If Gael hadn't pinned him, Carlos thought a bit ruefully, he probably would have bolted. It was one thing, after all, for Hadyn to know almost exactly what went on in his head - Hadyn was practically his father. It was another for the lover he'd been trying to pull out of despair to suddenly notice that Carlos had his own. A line formed between his brows as Gael's hands framed his face. "Do you?" he murmured. "Care about me?" Of course, he knew Gael cared some for him - he would never have fallen in love with him, he didn't think, if Gael was completely indifferent to him. He wouldn't have seen the parts of Gael that had made his teenage crush blossom into something deeper.

What did Gael think he needed? He wondered as his hands came up to bracket Gael's narrow hips. Too narrow now, he was too thin, but there was, at least, a brightness there in his eyes that Carlos hadn't seen in weeks. It would relieve him, if those eyes weren't looking at him as if they could see straight into his soul.

If he wasn't, Carlos thought, looking at him as if he wanted to take the pain away. It wasn't fair; no one but the Kagans tended to even notice it. Not even his brothers and sisters anymore, and he'd always been too proud to let his mother see what she'd done. Felipe...had never cared, really. He must be losing his touch if Gael could see it. It was always there, just never allowed so close to the surface. He shook his head a little. "It's nothing, carino," he said with the same crooked smile he'd given Gael a hundred times before. "Nothing important."