Page 82 of Twice Shy

Chapter Twenty-one

Ollie didn’t want Nia to see him crying, so he sat in the car outside his apartment for several minutes before he went inside. He wiped his eyes, dried his face, slapped his cheeks to snap himself out of the dark mood threatening to overwhelm him.

Luca had told him to fuck off.

Joel thought he was a lying cheat.

Of the two, Joel’s betrayal hurt the worst. Joelknewhim. Ollie had thought they were friends. More than friends, he’d thought they had potential to become…

Well. He’d been wrong. The last thing he needed in his life was a guy who thought he was fickle and untrustworthy. He’d had to endure those kinds of accusations in court, he didn’t have to put up with them anywhere else.

Not that his righteous anger helped ease the gaping hole in his chest. Only now, when it was over, did he realize how central Joel had become to his hopes for the future. And with that gone, he didn’t know where to look for courage in a life that was crashing down around his ears. A week ago—just last Saturday—he’d fallen asleep in Joel’s arms imagining a future where Joel could be his boyfriend, where Luca and Theo could be his brothers, and uncles to the boys. Then, his worst troubles had been funding a replacement car and coping with Luis’s teething.

In retrospect, last week felt like a halcyon past. Now, he saw it for what it had been: the universe teasing him with hope before pulling the rug out from beneath his feet with the same callous cruelty it had shown when it snatched Jules away.

Luck, good fortune, happiness: none of those were real. Life was shit, but it could always get worse. And when it did, disaster struck from a clear blue sky leaving you sprawling.

Time to pick himself up. Again. Only this time, it was worse. He’d had a taste of partnership, and that hope, dashed, made it a hundred times harder to return to his lonely life as a single parent.

And it had been lonely. Itwaslonely. Because he was alone.

Alone in a car that didn’t belong to him, a car he couldn’t use after today. Even if Joel let him—and why would he, thinking what he thought?—Ollie couldn’t bear it. Hard enough to take charity from a friend; he refused to take it from a man who thought so little of him.

But without the car he’d lose his job and without his job he’d lose the apartment. He was out of options and out of hope. No Joel, no Luca. His reasons for staying in New Milton were evaporating, the new life he’d dreamed lay in ruins, and only one viable alternative remained: go back to Woodbury and move in with the Palmers. Perhaps it’s what he should have done all along. Maybe he could find a way to go back to school and finish his master’s. The thought of giving up his life with the boys pierced him, but everything was folding in on itself and he was struggling to see another way through.

He stared at himself in the rearview mirror, face drawn, lips thin. With effort, he made his mouth smile. Whatever happened, he had to hide his turmoil from the boys. They couldn’t know how he felt, or what he was thinking about doing. Not now, not right before Christmas.

Climbing out of the car was an act of will and glimpsing the kids’ seats in the backseat made his spirits sink further; they’d have to come out before he returned it to Joel. He let himself into the apartment quietly and climbed the stairs to find Nia curled up on the sofa watching TV.

She looked up, surprised to see him. “You’re back early.”

“Yeah.” He forced the mask of his face to smile. “Everything okay here?”

Everything was fine, and he let Nia go home, paying her the full amount even though he’d come home early. The strain of showing a happy face while everything was falling apart killed him, and he slumped in relief when she left and he was finally alone.

Mechanically, he pulled out his bed, undressed and brushed his teeth. His phone lay on the table next to the bed, the screen dark. He looked at it for a while, wondering whether Joel would message or call, wondering whether he wanted to talk to him. In the end, he decided that he didn’t. Not tonight. He switched off the phone, switched off the lamp, and lay down staring up into the moonlight bleeding through the blinds and striping the ceiling.

He was afraid he wouldn’t cope tomorrow, that he’d snap and snarl at the boys, say something unforgivable to Rory. Make him cry.

But what else could he do but get up in the morning and carry on?

Maybe he’d take them all for a walk on the beach. Get out of the stifling apartment. If it was windy enough on the beach, nobody would hear him scream.

∞∞∞

When the cab arrived, Joel dithered before asking the driver to take him home. Although he wanted to go straight to Ollie’s and confront him with what he knew, that would be a mistake. He couldn’t do it tonight, not with his emotions so disturbed. The champagne impairing his judgment wouldn’t help, either.

No, he had to be sensible. And, being sensible, he knew it would be better to sort everything out in the morning. Unfortunately, that meant spending long fretful hours pacing his dark house, insomnia dogging his heels. When the night eventually retreated, it left Joel slumped, gritty-eyed on his sofa, staring at the long morning shadows in his untended yard, body aching with fatigue and mind helplessly churning over his argument with Ollie.

He still couldn’t figure out why Ollie hadn’t defended himself with the truth. Did he trust Joel so little?

After he’d choked down his oatmeal, Joel headed outside to clear his head and figure out a strategy. Ollie wasn’t responding to his texts, they weren’t even being delivered, which meant he’d switched off his phone to avoid them. Joel briefly considered turning up on his doorstep anyway, but if Ollie needed space then Joel wanted to respect that. Besides, he refused to make a scene around the boys. Instead, he found himself walking along the cliffs towards the Majestic, and from there down the steps onto the sand—the same route he and Ollie had taken that glorious night they’d spent together. The memory thickened his throat as he plowed along the beach, the wind in his face, boots sinking into the sand and legs burning with effort.

The tide was out, the bay vast and empty, scudding clouds racing ashore driven by a brisk easterly straight off the Atlantic. He bent his steps toward the surf, leaving the houses crouching around the edge of the bay far behind. He craved space and solitude. It had saved him in the aftermath of Helen. Perhaps it could save him now as he tried to sort through the cacophony of questions yelling for answers.

Why had Ollie cut him out? Hadn’t he trusted him enough to tell him the truth? Those were the thoughts that preoccupied him. If Ollie was willing to lie about this, what else? Helen’s affair had lasted a year before she finally left, she’d hidden so much from him: her infidelity, her feelings about his sexuality. The idea that Ollie was capable of the same duplicity shook him deeply. And yet his heart ached when he remembered the distress in Ollie’s eyes, his furious hurt anger.

Breathless, Joel came to a halt and stared out over the waves. The on-shore wind was flattening the surf and the waves rolled in crouched like chastised dogs. The roar in his ears helped drown out his thoughts and he closed his eyes, letting the cold blow through him. Blow him away.

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