“Here’s another truth. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did. I did it for what were probably selfish reasons. It wasn’t anything you did and it wasn’t that I stopped loving you. I think a part of me probably always will.” Somewhat alarmed that he’d confessed that much, Park stared at the floor. When he looked up again, Jackson stared at him as if he’d grown an arm out of his head.
“You still left,” Jackson said softly.
“I made the right choice for my career. I have no doubt about that. But I don’t know that I made the right choice for my heart. Because you, at least, could find love again, but I probably won’t.”
Jackson took a step closer. “Because you only fuck men who also won’t tell. That’s a lonely way to live.” His tone was sad, like he pitied Park.
“BecauseI have spent the last five years comparing every man I sleep with to you. And none of them will ever measure up.” Park met Jackson’s gaze. His memories of life with Jackson had been plaguing him for months, since the Senate campaign began in earnest really, and were probably the very thing that had driven him to Jackson’s office to begin with. Being with Jackson was something he had no rightto hope for. But he added, “How’s that for honesty?”
Jackson shook his head. “No. No, you don’t get to say shit like that.” He turned away and looked at the wall. “You walked out on our life together of your own volition. I loved you more than I’ll probably love anyone, and you destroyed that by leaving. And for what? So you can live like a monk while running for an election you’ll probablylose, all because you had some principle or moral that being gay conflicted with? You made a choice, you destroyed both of us in the process, and you have to live with that choice.”
Park understood Jackson’s anger. He felt some of it himself. “I did make a choice, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if it was the right one, but it doesn’t matter now because it’s in the past. We haveto worry about what’s next. So what I’m telling you is that I’ll be honest with you and you can trust me, but I understand that I have to earn your trust.”
Jackson remained quiet for a long time. Mostly he stared at Park. The only sound in the room was the rise and fall of their breathing and the cycling on and off of the air conditioner unit by the window. It was a cruel reminder that Parkwas not home and that these circumstances were so far out of the ordinary, he didn’t know how he’d find his way back.
When Jackson spoke again, his voice cracked. “This is so hard. Seeing you again, trying to keep professional distance, it is so fucking hard. When I look at you, I don’t just see a client. I see a million memories, and I see what I thought our future would be, and then I seeyou walking out the door, again and again, and it wrecks me all over again. It’s all stuck on some terrible repeat loop.”
Had Park really thought he could stroll into Jackson’s office and hire him and everything would be fine? Had he really thought that, even though they’d never be lovers again, he and Jackson could have some kind of professional rapport? It all seemed like such a foolishline of thinking in retrospect. There was still so much between them. “I’ll never be able to apologize enough for hurting you,” Park said, but even that felt inadequate.
“I’ll probably never really understand why you did.”
“It’s hard to remember why when I’m standing this close to you.”
Jackson looked down, probably examining how the tips of their shoes were only about a foot apart.When he looked up again, his expression was tired, resigned. “There’s a part of me that wants to hate you.”
Park could hear the “but” in Jackson’s tone, and it was like a sliver of sunlight along a dark curtain. “But you don’t.”
“I don’t want to trust you, either.”
“But you do.”
Jackson nodded. “I don’t want to be attracted to you anymore, either, but you’re still the goddamn hottestman on the planet to me. I hate that.”
“I know.”
And then they were kissing. Park didn’t know who reached for whom, but it didn’t matter because his fingers were in Jackson’s hair and his lips were pressing against Jackson’s, and lord almighty, this was like coming home. The way Jackson smelled, the way he tasted, it was sofamiliarand perfect. The stubble from Jackson’s face rubbed againstPark’s chin, the tips of Jackson’s fingers dug into the small of Park’s back, the air around them seemed to zip with electricity. Jackson made a low groan in the back of his throat and then deepened the kiss, snaking his tongue into Park’s mouth, and the familiarity of it delighted Park, too. He knew Jackson’s moves, knew what he liked, knew his patterns, and for years he’d loved them, lookedforward to them, thrived within them.
He’d once loved this man deeply. He didn’t know what he felt anymore, but five years hadn’t erased all of that love, not entirely. The same giddy thrill that used to pass through him when Jackson got home from school or work passed through him now.
But then Jackson yanked himself away.
“No,” Jackson said, stepping back and waving his hand in acease-and-desist gesture. “No, we are not doing this. We can’t do this. We need to have boundaries.”
“Boundaries.” Right, of course. This couldn’t really happen. It shouldn’t. It didn’t matter how much Park wanted it.
Jackson held up a finger. “We said there would be boundaries. This is a professional relationship. I can’t have a sexual relationship with a client. That’s right at the topof the list of ethical violations. It’s the kind of conflict of interest that could get me disbarred. We had whole classes about this kind of shit in law school.” He shook his head. “It’s hard enough for me to think straight on this case. I won’t further compromise myself by getting involved with you in that way. I’ve worked too hard to make my reputation what it is. Ifanyonefound out aboutthis, that would be it. I’m done. But even if that weren’t the case, nothing can happen here because nothing has changed. You’re still running for Senate. There’s no future for us.”
“Yeah.” Park nodded, because Jackson was absolutely right. It was a conflict of interest, technically, and it was true that nothing had changed. No matter how much Park wanted Jackson, even if Jackson were completelywilling, Park’s reasons for ending their relationship were still very much factors in his life. He couldn’t very well win a Senate seat as a conservative with his male lover at his side.
It weighed on Park, made his chest hurt, made him regret his choices.
Jackson nodded. “I better go. I’ll be here at eleven in the morning to go over the press statement with your team. No more meetingsin bedrooms.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.” Jackson left the room.
Park stared at the door for a long time. Jackson was completely right. Asking him to help with the case was unfair, and Park knew that. But he hadn’t expected Jackson to be so candid about his emotions, and worse, there were clearly still feelings between them. He wasn’tsure what was worse: having these feelings without being able to act on them or realizing he had these feelings at all.
