Jamie might have been right in saying that he wasn't going to be much fun that week.

The following day couldn't have been more different from the last. Jamie's mood was sour the entire way through; from the moment he got out of bed to the moment he got back in, there was a scowl on his face. Stevie showed the two of us around the city and he hardly said a word.

I was pretty sure he didn't smile once. Whenever we were in the apartment, he stayed holed up in the bedroom -- which meant I avoided the bedroom at all costs. The only reason I had any fun at all was because Stevie was there, but even then, Jamie's mood made the whole day feel overcast.

It was difficult, trying not to get annoyed. I struggled to remind myself that this would pass, and Jamie would come out all the better. That the snappiness was a product of his withdrawal. It would be so much easier to write it off as him just being an asshole.

By the time I had gone to bed that night, laying on my back with a few feet between myself and Jamie, I was relieved that the day had come to an end. I just had to hope that tomorrow, he would do something other than make me want to throw one of Stevie's stilettos at him.

I woke up just a few hours later to the noise of a door shutting. Blinking my eyes drowsily, I pushed myself up so I was sitting and looked around. It was hard to see in the dark with vision that hadn't really focused yet, but I eventually managed to make out Jamie's shape, sat at the edge of the bed with his back to me.

"Jamie?" I muttered, voice heavy with sleep. Jamie jumped slightly and turned around, and I noticed a cup of water in his hand. "Why are you up?"

He raised the cup. "I got thirsty," he said simply.

"Have you been awake this whole . . ." I was cut off by my own yawn, ". . . this whole time?"

Jamie shook his head. "I fell asleep. But then I woke up and . . . yeah."

I reached over to turn on the lamp beside my bed, illuminating the room in dim yellow light. "Is everything alright?" I asked.

"Yeah, I've just been a bit of an insomniac lately," he said with a shrug. "Being clean kinda sucks ass."

I offered a sympathetic smile. "For now, yeah," I said, scooting over so that I was next to him, my legs dangling over the side of the bed. "But you'll be better off in the long run."

He nodded solemnly. "I guess."

"You gonna try and go back to sleep?" I asked. Jamie pursed his lips.

"Maybe, eventually. Not right now, though."

A few seconds of silence. I didn't move from where I was. Eventually, Jamie turned to me and said, "You don't have to stay up with me."

To which I responded, "Do you want me to?"

He seemed taken aback by the question. He turned away, and it was hard to tell, but he might've been blushing a little. "You know I do," he said; his voice was hardly a whisper.

I felt myself smile. "Then I will."

Jamie took me by surprise when he groaned and hung his head, burying his face in his hands.

"What's wrong?" I asked, the worry back in my voice and my expression now.

He raised his head and looked at me. His multicolored eyes were incredulous, as if he couldn't believe that I didn't know.

"I'm sorry," he said, followed by a deep, aggravated exhale. "God, I'm so sorry."

I didn't understand; I shook my head and said, "For what?"

Jamie opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, opened and closed. Insecurity. His gaze turned to the wall in front of him, and he chewed on his bottom lip anxiously. Then, shutting his eyes, he said, "You're so . . . good."

I started to say something, but he didn't give me the chance.

"You're so fucking nice to me all the time," he said, frustration in every word. "You care about me when I haven't given you a single reason to, and -- and you constantly put up with my bullshit. I'm just so . . . angry, Liam. All the time, and I take it out on others because I'd go fucking insane if I held it in." Jamie opened his eyes again, and when he looked at me, his gaze was more intense than I'd ever seen it; I nearly turned away. He looked so upset -- so genuinely distressed by his own words. It was real, and it hurt to look at, and it hurt to hear.

"And you," Jamie sighed, his face set in a deep frown. He sounded resentful, not toward me but entirely toward himself. Nobody should ever sound that way in about himself. The hatred in his voice was scary, like he was speaking of his worst enemy.

"You've put up with it from the start. I've been fucking horrible to you, and you've just moved on and gotten over it like it was nothing when it was never nothing, and I've been taking advantage of that because I'm so sick that being mean feels fucking good. . ."

Jamie pushed his hands up into his air, gripped it like he wanted to rip it out, like the pain would make up for everything. He sounded anxious -- so anxious that I wanted him to stop talking and breathe, just breathe for a moment, but he kept going ruthlessly. "Actually fucking good, so I keep doing it as if it's okay! I've been abusing your kindness for so damn long now that even after -- even after things changed, I haven't even tried to be better, and I'm such an idiot for it, because any second now you're going to get tired of it and realize you're worth so much more than my bullshit, and then you'll be gone and I'll be alone again and --"

Jamie stopped himself there, pressing his lips into a hard line. I knew he already regretted speaking, and that he was waiting for me to say something to fill the air, but I was at a loss for words. He had just stripped himself completely bare; every word had been raw and miserable, and now, he seemed somehow smaller than I had ever seen him.

"And . . . I'm sorry," he said again when the silence was drowning.

I was having a hard time swallowing. Sorry. Jamie Alexander was really, genuinely sorry for how he'd been. His voice was rough, as if the word was unwelcome in his throat. Maybe unfamiliar. Or maybe painful.

I leaned back on my palms and stared up at the ceiling, blank white and unmoving, taunting me with its simplicity. "It --" I said finally, "-- It's oka--"

"Please don't say that," Jamie interrupted, sounding almost desperate. "Please don't say it's okay when it isn't."

Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I was too forgiving. "What do you want me to say, then?"

"Just," Jamie paused. "Don't say anything."

So I fell quiet. I let myself think, pondering over his apology. I forgave him -- of course I did -- but I didn't know what that meant. Would Jamie try to work on being in a better mood around me -- or, at least, pretending to be? And if so, was I supposed to be happy about that?

I guess I was. So many things would be better if he wasn't so ill-tempered all the time. But if holding all of that anger in would make him 'go fucking insane' . . .

I was pulled from my thoughts by a pressure against my shoulder, and looked down to see Jamie resting there, his hair skimming my neck. His eyes were shut, but I could see in the crease between his eyebrows that he was still upset.

So I raised a hand to the back of his neck, sliding my fingers up into his hair, and watched as his expression relaxed.

Jamie scooted closer, pressing his forehead into the curve of my shoulder. The simple gesture spread a quiet whisper through me, but I wasn't sure what it said.

"Liam?"

"Hm?"

"This is more than it was ever meant to be."

Yeah, it was. And after tonight, I could finally think that without getting sick to my stomach, because now I knew that I wasn't fooling myself.

"It is," I agreed. "But . . . that's not a bad thing."

I felt Jamie shake his head. "No . . . not bad. But scary."

Definitely scary. But not scary enough to run from.

We stayed up for a while longer, saying nothing, just sitting in each other's company. It was when Jamie let out a big yawn that I said, "How about you try to sleep again?"

". . . Okay."

So we settled down just as we had the night before, laying on different sides of the bed with a reasonable amount of space between us.

But after the conversations we'd just had, I got tired of the distance pretty fast. I didn't care that it was unclear where we stood. We were still something -- something more than sex -- and in that moment, I just wanted to fuck it and hold Jamie close and pretend nothing was as confusing as it was.

I turned onto my side so that I was facing him. He lay on his back with his eyes shut, but I could tell he was still awake.

"Come here," was all I said. And it was all I needed to say, because Jamie obliged without a word, rolling over and shifting closer and leaning his head onto my collar. I draped an arm over his torso, pressed my chin into his soft hair, closed my eyes. Soon enough, I fell asleep.

And when I woke up in the morning, Jamie was still right there next to me. At some point I'd turned onto my back, but he was still tucked up against me, his head on my chest, his arm draped over my abdomen, his eyes shut peacefully.

There were a lot of things I could've felt in that moment, seeing him there. Happiness, maybe, after our conversations last night. Comfort, knowing that Jamie and I might be, for once, on the same page. Or maybe even fear of what it all meant.

There was only confusion, though. I didn't know what it all meant.

Last night had only made things more complicated. A lot had been left on the table, and I didn't know how to pick it up. Had anything even really changed?

There was a knock on the door. I refrained from saying come in and waking Jamie; I knew that if Stevie was anything like she'd been for the fifteen years I'd lived with her, she would enter one way or another.

    Surprise surprise, I was right. A moment later, she opened the door, hugging Nemo the orange kitten to her chest, mouth wide and ready to say something. I quickly silenced her with a finger to my lips and then pointed to Jamie, and she exaggeratedly bit her tongue for me to see. Always the dramatic.

Then her eyes widened, and I wondered for a second if there was a spider or something on the wall behind me, but then I realized that her gaze was darting not behind me, but between Jamie and I. Should've known; if it was a spider, she would've passed out or ran off screaming by now.

"Oh my god, are you guys --"

"Shhhhh!" I glanced down at Jamie, but he was still fast asleep.

She made an unnecessary display of pointing at Jamie and me, gesturing erratically with one hand and holding a disgruntled looking Nemo with the other, aggressively mouthing words that I didn't bother trying to read. I rolled my eyes and she beckoned me jerkily, now pointing to the living room as if I would burst into flames if I didn't join her.

Sighing through my nose, I carefully untangled myself from Jamie, moving as little and as quietly as possible to replace myself with a pillow and stand up. I crept out of the room to Stevie, who was still beckoning like she expected me to fucking sprint to her or something.

     "What's your problem?" I grumbled the moment I'd shut the door softly behind me, way too tired for her ridiculous morning energy.

"What the fuck, Liam?" she whisper-yelled, staring at me accusingly like I'd commited some kind of crime against her whole family -- which also happened to be my family. Nemo seemed done with her excitement — he squirmed from her grasp and scampered off to her room.

"Like, what the fuck? What the pigs-flying fuck? What the dog-shit-on-my-bed, pimple-in-my-nostril, roommate-won't-let-me-decorate fuck? What the someone-else's-hair-is-in-my-brush, this-concealer-isn't-my-shade-and-there's-no-gift-receipt --"

"I get it," I said with a grimace, falling down onto the couch to put some distance between myself and her post-coffee hype. "'What the fuck.'"

"You didn't tell me that you guys are legit together now!" she exclaimed, and I cringed, hoping she wouldn't wake Jamie with her near-yelling. Then, just in case I still didn't get it, "What the fuck?"

"Oh my god, Stevie," I groaned, "We're not."

It was like one of those scenes in cheesy comedies, the ones where one character is super energetic for some reason or another, and someone or something shuts them down mid-hype. Then they freeze, and whatever background music was playing comes to a stop with a halting sound effect, and their face falls in slow motion. If that could all be put into one expression, that would be the one on Stevie's face right now.

"But -- but that was such a couple's cuddle," she protested, bottom lip pursed in a little pout. "There are hookup cuddles, then there are couple's cuddles you know? And that was a couple's cuddle."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was just a cuddle," I deadpanned.

Stevie sighed, coming to sit next to me on the couch and nudge my shoulder lightly with hers. "Why're you shutting off on me, bub?" she asked, and I hated that she could read me so well. The soft tone of her voice instantly brought me back to the younger brother who needed his sister's advice. I lay down across the couch so I could rest my head back in her lap, and she ran her small hand into the front of my hair soothingly, looking down at me with concern. "Are you okay?"

     Okay. Of course I was okay -- I was healthy, I was comfortable, I was with my sister. But I wasn't okay -- I was confused, and I hated being confused.

"Yeah, I'm alright," I said hollowly, fidgeting anxiously with my fingers. Stevie caught it -- she always did -- and put her hands over mine. "Just . . . I don't know."

"Tell me what happened."

At a squeeze of her hands, the words started coming out without much control on my part. I described last night to her in as much detail as I could manage without delving too far into Jamie's feelings -- I was still scared that telling her would just be damaging, and either way, it wasn't my place to share his personal thoughts — ones I was surprised he'd even shared with me.

"I don't know what to do."

Stevie and I made breakfast together in her little kitchen. Chocolate chip pancakes, my favorite since forever. Stevie suggested we wake Jamie so he could eat, but I  told her to let him sleep, because I knew he probably hadn't slept well the night before. And maybe because I didn't know what I would say to him.

Stevie and I were back on the couch, halfway through an episode of Queer Eye, when the door behind us opened. Stevie didn't even notice, too busy talking about Tan France's legs, but I turned my head. There was Jamie, looking exhausted and pale and sick, a faraway look in his eyes. He was fully dressed, coat and shoes and all.

"'Morning," I said, inwardly flinching at how uncertain I sounded. "Get any decent sleep?"

Jamie shrugged. He wasn't meeting my eyes. "On and off."

Stevie seemed to finally realize that I wasn't listening as she moved on to Tan's eyebrows; she turned around to look curiously at Jamie. "Hey," she greeted. "You hungry? There are pancakes on the counter --"

"I'm okay," he said quickly, eyes darting to the door. "I'm gonna go for a walk."

My surprise leaked into my expression, but I was sure he didn't notice, since he wouldn't even look at me. "Are you sure?" I asked; Jamie looked like he would collapse after ten minutes of walking. "We can come with you, if --"

Jamie finally looked me in the eyes, and it was enough to shut me up. It was a no. A silent, blunt but gentle no.

"I'll see you guys later," he said, gaze lingering on me for a moment longer before jumping elsewhere. "I'll be quick."

     Stevie gave a quiet 'Later,' and I didn't respond at all, merely watching his back approach the door, step through it, disappear behind it.

"Do you know what that was about?" Stevie asked. The dry laugh I gave must have sounded a bit too sad, because I felt her squeeze my hand again.

"Of course not," I said bitterly. "I never do."

I was itching to know where Jamie was walking to. He was by himself, in a city he didn't know. Did he have a destination in mind, or was he just walking aimlessly? And if he had no destination, would he end up lost, or in a dangerous place?

After an hour passed, my curiosity peaked. Two hours, and I was starting to get a little concerned, but I didn't comment — didn't want to seem obsessive. Stevie and I watched all of her favorite QE episodes, and I tried to focus when she went on rants like, oh my god, Karamo is just so pretty and I have so many feelings about him . . . and Bobby's just been through so much and he needs appreciation the poor boobee . . .

After four hours, even she was showing signs of worry. "Did Jamie say where he was going?"

Lunch passed. I texted Jamie. Then another hour passed, another text. Three hours and three texts later, I hadn't gotten a single response, and my worry was starting to make me feel sick. I called him, twice, but there was no answer.

By the time I was sat for dinner, I had no appetite left. Stevie didn't do much more than pick at her food, either. We'd already discussed all the places where he could've gone, tried calling from her phone. Nothing.

It was getting dark now. I called Jamie again and again, not caring if I was being annoying, because no one ever went on a ten fucking hour walk.

"Maybe we should call the police," Stevie suggested after my umpteenth call went unanswered. She was sat on the couch, pale-faced and forehead streaked with worry, biting her nails like she always did when she was nervous.

I was pacing behind her, but I paused at the mention of the police; just imagining that Jamie could be in a situation bad enough to need their help made me want to throw up. The scary thing was that it was realistic — Jamie was young and small and an easy fucking target if someone had bad enough intentions. And this was the city — scary shit happened here too often.

"I don't know," I grumbled. "I don't fucking know."

Part of me — a big, angry part of me — was sure that nothing had happened at all. That Jamie was just wandering around, doing absolutely fucking nothing, not giving a shit that, somewhere, I was panicking wondering where he was. He woke up feeling wrong about last night and decided to take off — who the hell cared if the people he left behind were worried sick?

"Goddammit Jamie," I breathed, rubbing anxiously at my neck.

Another half hour. I was seriously starting to consider calling authorities when my own phone buzzed in my hand, shocking me so much I nearly dropped it.

"Who is it?" Stevie piped immediately.

I didn't even have to check the caller to know that it was Jamie. I raised the phone to my ear, pressed the answer button, took a deep breath.

"Liam?"

"Jamie," I said, struggling to keep my calm, wishing I could reach through the phone and fucking strangle him. "Where have you been all day?"

"Nowhere — everywhere, I don't know," his voice was shaky. It was crazy how fast my anger started to dissolve -- how fast concern pushed its way to the front of my mind.

"Where are you now?" I asked him, trying to ignore Stevie's eyes on me, her silent demand to put the call on speaker. "Are you alright?"

"I — I'm okay," Jamie said, hardly sounding like Jamie at all; far too delicate. "But I . . . I don't know where I am, and I wanna come back but I'm — there are these guys circling the area, and I think if I get down they're gonna —"

"Down?" I hissed; Stevie widened her eyes at me, angrily gesturing for me to let her hear. "Down from what?"

"The top of a building," Jamie said, and I thought I was legitimately going to throw up until he quickly added, "It's not like that! I swear it isn't. I just . . . wanted to think."

"Jesus Christ," I breathed into my fist, finally pressing the speaker-phone button. "Jamie, what does the building look like? Can you see what street you're on?"

"It's an abandoned hotel; red brick, can't miss it. And, uh . . . St. Favre street."

Stevie's expression darkened. She shook her head at me, and her face told me enough; Jamie was in a bad, bad area.

"I'm gonna come get you, okay?" I said gently. "Stay up there, don't let those guys see you."

"Okay . . . yeah, okay," Jamie said. "Liam — I'm sorry."

I rubbed my temples, taking a deep breath through my nose. I didn't say it was okay, because in that moment, it was feeling pretty not okay — an entire day of stress would never be okay.

"Be there soon," I said grimly. "Call me if there's any trouble."

Then I ended the call, eyebrows creased as I shoved my phone into my pocket. Looking to Stevie, I said, "Let's go." But she only raised her eyebrows at me, and even though I knew exactly what she was thinking, I sighed as if I didn't and said, "What's the holdup? We need to go."

Stevie stood, walking around the couch so we were face to face. "Don't act like you don't know just as well as I do that you need to go on your own and figure your shit with Jamie out."

"But . . . you know how to get there," I protested feebly.

"And modern technology has provided us with the GPS," she said sternly, arms crossed over her chest. "No running, Liam. It's time you two started moving forward, not back."

"Well why do I always have to be the one to make that step?" I said, hearing unexpected agitation in my own voice. "Why can't it be him? Why am I always doing the chasing?"

Stevie pursed her lips empathetically. "Because it's a lot easier for you than it is for him."

There was something in the way she said it, a lilt of her voice that told me enough; that she'd seen through everything I'd told her about Jamie enough to see what I hadn't told her. Of course she had; Stevie was a smart girl. Smarter than me, for sure. And she probably understood Jamie a lot more than I did.

I nodded, because I trusted she was right, even if I didn't get it. "Don't wait up," I said, turning to leave.

"You know I'm going to," Stevie said. "Don't linger in that area too long, okay?"

I glanced over my shoulder to send her a tight, nervous smile. Then I continued to the door, grabbing my car keys from the kitchen counter as I passed, leaving in the same hoodie and sweatpants that I slept in, stopping only to slip on shoes.

The wind pierced through my clothes the moment I was out of the building. The ground beneath my feet was soggy and sinking with half-melted snow.

"Time to talk, James," I muttered to myself, face fixed into a determined frown as I set off.