Page 7 of Forever Not Yours

“Please.” He sat up and grasped for my hands. I thought about dodging out of his way, but in the end, he won, and I dropped my arse down onto the bed and let him shuffle around until he was comfortable. Freshly showered, his bare, gorgeous chest was less sweaty now, his wet hair dripping onto his shoulders, his cool, slender fingers cradling my hands. I broke loose and rubbed that annoying streak of moisturiser into his cheek. What the fuck was I doing?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“For what?”Damn it, Bastien. Stop it.“I’m the one who should apologise. I think I did stupid stuff again.”

I shook my head. What was I supposed to say? He couldn’t even have told me which ‘stupid stuff’ he was apologising for. The drinking? The girls? The whole clusterfuck of an evening? Or the fact that he’d kissed me and then joked about it? Like. Fuck.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.” Absolutely not.

“Why have we never talked about this? I mean, it’s…”

Good opener. I had no idea where he was going with this. Well, I did, but I was still going to pretend I didn’t.Go to sleep, Bastien.

He was looking up at me like he was the sensible one and I was the nutter. I didn’t mean that in a horrible way, but those were the roles assigned. The ones we always played.

“Why are you marrying Juliet?” I countered. Yeah. I was not thinking clearly and once again letting my feelings take over, on a straight path to turning this weekend into even more of a disaster than it already was. How much worse could it get?

“Because she’s decent and nice and funny and looks after me.”

Oh, Bastien.

He laughed. “I’m marrying her because I love her. What the fuck, man?”

I swallowed my tongue. Looked at my hands.

I was not a good person. Not right now. Right now, I was as bad as all those people downstairs who I claimed to despise. I was rude and despicable in every possibleway.

“Jakey,” he sang, off-key, and grabbed my hands again, gently squeezing them. “Do you honestly think I’ve ever cared that you’re into blokes?”

Okay. Gut punch. He knew, of course he did. And he was right; it was something we’d never talked about. We talked about work and sport and politics and the state of the financial industry. We talked about clients and injuries and our families and…Juliet.

We did not talk about…that.

“Can we not?” I tried to withdraw, but he wouldn’t let me and grabbed my wrists, placing my hands firmly back between us, his thumbs stroking mine.

“I think…we need to. I mean. Yes. This weekend has been a mess, but, Jake, you kissed me.”

“You kissed me back!” I retaliated. “And you don’t love Juliet. You’re making a massive mistake.”

Hello, Jacob. Aged almost thirty. Throwing a tantrum like a child.

“You don’t know that. How can you? Jake, you’ve never loved anyone. Never had an official relationship. Never even tried. Those hook-up apps are not real life. You don’t flirt with girls. Not with boys either for that matter. You work, and then you work some more.I assume you still hook up with randoms when the urge comes, because that’s what people do—I see the apps on your phone—and you conveniently become besties with all my girlfriends. It’s not like I don’t know what you’re playing at.”

“I’m notbestieswith all your girlfriends,” I argued, sounding more like a stroppy teenager now. Yeah. I rolled my eyes as well, but the dark cloud in my stomach just grew and grew. I didn’t want to talk about this. That kiss had been a massive mistake, and now I was reliving it, over and over again, while Bastien just sat there stroking my hands and smiling. A small curious smile.

“You text Juliet every day. She texts you good night. She never texts me goodnight.”

Fuck you, Bastien.

Still, I had to smile. He did this. I couldn’t explain it. He was chaos personified, mess on a plate, wild and wacky, yet he would sit with me like this, tracing light circles on my palms with his fingertips, and I would melt into this puddle of anxious, weird…calm. Like as long as we both sat here, all would be well.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” I admitted. “I have no idea what came over me.”

“You’re a gay man. I’m a handsome bastard.”

Very him. I reluctantly laughed.

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