Well, shit. Selena hadn’t just accepted my bisexuality—she’dlovedit. There’d even been times it had felt close to a fetish—times it had made me uncomfortable and even worried me—but I’d brushed it off. I’d had a string of exes who’d thought I couldn’t be trusted because I was bi, so her enthusiasm about being with a bi man had been the opposite extreme. Maybe I should’ve trusted my gut after all.
Maybe I didn’t know a goddamned thing anymore. Least of all the woman I was supposed to marry in…
I closed my eyes. Twelve days. We were tying the knot in twelve days. The whole thing was paid for. People were coming in from out of town. Hell, we’d just signed a one-year lease on the house we were renting. The very near future had multiple tentacles wrapped around me, dragging me forward and offering no easy way out.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I don’t… I don’t even know where to start.” I let my hand fall to the table and met Jesse’s gaze. “The vendor deposits aren’t refundable. And we spent so goddamned much, I don’t know how I’ll rent a place, and…” I swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea. “All the money I’ll lose by canceling this wedding seriously sounds like theleastpainful part. But I don’t even know…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “Christ…”
Jesse tapped his thumb against the side of his phone as he watched me silently. Then, “I have a spare room.”
I straightened. “What?”
He shrugged, some color blooming in his otherwise pale face. “Look, I feel terrible about?—”
“None of this is your fault. If anything, you’re doing me a solid by telling me.”
“Still. Even though I had no idea she was cheating on you, I feel like shit about it.” Another shrug. “Let me at least make it up to you by helping you get out of there.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Some part of me still wanted to be angry with him for all of this even while I believed he hadn’t known. He’d had the same wool pulled over his eyes that I had. But still—this man had been carrying on an affair with my fiancée. He’d beensleeping withmy fiancée.
The thought made my insides shrivel, but the anger still refused to bubble up. I mean, it was there. Not far beneath the surface was table-flipping rage. But I was still so numb in some ways and devastated in others that I couldn’t reach that rage.
And even if I could, I couldn’t justify aiming any of it at him. Especially now that he was trying to help in ways he had no obligation to do.
Plus, was I really in a position to turn down his offer? Once I pulled the trigger on canceling my wedding and leaving Selena, I was going to be out a shitload of moneyandI’d need a place to live.
My shoulders sagged as I said, “I don’t know how much I can offer for rent. Not until I see how things shake out with… God, with everything.”
Jesse waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it. We can figure something out if it turns into a long-term situation, but in the short-term, I’m happy with just knowing I’m helping you leave her.” He chanced a sly, if tired, grin. “Thefuck-youwill be payment enough.”
I managed a halfhearted laugh.
“I’m serious, though,” he continued. “Even though I didn’t know, you wouldn’t be getting the rug yanked out from under you right now if I hadn’t started dating her.”
I winced. “Something tells me if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been someone else sooner or later.”
“Maybe. But it is me. So… at least let me help.” His eyes pleaded with me to take him up on the offer. Maybe that was what he needed to soothe his conscience. Or maybe he really was itching for that extrafuck-youto Selena.
Either way, I wasn’t in much of a position to turn down a place to live temporarily while I got my feet back under me.
Exhaling, I nodded. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Thanks. I… still need to figure out logistics, but… thanks.”
And for the first time since he’d walked into the coffee shop, Jesse smiled.
CHAPTER 2
JESSE
The face-to-face with Eric went a million times better than I’d anticipated. In the days and hours leading up to it, I’d envisioned plenty of ways it could’ve gone badly. Though Eric had been mellow the two times I’d met him before—dinner with him and Selena, followed by the threesome—there’d been no telling how he’d react to the news I was breaking. Tear into me verbally until his voice gave out? Throw a punch? Tear into me andthenthrow that punch?
Anything was possible, and could I blame him? I wasn’t so sure how rational I’d be if the roles had been reversed. I wasn’t a violent man by any means, but I could see losing my shit if some guy sat me down and told me he’d been seeing my partner. Especially since I hadn’t just been telling Eric,“Yo, I slept with her one night.”Selena and I had carried on a whole relationship. The sex wasn’t even the half of it; we’d had a full-blown affair.
But Eric had just quietly listened to me break the news. He’d looked over the screenshots with the most unreadable expression I’d ever seen. I’d kind of wanted to goad him into crashing out because watching him quietly absorb it all had beenkilling me. I felt awful aboutallof it, and it didn’t matter that I hadn’t known I was her sidepiece.
Just yell at me or something, man. Throw your coffee in my face. Do… dosomething!
He hadn’t, though, and our conversation had been so quiet and civil, I doubted anyone else in that shop had a clue I’d been kicking the foundation out from under his world.
Now, hours later, as I milled around my condo and waited for a text from him, I had a feeling some of his subdued reaction had just been shock. Here he was, less than two weeks before his wedding, finding out that his bride had another man. I couldn’t imagine that degree of upheaval—emotionalorlogistical. He’d jumped right ahead to trying to figure out his next move as far as canceling the wedding and finding a place to live, and I’d have bet money that was a way of pulling his own focus away from his emotions.
