Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 88656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“What? They don’t even know anything about us. Except for Jennifer. I’m pretty sure she knows.”
Kage squeezed the back of my neck hard enough to make me wince and guided me up the steps of the gazebo. “Dammit Jamie, how can you be a senior in college and still be so clueless?”
“What do you mean? They don’t know anything. How could they?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re more perceptive than you are.”
“You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”
“Well, you don’t have to hide under a fucking rock, either. Or technically I guess it’s me you’re trying to hide. But guess what? I’m here. I’m right fucking here, standing beside you at your parents’ house, trying to support you.” He tried to run his hand through his hair and met resistance when his fingers hit the topknot. “Fuck,” he growled and ripped the elastic band out of his hair and threw it on the gazebo floor. “I don’t know what I have to do for you. I gave you a job, flew you out to Vegas, gave you the best home I could, fed you, trained you, fucked you, fought for you… and still you won’t have me.”
His voice wavered on the last part, and it broke my heart to hear him sound so rejected. I’d done that to him.
Tears welled up in my eyes, spilled out onto my cheeks, and I wiped them away with the back of my forearm. His words had really struck home. I hadn’t been able to see things from his point of view, or maybe I hadn’t wanted to, but now he’d held a mirror up to my face, and what I saw there was ugly.
I thought back to every positive step he and I had taken toward declaring ourselves a legitimate couple: kissing in front of the lady hotel clerk on our road trip, confiding in Steve at the Alcazar, sharing a slice of wedding cake in front of Enzo, allowing his psychiatrist to see us together, and coming to visit my family together. It had all been Kage. Every bit of it. I was the one who had resisted, hidden, shied away, gotten embarrassed, and even lied to keep our relationship a secret.
Kage had never once denied me to anyone. He had stepped up and claimed me even when doing so posed a threat to his future— the one goal he’d had since he was a child.
I remembered his words from the afternoon we got back from the road trip, when he’d asked me to go to my apartment and think things through.
I’m the one with something to lose here.
At the time, I had assumed he meant his career. But it wasn’t that simple.
I don’t give a fuck. I can touch his face if I want. Fuck the cameras. Fuck my uncle, fuck the public...
Self-revulsion roiled the too-still waters of my soul and opened my eyes to the truth. All along, Kage had been trying to come out of the closet, and I was the one pushing him back in. He’d taken a chance on me, trusted me, shown me his weakness, and I’d thrown it right back in his face.
“Kage…” I reached out for him, but he backed away.
“I’m not feeling it right now, Jamie.” He looked around us, at the twinkling lights of the gazebo, my parents’ house, the nighttime sky. “To be honest, I’m feeling pretty out of place here. This wasn’t a good idea. I should have just bought you a plane ticket and let you come alone.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. I want you here.” I put out my hand and stepped toward him, but he backed away again. I felt like I was trying to tame a wild mustang. He was one step ahead and just out of reach, and any sudden move might make him bolt.
He let out a harsh laugh. “You don’t want me anywhere except the bedroom.”
That one burned like hell going down.
“That’s not true.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” he railed. “I told you not to lie to me again.”
“Please, Kage. Let’s talk about this tomorrow. Let’s just go to bed and reset, and then we can work everything out tomorrow.”
“Yeah? You want to go to bed, Jamie? Is that what you want? Because I don’t have a fucking bed. I get to sleep on the fucking couch. Is that where you want me? On the fucking couch? That cunt gets a bed, and I get the fucking couch?”
“Kage—” I choked out his name on a sob, and that’s as far as I got. Because I looked into his eyes, and what I saw there dried the words right up in my throat. It was worse than the conversation over dinner when he told me he was bad, even worse than the fight, when I’d seen him knock that guy unconscious with no remorse.