"Yeah," Neil says, staring at his own drink rather than at Caleb for a moment. His stomach swoops a little. He can watch Caleb's face when he worries and reads him covering, and anything he can do to make things easier is what he should do.

"I don't like making things harder," he says after a moment. "And if I don't want to be around what I'm feeling myself, then I'm not going to subject you to trying to...parse through things."

He looks up, softer face made stern with fortification. "You're my boyfriend, not my shrink. I know you can feel what I feel. So when I can make things easier for you, I ought to."