“Do you have condoms?” I ask, and he sucks in a breath, twisting beneath me. I lift, giving him space to roll over. He pushes onto his elbows, his blue eyes locked onto mine.
“Do we need them? Are you…have you?” The smile he was wearing a moment ago has vanished, leaving behind a deep frown.
Trepidation twists at my chest. “I’ve been tested since the last guy and I’m negative.”
He looks away from me, his voice a whisper when he speaks again. “You were with someone else?”
I nod, though he’s not looking at me.
“I fooled around with a few people. Hand jobs. A few blow jobs. But no kissing and nothing more.” I press a palm to each of his cheeks and angle his head to look at me. “I was angry and hurt and I tried to go back to the Oliver I was before you. The one who never got attached. Who didn’t fall in love. Easy and casual. No feelings. No commitments.” I hate the hurt on his face. I would never intentionally hurt him, but I thought we were done. I never would have fucked around if I knew the truth. “I thought you had left me. That you were sleeping with him.Youtold me you cheated.”
He rubs at his eyes, shaking his head. “I wasn’t. I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“I know that now. I never wanted to believe that there was someone else. But in the beginning I did – when the anger was so visceral, it was tearing me apart – I believed you. When I saw the wedding invite, I knew we were over.”
“But something changed?” he asks. I drop my hands from his face to his legs.
“Yeah. I watched you marry Floyd, and the whole time something was bothering me. But I told myself it was because it was him up there and not me. And then at Bar La Vella, when I saw you, I knew something wasn’t right. You looked at me that night like you loved me, and you never looked at him like that, not even on your wedding day.”
Darius scoots up onto his knees, so we’re both kneeling on the bed, face to face.
“I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. You are my person, Ollie. The love of my life, but I was given an impossible choice, and I did what I thought was best.”
“I know you did. I just wish you had told me the truth so I could have helped you figure something else out. We could have come up with a plantogether. I wish you had leaned on me, Darius, the way I leaned on you.” I don’t mean for my words to come out the way they do, tinged with an anger he doesn’t deserve, but I am angry – for the time lost, for the hurt, for still not knowing how to move forward.
Darius climbs off the bed and paces the length of the room.
“I have played every scenario over a thousand times. There was only one way my dad and everyone who works for him came out of this okay, and that was by me marrying Floyd.”
Moving so that my legs are over the side of the bed, I grab Darius around the waist and pull him between my legs. His hands land on my shoulder as he looks down at me.
“If I had told you, what would you have done?” he asks.
The question throws me, and I bite my bottom lip, thinking over my answer. On one hand, I know I would have fought him on it, tried desperately to get him to give up on his father. But on the other hand, there was a time in my life when I would have sacrificed so much for my mother or father, even my own happiness.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“And now?”
“He hurt you, D. That’s not okay. None of this is.”
“I know it isn’t, and I’m keeping my distance from him as much as I can. I’ll be okay.”
My hands are on his hip and I squeeze the gentle flesh beneath them, because I need to feel the solidness of him, acknowledge that he’s really here. I also hope my touch conveys how much I want him to give up everything for me. I may never feel like I deserve him, but I’m selfish enough to want all of him.
“If I asked you to leave him, would you?” I ask, already so sure of the answer.
Darius’s eyes are wet when he shakes his head.
“This isn’t menotchoosing you, Ollie. It really isn’t that simple. This is just me choosing to help my dad. I need you to understand that.”
I’m trying, so much so that I hate what I’m about to say, the little jealous monster inside me rearing its head, but I also know it’s the only way he can save his dad while still being mine.
“Okay. We’ll make it work.” I’d tear off little pieces of my soul and throw them into the storm if it meant having Darius in my life. And if I can’t have all of him, I’ll settle for the parts that I can.
“How?”
My stomach sinks at my next words. “You go back to playing happy husbands with Floyd. We’ll see each other whenever wecan. I will love you from the sidelines, Darius, until this is over and then it’s my ring you’ll wear and me you’ll call your husband.”
