I didn’t even know what to say to that. I was halfway in shock.
He’d said it, and he was looking me right in the eyes when he did.
But he definitely didn’t sayI love you.
“And all I can see is you hurting us,” he went on. “And there’s no way I’m gonna let that happen.”
“I wouldn’t—”
He pressed his thumb to my lips, not gently, silencing me.
“We agreed,” he said.
Yeah. We agreed.
We agreed not to get involved. Me, him, Xander and Summer; we’d all agreed we wouldn’t get involved with anyone else in the band. But that was before I’d spent more than a few hours in Ash’s presence.
And he was right. There was a thing.
We were involved.
I grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand out of my face, but I didn’t let go.
“Then why did you even let me in the door? Why do you let me sleep in your room and crash on your bus and sit next to you all the time? Why do you look at me the way you do?”
And why won’t you say you love me?
“I shouldn’t have. I can see that now.”
“Why?”
He glanced at my hand, which was still gripping his wrist.
Then he looked in my eyes again. “Why doesn’t anyone know you like men?”
I let go of him. “What?”
“How come no one knows?” He studied me carefully. “You’re in the closet or something? You like fucking guys and hanging around with a married couple, crashing in our hotel room, but you slip out in the night because you don’t want anyone to know?”
It took me a long moment to gather a response to that. Because that was a fucking vicious curve ball out of nowhere.
Where the hell was this coming from?
“I didn’t thinkyou’dwant anyone to know. You’re newly married. I was trying to be respectful.”
“Yeah? And what if I’m fine with the whole world knowing I’ve got two lovers?”
“Then that’s your prerogative.”
“And if that was the case,” he said, “and I let it be known, what would you have to say about it? ‘No, I’m not with them, it’s not like that’? Because you’d prefer it to be a dirty little secret? Because you don’t want your daddy to find out you like it both ways or something?”
I could feel the heat creeping up in me. The humiliation. Like he was ripping me open, and all my darkest shit was spewing out all over the place. I was fucking embarrassed.
I was stunned.
I’d never had my ass served to me quite like that by someone I loved.
“I never said that,” I said tightly.
