Page 8 of Sapphire Storm

When Roman started crying, Ethan’s suspicions wereconfirmed.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he was speeding away fromEthan and toward one of the nightstands in the adjacent room. With one hand, heopened the top drawer. With the other, he grabbed a tissue to wipe the icingoff his finger and chest. The tank top he pulled from the nightstand was soskintight it was like he’d dressed by wrapping himself in a strand of toiletpaper. In any other context, Ethan would have chuckled at the meaninglesstransition.

Slightly less shirtless now, the young man whose life he’dapparently ruined started for him across the plush carpet. “She was crying fora month every night before bed. I didn’t know why. I thought she was sick. Orhewas sick, and that’s why he was never home. It turned out she had a file. She’dhired a private investigator to follow you two and take a bunch of pictures. Itwas her bedtime reading.

“Then, one weekend, she knew he’d lied to her again aboutstaying late at work. So she got me dressed and we took the train into the city,and that’s where we found you guys making out on a street corner. I was sevenyears old. And suddenly I’ve gone from a private school in Scarsdale to apublic school in Victorville, California, where the first words I hear are‘What’s up with that hair, faggot?’ But hey, at least I learned to fight,right? And it was all because you thought you were young and hot enough tosteal a married man from his family.”

Ethan did his best to look the young man straight in theeye. “That isnotwhat I thought,” he said quietly. “I didn’t knowabout either of you.”

“Then how’d you know I was born Ronnie Burton?”

“Hetold me your name that nightafter you and your mom ran off. He had a total meltdown. We never saw eachother again.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “His choice or yours?”

“It was mutual.”

“Oh,bullshit. I mean, you neversuspected?He’s taking the train in from the ’burbs? Henever once brings you back to his place?”

Oh, if only you knew the half of it, kid,he thought.“I assureyou,I did not know he was married, and Idid not know he had a child.”

“Liar,” the guy snarled.

“Even so, I owe you an apology and I owe your mother anapology. And I’m sorry that I never—”

“It’s too late!” Roman barked. “She’sfuckingdead, okay? She worked herself to the bone taking care of me after thedivorce and now she’s gone. I’d give you directions to the cemetery, but Idon’t think she wants some dumbslutwho wrecked hermarriage walking back and forth over her grave.” His last words were mangled bya sob that had swelled in his throat.

The young man’s slurs didn’t anger Ethan, and seeing thisfact seemed to upset him further. Rather, they made clear the depth of histerrible pain, the pain he’d been in for years after watching his father Frenchkiss another man on aNew York City streetcornerwhile his mother clutched his little hand and stuttered with sobs.

Seven.

Lord.

He’d always hoped the boy had been younger, too young tounderstand what he’d seen, and maybe blessed with a mother who’d tried toexplain it away. After all, no words had been exchanged during that moment.Just terrible prolonged eye contact followed by a mother and son’s suddenflight down the crowded sidewalk.

But seven seemed just old enough, the age at which a tenderyoung mind could be imprinted and forever scarred.

He’d taken plenty of risks in his life. And what he plannedto do next might be his most reckless decision of all. But Roman’s pitiful sobsmade it impossible to stay silent. The young man looked more wounded than hehad on that long-ago night. Because now he was old enough to understand whathe’d seen.

Or so Roman Walker, formerly Ronnie Burton, thought.

That gave Ethan only one choice—to tell the truth, the wholetruth.

Nothing else in this moment would lessen Roman Walker’spain.

“Three times a month, your father would send me an emailwith instructions on where and when to meet him in the city. We’d have aromantic dinner together, then for a couple hours we’d walk around Chelsea orthe West Village hand in hand so he could pretend to be the out and proud gayman he didn’t have the courage to be. And yes, we would end the night togetherin a hotel room in bed. And in exchange for this service, he paid me threehundred dollars an hour. He knew me as Michael because that was the name I usedwithall ofmy clients. And that’s what your fatherwas. A client. I wasn’t his boyfriend, Roman. I was his escort.”

Only once the words had left his mouth did the sheerstupidity of what he’d done wash over him. There were only a few people in hislife who knew how he’d earned a living during those first four years after hisparents cut him off for being gay—if you didn’t count his former clients. Nowthere was another one, and this one hated his guts. But as the confession hadleft him, he hadn’t seen Roman Walker standing before him. He’d seen RonnieBurton, a heartbroken little boy desperate for relief from the past.

Now, Ronnie’s grown-up alter ego was wide-eyed, silent,frozen, as if he’d been emptied of all feeling and left dazed. The narrativeshe’d composed about that long-ago night had instantly been rewritten in alanguage he was struggling to understand.

Or maybe he understood the accurate and complete version alltoo well. He was working as a live-in trainer to a much older woman, after all.

“I’m not telling you this to defend myself,” Ethancontinued. “I’m telling you this because if you’ve tortured yourself for yearsthinking that he and I would lie in bed together talking about how he could getaway from you two, I’m telling you right now, it didn’t go down that way. Yourmother wasn’t the problem, and you weren’t the problem. The problem was thatyour father couldn’t accept who he really was. And what I gave him was afantasy of freedom. A fantasy he wrote for us every time we saw each other. Afantasy he paid for. And no part of that fantasy included me asking him toabandon his wife and child.”

The silence felt like it might never end.

Finally, Roman looked to the floor between them. “Don’t tryto be the dad I never had just ’causeyou fuckedmine,” he finally muttered.

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