Free Double Heat [Twin Ties: 3] by Lynn Kelling Page B

his own to imply consent, he became mostly passive and pliable until the guy was done with him.
    It was all so much easier than pursuing someone his own age. Evan had always assumed guys his own age hated him and thought he was pathetic. They were the ones bullying him at school and making his life miserable.
    Charlie never knew about Evan’s boyfriends prior to the Popović twins. Brennan, Alek, and Luka didn’t know about them either. Jimmy only knew because Evan had tried it with him, too, just the once, and with heartbreaking consequences.
    Evan lost himself in work for a while, trying not to think about any of his murky past anymore, going through the motions as he tried to locate the source of some weird engine noise a customer was hearing in her Nissan. Later that afternoon, Carter sent Evan a text message, asking him to come by for a beer or two after work.
    It was tempting. Really tempting.
    Even with all of his protectiveness of Evan, Carter was still one of the few people who Evan could call a friend—no complications, no subtext—and who understood perfectly how Evan felt physically and mentally. Plus, Evan liked Carter. He was so cool, a singer with legions of fans, and someone brave enough to follow a dream to fruition.
    He tried to tell himself to make up an excuse, to say no to the invitation. There was, hanging over his head, after all, Carter’s promise to intervene in Evan’s problems should the need arise. But Evan knew there was getting to be too much he couldn’t say, too much kept inside. It was driving him crazy and making him question everything.
    Maybe a short visit would be okay, and do some good.
    He texted back that he’d stop by for a little while, but couldn’t stay long.
    At least it was something to look forward to, and something to help him feel a little less alone.

    As soon as Evan had begun the drive over to Carter and Presley’s apartment after work, he knew he’d made the right call in deciding to go. It had always been so easy when he’d lived at his dad’s place to wander off and visit Jimmy, or just clear his head with a peaceful change of scenery. There’d been no one around to bother or judge him. Now that he lived in town, right in the center of things, there was no escape from the pressure of having to act the right way all the time. Either he was trying to keep his boyfriends happy or he was trying not to be pegged as a gay teen when out in public, mostly for safety reasons, but privacy meant a lot to him too. There never seemed to be time for him to drop his guard and just relax.
    But at least in going to see Carter, he was escaping the confusing feelings he had surrounding Brennan’s imminent departure by talking to someone outside of the situation without simultaneously putting himself on display for onlookers.
    The real question was how to explain things to Carter when Evan didn’t even understand them?
    All Evan knew was that everything had changed when he’d moved in with the other three. It had been nothing at all like when Alek had briefly lived with Evan and Brennan at their dad’s house. Then, Evan had been injured and in recovery mode. Working, resting, and healing were the top priorities for Evan and Alek. That had been before Brennan and Luka had officially merged into their relationship, so everything had been simpler, if not imperfect and sometimes lonely. Evan had felt then like he had his freedom—maybe even too much of it.
    After the debacle of all of the cheating and Charlie coming back, it had taken a while for things to settle back into some sort of routine and normalcy. Once they had, Evan started to realize things about how he felt about the new normal. He didn’t like living in town. The pressure to be everything for everyone all the time—Alek and Luka and Brennan—was overwhelming, especially after living his whole life with no one expecting much of anything from him, ever. There was the constant sense that, since the happiness of