapped up, whipping across his cheek. He didn’t even flinch. He turned on the power and dialed up the volume until it was loud enough to drown out his thoughts. Two seconds later he was out the door and running down the sidewalk, away from his memories.
    * * *
    Danny climbed the wooden steps to the garage apartment. It was Saturday and Brad didn’t know anyone. Besides, no one should have to spend Saturday night alone, at least not when there were better alternatives. It seemed like Brad had spent way too much time alone.
    He gave a quick knock on the door and waited. When there wasn’t an answer, he knocked again. The place was small, so unless the dude was parked on the toilet, it shouldn’t take him long to answer the door. When there was no response to his second knock, Danny leaned over the edge of the railing to make sure Brad’s truck was still sitting in front of the house. It was, so Brad hadn’t gone anywhere.
    Random images—everything from Brad slipping in the miniscule shower to a drug overdose or Brad choking on Mamá’s apple muffins—flashed through Danny’s