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rubbed his face hard. Too hard, over his closed eyes. White flashes and spangles of color crackled across the insides of his eyelids. He shrugged harder, trying to soothe the itch. “Guess all those jokes about Ivan being a little unbalanced were more right than we’d figured. Damn this thing, I—”
    Barrett stopped Nick from scratching his nape. “Quit that,” he said. Cool fingertips brushed the raw skin, the relief enough to make Nick’s shoulders sag. “You’ll hurt yourself if you’re not careful.”
    He left his hand there. Nick pressed his lips together, at a loss—what could he say, and how could he say it?—but not willing to move, or to let go. Or to think about what this meant beyond the impossibility of it all.
    He could have stayed there for hours if the doorbell hadn’t pealed as loud as a gong in his ears.
     
    Daniel. I’d forgotten. Damn!
    “Stay there.” Barrett put a hand on Nick’s shoulder to underline the point and stop him moving. He wasn’t nervous by nature, but he flinched as if he’d been shot. Barrett sympathized with his jumpiness. He couldn’t wrap his head around any of this and it wasn’t even happening to him.
    A minor note of panic sounded as an echo to that thought. He had no rising soulmark. His skin was as bare and smooth as ever, while Nick’s…
    Stop. Barrett pushed the pulse of alarm aside before he could take a close enough look to read the fine print between its lines. Deal with it later.
    If Nick had heard his order, Barrett couldn’t tell. He’d clapped a hand to the back of his neck when the bell rang. Barrett couldn’t tell if he knew what he’d done, either. “Hell,” he said. “That’ll be Daniel. We forgot about him, didn’t we?”
    Rhetorical questions didn’t need answering, but no matter how jangled his nerves, Barrett didn’t have it in him to be the kind of bastard who wouldn’t give a reply. “We did. He won’t mind waiting.” Barrett pursed his lips. “He wouldn’t mind coming back, either, if you…”
    “What?” Nick scratched lightly at the developing soulmark, made a sour face, and held his hands out in front of him.
    Barrett could almost see him thinking—could watch the illumination and dread chasing themselves around and around in half-drunken circles.
    “No,” Nick said at last, touching his mouth. “No. Better not. Wouldn’t be fair to him.”
    “And we’d have to explain why. Or lie,” Barrett said.
    Nick didn’t back down. “Or that. I don’t know how convincing I could be. Do you?”
    “Not very at all.” Barrett pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah, hell.” Logic dictated he make their excuses and send Daniel packing. The more illogical side of him, the one that couldn’t bear this steel-wool tension a second longer, snatched at a reprieve. “Are you sure?”
    “Sure enough. Just…get dressed first?”
    Barrett rolled his eyes. “No, I’m planning on opening the door stark naked. Idiot.” He tweaked a lock of Nick’s hair, the way he always did when he had a point to make. The way he always had done. The smallest little gesture of affection. Should have been the most natural thing in the world.
    It really, really wasn’t. He could tell Nick didn’t think so, either.
    Call him a coward, call him a weakling—Barrett couldn’t face the wary unease in Nick’s face another second longer. He turned his back, calling over his shoulder, “Put some clean clothes on yourself, too, would you? I’ll stall him.”
    “Barrett.” Nick touched the back of Barrett’s neck.
    Barrett stopped, nearly between steps, and only managed not to fall thanks to catching the doorframe with his shoulder. He licked his lips. “Yeah?”
    The tickling sensation of Nick riffling through the short-cut tips of his hair at the nape of his neck drew goosebumps to Barrett’s skin. So gentle. No, not gentle. Cautious. Uncertain. “You don’t have one,” he said.
    “No,” Barrett said, not looking back. “I