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He caught it. If anything, it just compelled him to be more aggressive, more offensive, but he, too, made an effort to master himself. He'd caved for Rep--he wasn't going to cave for Jordan too. Instead, he let a silence run its course while he worked, and then he turned, and he faced Jordan for the first time. His expression was unreadable.

"What did he tell you?"

Taym invested entirely too much emotional energy in the ways that strangers' perceptions of him might change if they knew what Rep knew, and now that he'd gone and, like an a**, confirmed what for Rep had only been suspicions, it was a constant struggle between pretending he didn't care and desperately wanting to measure the spread of the information. The only thing worse than a bomb going off was waiting.

"What a ******** chore that must be for you," he said with withering mock-pity. "What happens when you don't?" he asked, out of a morbid, masochistic need to know exactly what he'd escaped. Drily: "Got any case studies?" Which was a bit of a personal question, but Taym felt entitled to personal questions, and more, he felt the urge to push boundaries, to feel out what Jordan was willing to divulge.

The way Jordan handled his obvious displeasure--the same that Taym had intentionally been trying to needle up in him--had the dual effect of infuriating him and embarrassing him. Against his will he realized he respected him, for keeping his calm and for, above all, seeming absolutely and utterly unthreatened. He'd been afraid Rep would kill him. He was afraid Jordan wouldn't see him as worth the bother. It was infinitely worse.

In different times, in different circumstances, and if he knew less about Jordan, it would have bred admiration instead of resentment.

The towel slowed to an eventual stop in his hands, and he put it down, put down the glass he was wiping out, and he picked at his fingernails, his breathing very slow and very steady.

So Rep hadn't said anything, maybe. But maybe he would. And he hated himself for caring what Jordan thought, but he did. Jordan had been the only person, in the Tear, to give his ideas any real merit; he'd told him he'd been right even when Taym himself thought he'd been wrong. And now he stood here and everything Taym could do to make him anything but master of his own emotions failed. So he did care. He spoke very suddenly, low and rough, without looking up from his fingers.

"I am not like him and I'm not even a little bit like his mother was," he said. "But that's his word against mine."

"He did," he said, and it snapped out hostile but strained. "Just not to you. Some s**t's easier to talk about with someone you hate, I guess."

And to the contrary, he realized--he hadn't, until he answered Jordan--he'd meant it to be exactly as revealing as it was. A small measure of control, a card he could keep Rep from playing later. A decision he'd tell himself it was his to make.

"I don't give a s**t what he thinks of me. He'll think what he thinks, whatever makes him feel like he has power. Whatever. But I'm not like his mother," he repeated, adamantly, like he was trying to convince himself of a lie. "And if he tells you I am don't ********' believe him."

And that--that was accidental. That was more than he meant to say. It was obvious from the sudden contorting of his face, an ugly expression of disgust. He started to roll down his sleeves, anything to look busy, and snatched the towel back up.

"Or do," he corrected himself, childish and transparent. "I don't give a s**t what you think of me either, but I think you're smart enough to realize he's full of s**t."

Five or six seconds rolled out in silence and motionlessness.

Taym dropped the towel in the empty sink and turned, hesitating by the exit.

"Enjoy your free ********' hour, on me," he said lowly. "Spend it with your boyfriend."

He had exactly enough restraint, and exactly enough self-awareness, not to slam the door behind him.