BANE

CHAPTER THREE - BLAME (Part 1)

Holden woke up with a throbbing headache the following morning. He rolled over onto his side and stretched his arm out willing his eyes to open.

"Hey! What the hell?!" Corbin, who had been sleeping sitting up beside him leapt out of his bed when the other man's hand landed in his lap.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know you were there," Holden blushed and hid his face in his hands. "What time did you get home last night?"

"What do you mean? I got home the same time you did."

Holden looked befuddled. "...Did I go to work last night?"

"What? No," Corbin grabbed the thermometer and held it to Holden's ear, waiting for the telltale beep that it was ready. "98.4, looks like you're back to normal."

"I don't feel normal, my head is killing me, and--what the hell?!" Holden touched the bandage on his collarbone. "What happened?!"

"Are you kidding me? You don't remember cutting yourself open last night?"

"What?"

"Oh, so you're seriously out of your mind. Fan-fucking-tastic!" Corbin anxiously paced around the room.

"What happened to you? You're only nice to me when I'm sick, or something? You're going to be a huge dick again now just because my fever is gone?"

"No, we were good until you jumped me last night and forced... you know what? It's fine. I don't want to talk about it, so it's better that you don't remember. I don't know what the fuck got into you last night, but let's just pretend it never happened," Corbin excused himself from the room.

Holden walked to the bathroom and peeled back the bandage to reveal the gash on his chest. He couldn't remember anything from the night before, at least not after Layla had gone to bed. What was Corbin talking about? Holden had never seen him so agitated, so what happened? He touched his cut lip gingerly and winced. The skin under his eye was dark and puffy, and Holden headed out to the kitchen for ice. "Corbin? Do we have ice packs?"

"He went out to grab lunch, I think."

Holden jumped when he saw Victor sitting at the kitchen table. "I didn't know anyone else was here. Don't you have work?"

"I just got here; it's my day off. How are you feeling?"

"Like shit. Do you know what happened last night? Corbin won't tell me anything."

"Yeah, he's pretty tight-lipped with me too. All I know is that you took off in the middle of the night and we found you in that warehouse by the park getting the crap kicked out of you by Stella's goons."

"What about this cut on my chest? Corbin said that I did it to myself..."

"I don't know anything about that, sorry. He's keeping pretty quiet about whatever the hell happened between you two earlier... but he did seem pretty shaken up about something."

"He said I forced him to do something..." Holden looked down at his hand as he drummed his fingers on the counter. "Do you think I kissed him?" He tried to chew on his bottom lip, but winced when the sharp pain reminded him it was cut. He grabbed an ice cube from the freezer and wrapped in in a clean dishcloth to apply to the cuts on his face.

"Maybe..." Victor walked to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. "Is that something you might want to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you, uh... Are you attracted to him?"

Holden hesitated, he didn't really feel comfortable discussing it with Victor, but he supposed it was his own fault for bringing up the topic in the first place. "I don't know."