“That’s not how I see it, Ells. I’m not denying myself of anything. I’m putting you first, where you should be.”
I run a finger down his cheek.
“I love you, Josh. That’s a beautiful thing. But you have to accept the same. I need to be supporting you, the way you’re supporting me. We’re a team, aren’t we?”
His smile is so genuine. His lip trembles again.
“We’re the best team there could ever be. Rain or shine, it doesn’t matter. We’re in it together.”
My incredible boyfriend is right, we are the best team there could ever be… but that team is smaller than it was in Cannes…
The team in Cannes with the three of us together, free to express ourselves as us, without restraint was a whole new team of its own.
Josh loved Heath before I did. Before I ever met him.
Josh had Heath in his life for far longer than I ever knew.
My pain must dwarf his, no matter how strong he is about it.
I address the elephant in the room. Finally. My inner turmoil wouldn’t let me face it before. I didn’t want to ask the question when I was too lost to think straight, but it’s time now.
“How many proposals have you turned down?” I ask my boyfriend, and he knows what I’m talking about.
He takes a deep breath.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“So, you have, haven’t you? You’ve had proposals and you’ve turned them down?”
“As I said. It doesn’t matter. I did it for him as well as you.”
“Of course it matters! It matters for him, too!”
He grips my shoulders.
“Neither of you were in a position to make any kind of call on that. I had to be the one who held strong. For all of us. Ells, you were suffering. Your situation has been fucking horrendous.”
“And so was yours!”
“Not nearly as bad as yours, sweetheart. Not even close.”
I kick off my pixie boots and walk into the kitchen. I need a hot chocolate, even though I feel sick to my stomach.
Josh joins me in the doorway.
“I would have told you if you’d have wanted to know, believe me.”
I nod. “I know that. I have no doubt. I just wasn’t brave enough to face it. I’d have asked if I was.”
I take the tub of hot chocolate from the cupboard. My hands are shaking as I put the kettle on to boil.
“You could have gone to a proposal with him on your own,” I say. “You could have… I dunno. Kept him far away, but still managed it. Somehow.”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t have done that. Not to either of you. You needed me, and support, and care. And Heath is Heath. He needs privacy. He needs his own security in his position, and we’ve been too close to him to risk it. Both of us.”
I close my eyes as he addresses another elephant in the room. I prepare for Josh to carry on.
“My identity could have been linked to yours, just like that.” He clicks his fingers. “It still could. And if anyone caught sight of the pictures of either of us in Cannes with him. If that hit the news. Especially if it hit the news about me and him.”
