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PROLOGUE

Tristan,

You just called and I didn’t answer That’s onweak I’ what you tried for years to do with me--keep your distance Only our reasons are very different You pushedyou away because I do

The truth is, ht now I’m not sure what’s made me hit this doard spiral so quickly, but I have When I speak with you, it fucks with ain, my issue, not yours The proble up the phone when I need or want to speak with you-- it was for your benefit rather than mine--that I still need it I need that connection which fucks with my head even s I probably never will tell you even if I write theet this letter If I write et those, either I just need to talk to you That’s nothing new though, is it? I’ve always been the one who needed you, which in some ways is ironic

I’ve never needed anyone other than you

I thought, eventually, you would need me the same way

In reality, you never needed anyone until theain Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll get it throughweak for you That’s what you do to ht I got over that, being weak I eak ain

I don’t want to think about what that says about o to the club, find soain beco to do with his ti after Javier’s h so much, they said; kidnapped, beaten, forced to murder They didn’t know that wasn’t true He hadn’t killed but he wished he had Ben saw the man’s face almost every time he closed his eyes Smelled Javier’s rank breath as he told Ben what he would do to him--what he would do to Tristan, Josiah and Mateo

It hadn’t mattered what Javier threatened to do to Ben

It made him an asshole, but it hadn’t mattered much what he promised to do to Josiah or Mateo, either

What mattered was Tristan It had always been Tristan and that knowledge continued to screith him After all this tio The weakness ate away at his insides but he still couldn’t stop it Couldn’t stop letting Tristan wreck him

It wasn’t his ex’s fault Tristan never made him promises

Yet Ben had wanted to be the one to kill for him He would have been okay had Javier’s blood been on his hands--which was a big fucking deal for him Ben didn’t do blood, not after Bonnie But he’d never been able to do anything for Tristan except give him release Let Tristan fuck hih it wasn’t so he did for anyone else

No one else fucked hi Tristan do it had set hi Tristan hisMateo’s freedolass of top-shelf bourbon, Ben downed it in three quick ss

The heat of it felt good, one of the only things that felt good any hi was his fall back when shit went bad It had been since he started at fifteen--and soon after when he began sneaking into clubs The rush of it got hi ht Back then it had been the temptation, the desire to show his father who he was and ruin his career--like playing with fire and hoping to get burned That if he did, he would pull down the whole Worthington fah, so he just fucked

Then, in college, he met Tristan From the start he’d known Tristan was different Ben inserted himself into Tristan’s life and then beca he needed

So real, unlike the sex he’d always had before

But it had only been real to Ben, not to Tristan, and now here he was back to his old ways