Page 36 of Any Given Lifetime
He sensed Joshua’s retreat, and his back stiffened as Joshua said from the doorway, “You’re right. I had a good life with Lee. I loved him very much, and I miss him every day. But if Neil had lived, I would have had a good life with him, too. A different life, but a good one. And I regret that I didn’t get to have that experience. I regret it every single day.”
Neil thought that was it, but no.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Joshua said. “Lee understood it. Understoodme. I don’t know why I want you to understand, too. It shouldn’t matter to me. But it does.”
Neil’s head bowed as he heard the door shut. He fought the urge to chase after him, to confess it all, and tell Joshua that he could have that experience with his Neil now, if he wanted. Mastering himself, Neil fell facedown onto the bed.
Sobs wracked him as he tried to breathe through the pain of letting Joshua leave.
Chapter Thirteen
Neil’s plan wasto leave Barren River, call a car to take him to the Nashville airport, and catch the first flight out to Atlanta. It’d cost an arm and a leg, but what choice did he have but to stay here and travel with Dr. Peters the next day? But cars and taxis didn’t come out this far in the boondocks, so he couldn’t find a driver to take him to Nashville.
He cursed softly, throwing himself backward onto the hotel bed again. He was trapped here. And he needed to get out. He thought about renting a car—surely this town had a car rental service?—but then he started to laugh, because he wasn’told enoughyet. Hell, he wasn’t even old enough to go downstairs and order a drink at the bar. He was so fuckingsickof being a kid.
Angry, he stood up, pulled on his coat, and walked out of the hotel room. He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed to move, and walking seemed better than pounding his fists against the pillows some more.
Neil realized his mistake as soon as he hit the parking lot. Every lap around the lot was just another circle of the same new, horrible memories: every word he’d said to Joshua, the way Joshua had looked, how he’d smelled, how it had all gone so wrong. He wasn’t usually one to call his mother when he was feeling low, mainly because he tried to stay too busy to ever get truly down, but sitting on the bench outside of the resort’s main building, he didn’t know what else to do.
“Two weeks,” Alice said as her greeting. “Two weeks since you called, and I hear from Derek today that you’re not even in the state!”
“Mom,” Neil said to cut her off, and then he was silent.
When she spoke again, her voice had changed. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”
He shook his head at himself, dreading telling her, knowing that this was the stupidest thing he’d done since he’d tried to race a semi-truck to save Magic and lost.
“Scottsville,” he said. “I’m in Scottsville.” Technically, Barren River was on the outskirts of Bowling Green, but whatever. Close enough.
“Oh.” There was a long silence at the other end of the line.
“We applied for that grant. The one I told you about. I failed to mention that the foundation in question was…”
“The Neil Russell Foundation,” she murmured. “Did you see him?”
“Yeah.” Neil rotated his shoulders like he was trying to shake his mood off. It was easier already, faking it for her. He let a long breath out between his teeth, and said, “Well, it’s better this way, I guess. Stupid is as stupid does. My genius card has been revoked.”
“Are thinking you’re a genius at life when all you are is a genius at science?”
“Gee, thanks, Mom. That’s the kind of encouragement I needed right now.”
Alice sighed. “You don’t need encouragement, Neil. You need to get out of Scottsville before you break your own heart. But I’m sure it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said. His throat grew tight. The bench was hard and cold against his ass, even though the fall evening wasn’t too cool, and he could have done without his jacket.
“So you met him, then?” Alice asked. He could hear the hesitancy and the worry.
He didn’t speak. He tried, but he had no idea what he could say. Yeah, he’d met him. Joshua was everything Neil had known he would be, and it had felt sorightand so horriblywrong. And Neil had scared the shit out of Joshua. Hell, he’d scared the shit out ofhimself.
“Neil?” she asked.
“He said I reminded him of someone.”
“You didn’t tell him?” she asked, and the ‘surely’ was left off, though Neil heard it there.
“I’m an emotional idiot, not a madman,” he said. “I mean, sure, I know things that only his Neil could know, but why would I do that to him? He’s just gotten over the loss of his husband. Why would I split him open like that again?”
“Oh baby.”
