I stood there until it started to run cold, then got out. I dried off, wrapped the towel around my waist, and retrieved my phone from my jeans pocket. My thumbs flew across the screen.
Wesley
That was close. You okay?
Griffin
Yeah. Holloway suspects, though.
Suspects. The word made my stomach drop further.
Wesley
Shit. Did you deny it?
Griffin
I couldn’t even get the denial out convincingly. He said he’s noticed how I look at you. If Holloway sees it, who else does?
I sat on the edge of the bathtub, phone clutched in my hand, and felt the panic trying to claw its way up my throat.
He’s noticed how I look at you.
Who else also noticed? How many people were already connecting dots, already wondering, already one observant moment away from figuring out that Griffin Lapierre and his PR manager were involved?
My phone felt heavy in my hand. I needed to respond. Needed to say something reassuring, something that would calm Griffin down when I could hear his panic even through text.
But all I could think about was Nashville.
The memory hit me without warning, sharp and visceral. Charles and me at his house in Nashville, the one he’d bought after getting the broadcasting job. A year ago, late afternoon on a rare day off.
We’d been together for almost three years—secretly, carefully, or so we’d thought.
We’d been on his couch, Charles’s hand on my thigh, my head on his shoulder. Not doing anything explicit, but close enough that anyone walking in would know immediately what we were to each other.
His father—who had a key for emergencies and a habit of dropping by unannounced—had let himself in without calling first.
We’d heard the door open in time. Barely. Charles had shoved me away so hard I’d nearly fallen off the couch, and by the time his father rounded the corner into the livingroom, we were on opposite ends of the sofa, a prudent three feet separating us.
His father had looked between us, suspicion clear in his eyes, but he hadn’t said anything. Just made an excuse about forgetting something, grabbed it from the kitchen, and left.
Charles had been furious. Not at his father, but at me.
“We can’t do that anymore,” he’d said, pacing his living room like a caged animal. “No touching when we’re anywhere someone could walk in. No staying over when my dad might stop by. We need to be more careful.”
“We were being careful,” I’d argued. “He has a key. How were we supposed to?—”
“I don’t care.” Charles’s voice had been sharp, scared in a way I’d never heard before. “We can’t get caught, Wesley. My father—he’d disown me. I’d lose my entire family. My mother. My sisters. My grandmother.” He’d shaken his head. “Or worse, my father would force conversion therapy on me.”
That was the beginning of the end, though I hadn’t recognized it at the time. The fear that one close call had planted in Charles had grown and metastasized until it poisoned everything between us. Every time we were together after that, he was paranoid. Constantly looking over his shoulder. Pulling away from any affection, even in private, like someone might be watching through the walls.
The relationship had lasted another three months, but it was hollow. Charles had already chosen his father over me—over us—that day. I just hadn’t wanted to see it.
And when the relationship finally imploded, when his father found out from a snooping parishioner, Charles had blamed me. Like I’d been the one who’d gotten sloppy, who’d risked everything, who’d destroyed his perfect closeted life.
I looked at my phone, at Griffin’s text about Hollowaynoticing how he looked at me, and felt the pattern clicking into place with sickening clarity.
This was how it started. The close call. The fear. The paranoia that someone knew, or even suspected, could destroy everything just as quickly as being caught.
