Majorca Flats -- 325

It wasn't that he'd stopped loving Brent. He thought of him every day. The grief—and the guilt and shame for how he'd treated him, how he'd let him down—hadn't gone away. Yet Luigi had helped him past agony into acceptance. Luigi's own vulnerabilities, his own problems, had brought out Jason's protective instincts, and had made his own pain less profound. He was very fond of Luigi. No, he thought, as he watched Luigi and Cody together, he loved Luigi. It wasn't the same intensity as it had been with Brent. With him, they'd been lovers and best friends and in love as well. He wasn't 'in love' with Luigi. But he felt a deep affection and concern for him. He'd never expected to find love at all after Brent. And he had. He cared for and about Luigi and he knew Luigi returned the sentiments. It was love. There weren't enough words in English to describe all the different kinds of love human beings could have for each other. But he knew that what Luigi felt for Cody was 'in love'. Maybe there was friendship and affection and companionship too, but he wasn't sure. Sometimes you fell in love with such unsuitable people, people who were selfish or ungenerous or solipsistic, people who didn't expand you but narrowed you.

Cody needed looking after, Jason accepted that. But Luigi needed to be cared for too. When he and Keith had talked about it, with words and with their eyes, he'd known that Keith felt the same way he did: that the best way to look after Luigi was to keep him close. And if that meant that Cody had to join their band of brothers, they'd do their best to help him fit in. They were not about to cool their friendship with Luigi, and Cody came with Luigi and that was that.

Luigi's thoughts, though, were obscured behind his black-olive eyes. Jason decided that he would find out what they were.

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