Zac stands, moving in front of me. “I’m not asking you to shout it from the rooftops. I get it. It took me a year to gather the courage to tell my parents.”
I huff out a humourless laugh and shake my head. “You don’t understand, Zac. This isn’t about finding the courage to tell my family. Ican’ttell them. This is as good as it gets for me. Sneaking around behind closed doors while I’m in a fake relationship with a woman. That’s my life.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that forever,” he insists. “When I told my parents, they were shocked, but?—”
“I’m glad your parents were supportive,” I cut him off, “but that’s not on the cards for me.”
He cups my face, his thumb stroking my cheek as he stares into my eyes. “Noah?—”
I lean into his touch and release a heavy sigh. “I want you, Zac, but I can’t be with you in public. You have no idea what my father’s capable of.”
His eyes widen. “He knows?”
“He suspects. That’s why this thing with Hannah started. He’s dangerous, and I can’t put anyone else on his radar. Dad needs to believe that Hannah and I are serious.It’s how my life will always be. There’s no getting around it.”
“What do you mean?”
I glance at the clock beside my bed. I only have ten minutes before my first lecture, and I live twenty-minutes from campus.
“Don’t you have class?”
Zac shakes his head. “Fuck class. What’s happening with you is more important, right now.”
My chest tightens. All I’ve ever wanted is someone to put me first.
We get comfortable, propped up against the pillows.
“Your dad’s pretty intense,” he says, giving me an opening.
I snort. “That’s putting it lightly. He’s an arsehole, plain and simple. It’s his way or the highway, no in-between.”
“Is he violent?” I know he’s thinking about what he saw in the car park after the game against Macquarie.
“He’s forceful, but not violent. He’s only ever hit me that once. I think he knows I’d hit him back.” Or at least, I’d like to think I would. It was so unexpected that night that I froze. “But it’s not violence you have to worry about with my father. He’s a very powerful man with a lot of contacts. He doesn’t need to worry about getting his hands dirty.”
My stomach clenches. This is why being involved with me is dangerous. I can’t risk ruining Zac’s life.
“I’m not scared of him, Noah. If you want to do this, I’m all in. We’ll figure it out.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that easy. Remember you asked me about Nathan?”
He nods.
“Nathan wasn’t just a friend. He was my boyfriend. We started hooking up in high school, and it heated up evenmore when we went backpacking around Europe together in our gap year. It continued into our time at Perth University, even though we knew what might happen if we were found out. We kept it secret for three and a half years, but we slipped up.” My voice breaks as the memory of what happened almost two years ago hits me in the chest.
Zac’s hand finds mine, and he squeezes.
“To the world, we were best mates. We did everything together. He came on family holidays with us. Dad treated him like a second son. He had no idea what we were getting up to behind his back, right under his nose.”
My throat clogs with emotion, and I swallow, trying to clear it.
“Nathan was studying law. Dad loved that. He had plans for both of us in the family business. We knew what we were doing was risky, because he’d never approve if he found out about us, but with all Dad’s plans for our future, we figured we could just keep our relationship behind closed doors and everything would be fine.”
It had all seemed so simple in our minds. We didn’t need to go public. No one needed to know.
“What happened?”
“I had an away game. Dad was on a business trip, so Nathan drove down to surprise me. I paid the teammate I was rooming with two hundred dollars to find somewhere else to sleep for the night. It backfired. He saw an opportunity and ran with it. The next day, he waited outside my room and took photos of Nathan leaving. It was early, and we didn’t think anyone would be awake, so I let him kiss me. My teammate struck gold. He blackmailed me for months, but eventually, his demands were too great for me to meet without raising suspicion. I refused to pay.”
