Page 132 of The Revenge Game
The whole thing is over.
Any glimmer of hope I might have had inside me that I could somehow keep going with the charade, keep the happy life I’ve built myself, has now gone.
I don’t care about the job. The most important thing to salvage from this situation has never been my job.
I make it back to my desk on trembling legs, collapsing into my chair like my bones have suddenly forgotten how to hold me upright. My mind races through contingency plans, each more desperate than the last.
The office door swings open, and my heart stops.
Justin stands there, his golden hair windswept, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He’s holding a paper cup from that fancy coffee place near the station that makes my favorite Belgian hot chocolate.
“Surprise!” The smile he’s wearing is pure, unfiltered Justin.
“What are you doing here?” I nearly knock over my coffee mug as I jerk upright, my throat desert-dry as I try to swallow. “I thought you weren’t due home until tonight.”
“I got the deal done yesterday. I wanted to get home early to surprise you.”
Before I can respond, Xander bursts into the office like he’s racing to deliver breaking news.
“Drew! Or should I say, Andrew—” Xander starts, then spots Justin. “Oh! Justin.”
“Hey, Xander,” Justin says, then returns his attention to me.
“I actually left first thing this morning.” Justin steps toward my desk. “The trains were absolute chaos. Some signal failure at Preston meant we had to go via Manchester.”
“Why didn’t you just take your boyfriend’s private jet?” Xander chortles.
Justin’s brow furrows. “My boyfriend’s private jet?”
Oh no. No, no, no, no.
My face goes numb like someone’s hit the emergency shutdown on all my nerve endings.
Xander turns to me, his eyes widening.
“What the hell, Andrew? It’s one thing not to tell your colleagues about who you are. But your boyfriend doesn’t know either?”
So this is how it ends. Not with my rehearsed explanation but with a casual comment about private jets and the scent of hot chocolate.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Justin
The whole time I’m in Cumbria, all I want to do is get home to Drew.
To my boyfriend.
Whom I love, and who loves me back.
I kept catching myself grinning at random moments. There’s this flood of warmth in my chest whenever I think about Drew saying, “I love you too.” How his voice shook like the words were too big to come out smoothly.
On the train home, I try to wrench my mind away from thinking about Drew to start writing my speech for the upcoming class reunion.
Ten years. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since high school.
I feel like I’m in a much better headspace to write it now than six months ago.
Six months ago, I was going to write some generic speech about career achievements and life milestones, the checkboxes on someone else’s definition of success. But now? Now, I understand real success isn’t about living up to other people’s expectations.
