"What about Dante? Carter? Who else was there?" he asks.
"You don't have the right to know. I kept my life as private as I could. Youflauntedyours. You knew I'd see, but you either didn't care, or you did it on purpose to hurt me. Which was it?" I yell.
"Depended on the day. Some days I wanted you to hurt like I did. Some days I didn't want to think of you at all. It was easier to not think of you. But that didn't work out so well," he admits.
"Yeah. Imagine that. It went both ways, Xan. I didn't purposefully pose with Dante for photos. They were at my shows. I can't control which photos the press chooses to release."
"But you were fucking him."
"I was."
"How long?"
I lift a shoulder. "Six months?"
"Fuck me. Six months. Is it serious?"
"No. Itwasn't. I'm not seeing him anymore, and I know you don't want to know this, but when I was with Dante, it was good for me. Not the fucking part, though that did heal a part of me, too. He's a good guy. He knew everything about you and me and never once did he expect more than no-strings. He knew it was going nowhere," I answer.
He nods and swallows hard. "Hearing that you really did fuck him—that sucks so bad."
"As opposed to seeing it?" I bite back.
He winces then nods. "You're right."
"AndI didn't fuck fifty different people in the last few years."
"It wasn't anywhere near fifty," he replies, then realizes what he's said.
"Forty-nine?"
He scowls. "I don't know."
"Not so nice, right?"
"No, not so nice." He stands up, running his fingers through his long dark curls and then he tugs. "Fuck. How did everything get so screwed up, T?"
He paces the floor, and I sit in the rocking chair.
"Tera," he says, drawing in my attention. "I'm sorry. For all of that. For not being there. For hurting you. For not understanding what you needed when you needed it even though you told me time and time again."
"Wait. Stop." I tell him, knowing I need to address more than just Xan. "I need to say something, but I need to say it to all of you at once."
"Everyone is at the house. Let me call Jesse."
Jesse gets everyone into one room, and I let out a steadying breath.
"Guys."
"Tera!" they all greet.
"Uh, dudes. Not the time for that," Xan informs them. "She's got something to say to all of us.
"Okay," Jesse replies. "We're listening."
"This is going to be loud, and it might be ugly, but I need to get this out," I warn.
"Okay," echoes back to me through the phone.
