I pull my hand away. “That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?” he asks. “If you need more time, tell me that, and I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. All I’m asking for is an answer.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know if I can give you that.”
“I built all this,” he says, gesturing around. “Not for me. Forus.Even if that wasn’t the reason at the time, in the back of my mind, it was there. You were there. You were always there. It was always for you.”
“Fuck, Duke,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. “You can’t build your life around me and then be pissed that I don’t jump to be adopted like a dog at the shelter. I’m a fucking person. I have my own shit going on.”
“I think you’re scared,” he says, leveling me with a look. “You’re running away, like you always did. Like you did with Lo. But it didn’t work that time, so what makes you think it will now?”
“I’m not running away,” I snap, sliding off the stool. “I have a flight to catch. I can’t do this right now.”
“Then when?” he demands. “Tell me when, or tell me never. I deserve that much.”
“You can’t just spring this on a guy out of nowhere,” I say. “I didn’t know any of this shit, and you show up after five years making demands? Hell, we’re here right now by accident. If we hadn’t run into each other last night, would you have waited ten years? Twenty? Holding onto the past because you’re too scared to move on with your life? If that’s how it is, then you’re right. I’m leaving because this won’t work, just like it didn’t work with Lo or anyone else. But maybe it’s better to walk away than to keep holding onto something that will never work.”
“You’re not scared that it won’t work,” he says evenly. “You’re scared that it will.”
“Clearly, it won’t,” I say. “So there’s nothing to be scared of. I have to go get my shit and get on a plane. If you want to call that running, do it. Do whatever makes you happy. That’s what you deserve.”
“You can’t run forever,” he warns as I start for the door. “You can try, but eventually, your shit catches up to you. Even if I can’t, you’ll catch up with yourself.”
I stop at the door and look back at him one more time. I hate that I’m leaving like this, but at least he’s pissed instead of sad. That’s something. I grip the knob, halfway expecting him to get up off the barstool and stop me. But he doesn’t move.
“Goodbye, Duke.”
“Fuck you.”
“Okay,” I say, shaking my head. “I guess you haven’t changed that much after all.”
I walk out, and I get in the elevator. I imagine him racing me down the stairs, that he’ll be waiting at the bottom when I get there. But he’s not.
It should make me happy, that he’s not chasing after me the way he used to. He let me go. Lo always said if you love someone, you let them go, and I guess she was right.
So, I go.
eight
Duke Dolce
I should be happy. I keep telling myself that. I’ve been holding onto Colt in my head all this time, but it was just a fantasy. Like he said, I couldn’t let go of the past. Now I have what I wanted—if not Colt, then at least closure.
Now I can let it go and move on into the future and whatever that holds.
I can, but I don’t want to. It doesn’t make sense to leave something perfect in the past just because we met when we were too young, too dumb, too self-destructive to make it work. That doesn’t mean it isn’t right. Maybe it wasn’t then, but that doesn’t mean it’s not now.
Not everyone has to be the one forever. Not everyone has to fall in love at first sight. Some people fall in hate first. Some people try their best to destroy each other, and when they can’t, and the war is over, and the dust has settled, and they’re the only two soldiers left on the battlefield, they realize that it’s for a reason. That the only person tough enough to endure each of them is the other.
Sometimes, it’s not the right time when you meet, but later it is. Sometimes, you cross paths at just the right moment, the moment where everything can change if you don’t let the mistakes of the past or fears of the future trip you up. Sometimes, you have to be brave enough to take the opportunity, to see the reason the lesson keeps showing up again and again.
And it will keep showing up. Colt’s sister is married to my brother. His brother is married to my sister. We’ll see each other again.
But I can’t count on that being the right time. One or both of us might be with someone else by then. Life—and death—sometimes happens when we least expect it. I can’t know for certain what the future will hold. I only know what today does. Life is not guaranteed. That’s the lesson I learned when I was shot, the one that turned my whole life around.
Maybe it’s time I turned it around again, or the next time the lesson of Colt shows up, it might be a lot more brutal.
It might be a lesson about taking the chance before it’s too late, about what happens if you don’t act when the perfect person steps into your life like a fucking Christmas miracle. Because out of all the people, in all the places, I had to run into Colt fucking Darling at the Christmas market in New York City. I don’t have to be a gambling man to know the chances are probably less than one in a million.
