“Why? You don’t owe me an explanation about your private life, Isha. How many times have you told me to mind my damn business?”
I didn’t mean it, though. And with a start, I realised that I hadn’t. That I’d wanted Dom to know all along, but somehow found myself unable to tell him.
Dom put his arm around me and drew me out of the room. He sat me on the stairs and claimed the space beside me. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I have a clue what’s been going on with you these last few months, but I understand why you never told anyone you were queer. I’ve been there, remember? I could’ve told you I was gay years ago, but I didn’t. And look where it got me.”
I shook my head. “It’s not the same. You were a scared kid, and then you were in a position where you’d lose your whole life if it came out. It wasn’t like that for me, at least, not these last few years.”
“Mina knows, doesn’t she?”
“Always has. I only told her about Jude yesterday, though.”
“Makes sense. You two are so fucking close.”
“Not so much anymore, but yeah. She was my wife. I never lied to her about being bisexual.” Dom’s gaze flickered and I realised I’d answered his next question—was I bi? Or had my marriage been a sham? “Seriously. Me and Mina are good.”
“What about you and Jude? He was already on the ground by the time I even knew he was here, but Lucky told me you were fighting.”
“We weren’t fighting. He was calling me out for being a dick, and I was…well, being a dick.”
“In what sense?”
I shrugged. “All senses, I guess. I’d already pissed him off before yesterday, and then I walked in on him here…I didn’t know he was friends with Rae. It caught me off guard.”
“Rae’s never mentioned him either, if it’s any consolation. I think it’s a sab thing—him and Cash are so cagey about shit like that, even with us.”
It made sense. But Jude had known the connection between Rae and me, and he hadn’t said a word. I tried to recall the reasoning he’d yelled in my face before he’d gone down, but couldn’t. And I didn’t care. I didn’t know Jude half as well as I wanted to, but I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t a deceitful piece of shit. Or a liar. Whatever his reasons, they were enough for me.
“How did you meet him?”
“Hmm?” Somehow, I’d forgotten Dom was there. “Oh, at the pet shop you sent me to for Tam’s birthday, and then later, er, on Grindr. I approached him without realising it was the same bloke.”
“Awkward.”
“It should’ve been.”
“But?”
“It wasn’t. For a while, it all worked out, but I was doing it all wrong, you know? Sleeping with him like a hook up, then letting the kids get close to him without telling him how much it fucking meant to me. I treated him like shit.”
Dom drummed his fingers on his knees. “Maybe, but you can put it right. If he cared enough to chase you out onto the street, then he’ll care enough to listen. Cash told me he’s more into his animals than people.”
A quiet laugh escaped me. How many times had Jude said the very same thing? “I need to go. Are you sure it’s all right for the kids to be here until Mina comes?”
“Of course. You know I’d guard them with my life, and Cash is apparently the child whisperer anyway, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Dom stood and hauled me to my feet. He wrapped his arms around me in a bro hug before giving me a soft shake and pressing a phone into my hand. “We can talk more about this another time, but I want you to know that we don’t have to. I don’t need to understand everything about you to have your back, you get me?”
I could only nod. I’d been Dom’s wing man for so long I’d forgotten that there was a place for him as mine too. A place I’d never let him fill. “Call you later?”
“Anytime.”
We knocked our heads together and I left, the pull to be with my kids scraping fresh wounds on my heart. But the pain was eased by the knowledge that they were safe with my friends, and that they always had been.
Twenty-Three
Jude
I sat on the edge of the bed, ignoring the nurse as she bustled about. She said words, but I barely heard them over the buzzing pain in my head. Also, I couldn’t feel my feet, a sure sign that I’d had a shed load of lorazepam pumped into my system.Super. Distantly, I knew I’d had a seizure, a big one, but I was too tired to contemplate the details. I just wanted to go home.
The nurse said something.
