Page 54 of Lovesick Titan

Eyes sharpening, Mal fought to keep from sneering as he turned to Vaughn.

“She muscled it out of me! Besides, someone else on your team needed to know the truth, since you and Danny are like awful angst twins with your suffering in silence crap. Newsflash, Cho: you are allowed to be happy, even if you’re mostly a dick.”

Lucy cleared her throat, and Vaughn straightened, as if remembering he was supposed to be giving some sort of pep talk rather than berating Mal, not that Mal could tell the difference. But Vaughn’s expression softened, and since the kid had no talent for guile, Mal knew the sentiment was genuine.

“I wouldn’t have believed you two could be good together if I hadn’t seen and heard it for myself—heard way too much, to be honest,” he grimaced. “But you being willing to look out for him when you were supposed to be nemeses, and him waxing on about your Han/Leia-esque romance of banter-filled sexual tension…that isn’t something you just let go.”

Mal’s instincts were to counter everything he’d just said, to clench his fists and be angry. He tried so hard to be angry so he could spit Vaughn’s words back in his face, but he didn’t have the energy—he didn’t have the will or desire either, not anymore.

He’d been over this in his head too many times. Everything they’d had, everything they’d lost—reallylost, because Danny wasn’t the villain Mal expected. He felt like he was trapped on all sides, like that photograph in his living room of a man in a circular prison with nothing to do but push against his walls and never make any progress.

“Andre told me about last night,” Lucy said when the silence lingered. “Not that I needed him to. Dom was still up with a beer in hand when I went around the safe houses looking for you. Sitting there drinking alone, sulking and staring at her new paintings. Kept muttering about how she wasn’t giving them back, like she thought you’d ask her to.

“I know her too well, Mickey. She wasn’t pissed off. She was worried. You got all invested in Zeus, and it crashed and burned around you. So you upped the stakes like you always do to tear him down with you. Only that backfired too. Because he never wanted to hurt you.”

“But he did,” Mal’s voice caught on the truth of it. “That’s the point. He only ever touched me because he wanted to drag me through the mud.”

“You’re right,” Vaughn said, unwavering even as Lucy deflated. “But that’s not the way things stayed. You know it’s not. You know he wishes he could take it all back, that he changed his mind because he cares about your stupid ass. And you better feel at least a little bad for letting his face get melted off last night just because you wanted some payback.”

“I didn’t—” Mal tensed as he shifted to the edge of his seat, but his momentum dwindled as soon as he saw Vaughn’s face.

He’d heard the concern and caring in the man’s voice that night on the phone, not only for Danny’s sake, but for him, when Vaughn had no reason to give a shit about Mal’s wellbeing. But that’s just how these hero types were. Damn martyrs, the lot of them.

“This isn’t your fight,” Mal muttered.

“But it is. You don’t have to weather this alone. You’renot alone,” Vaughn said, his voice growing louder, enough that Carla raised an eyebrow their direction—and damn it, Mal did not want any more attention on their table. “We’re part of this because we are a part of your lives. No matter how much you and Danny try to push us away—”

“Enough,” Mal hissed.

“Everything okay here, Malcolm?” Carla waddled up to the table. “You need something else? Refill on anything? Lucy? Anything for your friend?” She smiled warmly, but there was an edge to her gaze as she rested her eyes on Vaughn.

Lucy made a point to reach over and place a perfectly manicured hand on the young man’s arm. “All fine here, Carla. Why don’t you bring Mickey a box?”

Carla accepted Lucy’s cue with a nod. “Sure thing, hun. Back in a bit.” Which meant she’d make scarce for a while longer, all taken from a silent conversation—expected of women who were used to ducking questions from the law and passing coded messages.

Mal sat back, ready to dive out of the booth, leave the bill to Lucy, and forget this day, week,month, ever happened. But his limbs were sluggish, his whole body, as if he was trapped within his own cold field.

The flush that had filled Vaughn’s cheeks when Lucy touched him slowly dissipated when she withdrew her hand. “I told you not to hit him while he was low,” he said.

“Yeah…well he hit first,” Mal grit out, even though the argument was weak now, despite how much it had hurt. “What I overheard him tell you, how he said all the right things, acted in all the right ways just to get me under his thumb...”

“You thought he meantall of it, but he didn’t. Maybe in the beginning it was an act, but any time he showed you how messed up and tired and just plain pulled apart he is, believe me, man, that was real.

“You overheard him confess the worst of it. You want to know what he said after? He talked about how much he hates himself for what he did to you. How it makes him just like the man who stalked him and tortured him and killed his mother.”

Maybe you weregratefulwhen he killed your mother.

“He said he didn’t mean to fall in love with you—”

Mal’s eyes snapped up.

“—but he did anyway. Because apparently you’re caring. And thoughtful. And the only good thing in his life. Which kind of pissed me off, to be honest,” Vaughn scowled, “but he’s been in a bad way, so I let that one slide. But if you think for one second he was blowing smoke—”

“Stop,” Mal choked out, hating how tight his throat felt, how hot his eyes had become. He would not be brought to tears inHaven, but he couldn’t shake the emotions choking him.

All he’d wanted only a few days ago was to hear Danny say he loved him.

“He juststoodthere while Dom fired at him. He tried tokill himselfto prove something to me. There is no fairytale ending here. We’re toxic.” Mal grimaced as he swiped at his eyes, almost angrier that he didn’t find wetness there because Vaughn had still seen it.

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