“Yes,” I whisper, my heart breaking in two at my confession.
“Not just any man, Sinclair…”
My breath catches as he says my name, and I clamp a hand over my mouth, willing myself not to throw up.
“… Brad Garrett-Charles,” Denver hisses.
His voice is so low, so dangerous, that I can barely keep my eyes on his. But I have to. He’s come here, demanding the truth. Lying to him the first time broke me. I can’t survive it again.
“I knew he was the one y-y-y…” I drag in a shaky breath. “The one who y-you’d hate to find me with the most.”
“Damn fucking straight.”
I blink as I hold his gaze. There’s no warmth in his. Nothing to ease the churning inside my gut at what I did to him. The way I let him think I would throw everything we had away like it meant nothing.
I hurt him. I thought I had to. But the second I did it and saw his reaction that night, the doubts started. And they’ve clawed and scratched at me ever since.
“How are Lizzie and Dixie?” I ask, a pathetic part of me needing to know that he’s happy. That they’re all happy and living in the sunshine together in LA. That I made the right choice. Because him hating me would be worth it, knowing that he has that.
“Keep talking!”
The venom in his voice makes the tears welling in my eyes spill over. I wipe them away with the heel of my hand. I can’t cry in front of him. Not when I did this. Ichosethis. I made him look at me in the way he is now—like he despises me.
And I have to live with that decision.
“Brad called over to see me that day I met them at your place,” I confess. “I was thinking about them moving away without you… and I was crying and he… he offered to help me. I knew you’d never leave New York if you knew how much I wanted you to stay.”
“Tell me about the party, Sinclair,” Denver prompts.
I swallow, hating the business-like brusqueness of his voice.
“I asked him to go into my room with me, so you’d find us together. He wasn’t supposed to take his clothes off. He did that himself. Maybe he thought…” I screw my face up, before I continue. “I had a full body support set on beneath that T-shirt. He’d have needed industrial shears to get me out of that thing if he’d dared to try.”
“Support set?” Denver clips.
“Yeah, it’s?—”
“I know what it is,” he grits.
“Oh.”
Silence stretches between us as I soak in every second of having his eyes on mine. Because this might be the last time I ever get to see them, to admire their beauty. To sink into the feeling of safety they’ve given me. Nothing else has ever come close to making me feel that way in years.
“I thought you believed it,” I whisper.
“No.”
That same response of his.
One word. Nothing more. So simple. Straight to the point.
“But you were so angry. You yelled and then you stormed off.”
“Because I knew exactly what you were doing.”
“I…”
“I know you, Sinclair. I know you better than you give me credit for. Tell me, what do you hate people doing for you?”
