"She's a thick-skinned ball-breaker with iron-cast ethics. Hence why our marriage went down the shitter," Chase reeled off with an air of indifference. He and Cameron were really close friend now and stayed in touch, but anything romantic had well and truly been quashed long ago. Thinking back, even starting a relationship together way back when had been a bad idea and on too shaky a foundation. They were too different, and Chase felt these days like that had been the problem all along. They would have had to change each other way too much to have made it a lasting thing. "But we know each other's worst skeletons, so we'd never truly hurt each other, pissed off or not."

He gave a small snort of a laugh. "Student teacher v-card loss. How cliché, it's practically a TV trope. Whatever gets the job done. I was a messed up kid. Just watched my mum die in a pool of her own blood and vomit. I wanted to switch that off. It was fun, until the bitch accused me of getting her pregnant to try to piss her husband off. Then it was hello Seminary college because I was so screwed up. You kind of dissolved that disclaimer when you showed up for reasons that weren't a simple fuck and about on edge enough for me to be considering suicide watch. There's a step here, so be careful," he warned as he got his door open and pushed it back against the wall so Connor could get in without faceplanting the cheap rug he adopted with the apartment when Cameron moved out. "If you know some of my personal life and demons, you'll find it easier to trust me with yours."