Chapter 1: The Triangle's Last Call
The Triangle Bar smelled of stale beer and industrial cleaner, a smell Abby Brooks had come to associate with Lee’s preferred method of self-punishment. She watched from a sticky booth in the corner, her fingers tracing the cold, sweat-slick rim of her soda glass. Across the room, Lee was a study in contained shadow, hunched over the bar like he was trying to fold his tall frame into the stool.
He was on his third cheap beer. Abby had counted.
His curly black hair, grown out just enough to be awkward, hung over his eyes, a living hood. The oversized grey hoodie swallowed him, even though Abby knew what leanness it concealed. Boymoding armor, she thought, the term clinical and sad in her mind. She knew the script. Knew the desperate, angry cling to the old pronouns, the old name—Leeroy, a name he spat out like a curse—because sometimes the closet wasn’t a room you left, but a fortress you built, stone by bitter stone.
She’d offered her spare room eight weeks ago. A temporary thing, she’d said, after hearing about the fight with his mother, the eight months of couch-surfing and sleeping in his car. It was supposed to be simple. A good deed. But nothing about Lee Mateo was simple, especially not the guilty, complicated knot of feeling that tightened in Abby’s chest whenever he shuffled past her in the morning, smelling of sleep and unsaid things.
The broken jukebox wheezed out the same thirty seconds of synth-pop. A man with loud laughter bumped Lee’s stool. Lee didn’t look up, just curled his hand tighter around his bottle, knuckles pale. Abby saw his shoulders tense, a fraction of an inch. A predator’s stillness. She knew that stillness. It was the same one he’d had when he’d told her, voice flat, about shoving his mom. She grabbed my arm. I just… pushed. She fell. He’d said it like he was describing a minor traffic violation, but his eyes were oceans away.
Abby took a sip of her flat soda. She was an accountant. She liked spreadsheets, roller coasters, the clear cause-and-effect of ledgers and gravity. Lee was neither. He was an unsolved equation, a locked door in a house she was supposedly just passing through.
He slammed the empty bottle down a little too hard, the sound swallowed by the din. He shoved off the stool, wobbled for a second, and then made a beeline for the back door, his movements a stiff, deliberate line. The alley.
Her heart gave a single, hard knock against her ribs. It’s fine. He’s just getting air. He’s fine.
But the image was there, unbidden: Lee in the dark, alone, that stillness giving way to something worse. She was out of the booth before the thought fully formed, her sensible flats making no sound on the grimy floor.
The alley air was a cold slap, thick with the reek of dumpsters and old urine. The flickering neon from the bar sign painted everything in sickly red and blue pulses. Lee was leaning against the brick wall, head down, one hand braced against the mortar.
“Hey,” Abby said, her voice softer than she intended.
He flinched, whirling around. His eyes, usually shuttered, were wide and dark in the half-light. “Christ, Abby. What are you, my chaperone?”
“I was leaving. Saw you come out here.” The lie was easy. She took a step closer. “You okay?”
“Peachy.” He looked away, pulling his hood tighter. A defensive gesture she’d catalogued weeks ago. “Just needed a minute away from the human zoo in there.”
“Three beers in forty minutes is more than a minute.”
“Since when do you clock my drinks?” He snorted, but there was no force behind it. He sounded tired. “Go home, Abby. Your good Samaritan hours are done for the day.”
The words stung, precisely because they were what she told herself. But hearing them from him made her feel exposed, like he’d glimpsed the guilty attraction she worked so hard to bury. She was the stable one, the one with her life together. She had no right to want anything from him, not when he had nothing to give.
“I’m not being a Samaritan,” she said, crossing her arms against the chill. “I’m being a friend. Which is what you’d see if you’d ever stop looking at everyone like they’re about to throw a rock at you.”
He went very still. That predator stillness again. “You don’t know what I’m looking at.”
“Then tell me.”
He laughed, a sharp, hollow sound. “What’s to tell? My life’s a fucking masterpiece. Got a killer career driving for GrubHub, live in a charity ward, and my family thinks I’m a violent freak. It’s a dream.”
“Lee…”
“Don’t.” The word was a blade. He finally looked at her, and in the pulsing neon, his face was a mask of pure, undiluted anguish. “Just don’t, okay? You with your tidy little life, your accepting parents, your… your certainty. You have no idea what it’s like to look in the mirror and see a stranger your own mother hates.”
Abby felt the breath leave her lungs. She did know. Of course she knew. But her path had been different, smoother in ways that now felt like accusations. Her certainty had been hard-won, but it had been won. His was still a battle, fought daily in the isolation of her spare room.
“I know it’s hell,” she whispered. “But you’re not a stranger to me.”
He pushed off the wall, looming suddenly in the narrow space. The beer was on his breath, but his eyes were painfully clear. “Yeah? Who do you see, then?”
The question hung between them, charged and dangerous. Abby’s mouth went dry. She saw the girl he was, trembling beneath the hoodie and the anger. She saw the sharp line of his jaw, the elegant bones of his wrists. She saw someone beautiful and furious and lost. And she saw the reason she lay awake at night, worrying that her hospitality was just a prettier form of predation.
“I see someone who’s scared,” she said, her voice barely audible over the distant thump of music. “And I see my friend. Who drinks too much when he’s hurting.”
For a long moment, he just stared. The defiance in his posture seemed to leak away, leaving something younger, more ravaged. He looked down at his hands—large, capable hands that were never still.
“I hate that name,” he said, so quietly she almost missed it. “Leeroy. It’s like… it’s like a punchline. A punchline to a joke everyone else has heard but me.”
Abby’s heart shattered. She took the final step, closing the distance. She didn’t reach for him, just stood there, an offering of proximity. “You get to choose the punchline. Or throw the whole joke away.”
He shuddered. A full-body tremor he couldn’t suppress. When he looked up, his eyes were glistening. “It’s not that simple.”
“Nothing is,” Abby said. “But staying out here in the cold, poisoning yourself, isn’t making it any more complex. It’s just making it worse. Come home. Please.”
The please did it. The fight drained out of him, leaving a profound, exhausted vulnerability. He nodded, once, a stiff little jerk of his chin.
He moved to walk past her, back toward the bar’s rear door, but his foot caught on a broken piece of asphalt. He stumbled. Instinctively, Abby’s hands came up to steady him, her fingers wrapping around his forearms through the thick hoodie.
He froze. They both did. It was the first time they’d touched beyond an accidental brush in the hallway.
Abby could feel the fine tremor in his muscles, the surprising heat of him through the fabric. Her own pulse was a frantic drum in her ears. This was the imbalance, the guilty thing. This right here.
He didn’t pull away. He lifted his head, and his gaze found hers. In the ugly, pulsing light, his face was a map of conflict—fear, need, a desperate, aching question. A single tear escaped, tracing a clean path through the grime of the alley air, cutting through the boymode like a crack in a dam.
He didn’t wipe it away. He just stood there, holding her gaze, letting her see it all. The raw, unvarnished truth of Leeroy Mateo, crumbling.
Abby didn’t let go. She just tightened her grip, an anchor in the neon-drenched dark. “I’ve got you,” she murmured, words meant only for the space between them. “Let’s go home.”
He finally looked away, nodding again. But he didn’t shake off her hands. Not yet. Together, they turned away from the alley’s darkness, the unspoken thing hanging heavy in the air between them, fragile and alive as a heartbeat.
Together, they turned away from the alley’s darkness, the unspoken thing hanging heavy in the air between them, fragile and alive as a heartbeat.
The walk home was silent, a twenty-minute trek through sleeping streets where the only sound was the scuff of their shoes on pavement. Lee kept his hands shoved deep in his hoodie pocket, his shoulders hunched. Abby matched his pace, the ghost of his forearm still tingling against her palms. Her apartment building, a bland brick rectangle, was a relief. She fumbled with the keys, the click of the lock loud in the stairwell.
Inside, the quiet was different. Warmer. Safe. Lee toeed off his worn sneakers by the door, a practiced habit.
“You should eat something,” Abby said, hanging her jacket. “Soak up the beer. I’ve got leftover lo mein.”
Lee stood in the middle of the living room, looking adrift. He gave a jerky nod. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
She moved into the galley kitchen, pulling the container from the fridge. As she clattered a plate into the microwave, the memory hit her, sharp and unbidden.
The first time. A month ago. He’d come home reeking of cheap whiskey, swaying in the doorway. She’d made him a turkey sandwich. He’d stared at it, then up at her, his eyes black and depthless.
“I’m not hungry for that,” he’d slurred.
“You need to eat, Lee.”
He’d leaned forward, his breath hot and sour. “I’ll eat you out instead. Right here. On your nice clean floor.”
She’d stepped back, stunned. “What? No. That’s not—”
“Fine,” he’d cut her off, a cruel, twisted smile on his lips. “I’ll blow you then. Since you’ve got the dick. C’mon. You’re letting me stay here. What do you want for it?”
It had been a gut-punch. A transactional grenade tossed into the center of her charity. She’d sent him to bed, her hands shaking. He never mentioned it the next day. She wasn’t sure he even remembered.
The microwave beeped, jolting her back. She plated the steaming noodles and brought them to the small dining table. Lee sat, staring at the food. He didn’t move.
“It’s not a transaction,” she said softly, the words leaving her before she could stop them.
His head snapped up. He searched her face, and she saw the shame dawning there. He remembered. “I know,” he muttered, voice thick. “I’m… fuck, Abby. I’m sorry. For all of it.”
“Just eat.”
He picked up the fork. He ate methodically, shoveling the food in like it was a chore. Abby watched the line of his throat work, the shift of his Adam’s apple. The silence stretched, but the thing in the air hadn’t dissipated. It had followed them inside. It was in the way his jeans tightened across his thighs as he sat, in the faint tremor in her own hands as she leaned against the counter.
He finished, pushed the plate away. “Done.”
He didn’t get up. He just looked at her, from across the dim room. The vulnerability from the alley was gone, burned away by something hotter, more direct. A challenge.
“What do you want, Abby?” he asked, his voice low.
Her mouth was dry. “I want you to be okay.”
“That’s a lie.” He stood, the chair legs scraping. He took a step toward her. “You want something. I see you looking. Everyone wants something.”
He was close now. She could smell the beer, the lo mein, the unique scent of him underneath—clean sweat and cheap shampoo. The predatory stillness was back, but it was charged, directed.
“You think I’m exploiting you,” she whispered, heart hammering.
“Aren’t you?” He was a foot away. His eyes dropped to her lips. “Nice girl saves broken thing. Gets a pet. Gets to feel good about herself. Maybe gets a fuck out of it when the pet is grateful.”
The crudeness was a weapon. It should have made her step back. It didn’t.
“That’s not what this is.”
“Prove it.” His hand came up, not touching, just hovering beside her cheek. His fingers were long, calloused from delivery boxes. “Tell me to back off. Tell me to go to my room.”
She couldn’t. The words died in her throat. All the careful logic, the moral accounting, it all crumbled under the sheer want in his gaze. It mirrored her own, ugly and real.
“See?” he breathed, a bitter triumph in his voice.
Then his mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a collision. A claiming. His lips were chapped, insistent. The taste of soy sauce and hops. A shocked sound escaped her, swallowed by him. His hand finally cupped her jaw, his thumb pressing hard into the hinge, holding her there. Her hands flew up, gripping the front of his hoodie, not pushing away, but anchoring herself.
He bit her lower lip. Not hard, but enough to make her gasp. His tongue swept into her mouth, hot and demanding. He walked her backward until her spine hit the cool wall of the hallway. The force of him pinned her there—the lean, hard length of his body a revelation against hers.
He broke the kiss, breathing ragged. His forehead rested against hers. “This what you wanted?” he growled, his other hand sliding down her side, over her hip. “Your charity case paying his dues?”
“Stop calling it that,” she panted.
“What is it, then?”
She answered by grabbing a fistful of his curls and yanking his head back, exposing his throat. She kissed him this time, pouring every guilty, hungry thought into it. He groaned, the sound vibrating against her lips. His hands found the hem of her sweater, pushed underneath. His palms were rough on the soft skin of her stomach. She arched into the touch.
He broke away again, his eyes blazing. “Bedroom. Now.”
It was a command. She led him the few feet to her room, a tangle of limbs and urgent, clutching hands. The soft light from her bedside lamp painted everything in warm, intimate strokes.
He pushed her onto the bed, following her down. He straddled her hips, looking down at her, his hair falling into his eyes. He yanked the hoodie over his head and tossed it aside. He wore a thin, worn tank underneath. She could see the shape of him—the flat plane of his chest, the tight nipples pressing against the cotton. The sight made her clit throb.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” she whispered, the truth tumbling out.
A flash of pain crossed his face before it was gone, masked by raw hunger. “Don’t.”
He leaned down, kissing her again, slower now, deeper. His hand found her breast, kneading through her bra. He thumbed her nipple, rolling it until she cried out into his mouth. He ground his hips down against hers, and she could feel the hard ridge of his cock straining against his jeans. The friction was maddening.
“Lee…” she moaned.
“Shut up,” he murmured, but it lacked heat. He kissed her neck, her collarbone. His fingers worked the button of her jeans, then the zipper. He shoved them and her panties down her thighs in one rough movement. The cool air hit her wet skin.
He slid down her body, his knees hitting the floor beside the bed. He hooked his hands under her thighs, spreading her wide. He stared at her cunt, exposed and glistening in the lamplight. His breath hitched.
“Fuck,” he whispered, a prayer or a curse.
Then his mouth was on her.
There was no finesse. It was devouring. He licked a broad, hot stripe from her opening to her clit, then fastened his lips around the swollen bud and sucked. Hard. Abby’s back bowed off the bed, a strangled scream tearing from her throat. He ate her out like he was starving, like he was trying to drown in her. His tongue fucked into her, lapped at her, relentless. One hand dug into her thigh, the other came up to press down on her lower belly, holding her in place for his assault.
“Oh god, right there, don’t stop, please,” she babbled, fists tangled in her sheets.
He growled against her, the vibration pushing her higher. She was already close, the intensity was too much. His nose pressed against her as he worked her clit with a furious, focused pressure. She came with a sharp, broken cry, her hips bucking against his face. He didn’t let up, sucking her through the pulsing waves until she was sobbing, pushing weakly at his head.
Only then did he pull back. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his chin shining. He looked wrecked, victorious. He climbed back onto the bed, kneeling between her legs. He fumbled with his own jeans, button and zipper giving way. He pushed them down just enough to free his cock.
It was hard, thick, flushed dark. He gave it a few rough strokes, his eyes locked on hers.
“You still want this?” he asked, his voice ragged. “You want this pathetic fuck inside you?”
“Yes,” she gasped. “God, yes.”
He didn’t wait. He notched the head at her entrance, slick with her own wetness and his spit. He drove into her in one deep, brutal stroke.
The stretch was perfect, overwhelming. She cried out, her nails digging into his shoulders. He buried his face in her neck, his whole body shuddering. He was still for a moment, panting, fully sheathed inside her.
“Abby,” he choked out, the name sounding broken.
Then he moved.
It wasn’t making love. It was a fuck. Hard, punishing, desperate strokes that shook the bedframe. Each thrust hammered into her, hitting a spot that made her see white. He fucked her like he was trying to exorcise something, like he wanted to crawl inside her skin and disappear. The slapping sound of skin on skin filled the room, mixed with their ragged breaths and choked-off moans.
“Is this… is this what you… fucking wanted?” he grunted, his hips pistoning.
“Yes! Harder!”
He obliged, slamming into her, his rhythm fracturing. She wrapped her legs around his waist, taking him deeper. The new angle made her scream. She could feel another orgasm building, a tighter, darker coil than the first.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
She forced her eyes open. His were wild, unfocused, swimming with unshed tears. The raw agony there stole her breath.
“I’m not him,” he gasped, sweat dripping from his brow onto her chest. “I’m not Leeroy. Tell me I’m not him.”
“You’re not,” she sobbed, her own tears spilling. “You’re Lee. You’re Lee.”
His control shattered. His thrusts became frantic, brutal. He was chasing his own end, using her body to find it. She came again, a violent, clenching wave that tore through her. Her inner muscles clamped down on his cock, and with a raw, guttural shout, he followed her over. He pulsed inside her, heat flooding her core, his whole body seizing before he collapsed on top of her, heavy and spent.
The only sounds were their heaving breaths. The smell of sex, sweat, and lo mein hung in the air. His weight was anchoring, real.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her. He didn’t move to roll off. He turned his head, his lips against her damp shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words ragged. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She didn’t know what he was apologizing for—the crude memory, the rough fuck, his entire existence. She just tightened her arms around him, holding on as the reality of what they’d done settled over them, a new, more dangerous kind of silence.