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Instead of sitting next to him, like I desperately wanted to, I sat in the recliner to the side. His smile was tight and forced, like he could read the tension rolling off of me. There were so many questions that I wanted to ask him. Had he ever found anyone else? Did he ever recover when I’d up and left?
“How did you and Leah meet?”
It wasn’t the question I expected him to ask me, but it was better than the prolonged and awkward silence that continued to pervade the surrounding space, but it was such a loaded question.
How did you tell the guy that you left his bed and after you told him you’d see him within a week... you met his twin sister instead? My palms sweated as I fumbled for the right words to say. No matter what, he’d be pissed. He had a right to be.
“When I first transferred to New York, she was in the same dorm. She, uh, helped me move my stuff in.” My face burned at the admission.
Austin was quiet for a moment, and the longer that silence stretched, the more my skin crawled.
“Speaking of transfers...”
I sighed, because I knew it was coming. He had to want to know. There was no way he didn’t.
I cleared my throat before he could continue asking the question. “I was... a coward. And I can admit that. That doesn’t make what I did... okay? I don’t know. There was a lot going on at the time, and I was scared. I’d never connected with someone like that, and I think it scared me a little more than it should have. Berkeley was freaking hard. Not that NYU was any better—”
“But you could have said something. Instead, I was faced with a dead phone line.”
I closed my eyes. There was a burning sensation there that I wanted to fight against. While most everyone I’d known had been accepting of my bisexuality, there had to be a reason that I’d hid it from my immediate family, and now my fiancée. There was still a little niggling in the back of my mind that said being with a man was wrong. That the things that I craved were dirty. I knew that wasn’t the case, but there also had to be a reason I still couldn’t sleep with women.
“I wish I had a better answer for you—”
Austin cut me off with a harsh, humorless laugh. “That’s such a fucking cop-out. Just own it, Jeremy. You got scared and ran.”
Fear was a big part of it. He had me there. I was afraid that the deeper I got, the more likely I’d cave and show him the parts of me I’d been too afraid to give to anyone else.
But the transfer process had started long before that.
I hadn’t even known Austin at the time. There had just been something about being in San Francisco and how open everyone was. Being away at college had given me the outlet I’d needed to explore my sexuality, but the first time my parents visited? I was sure they were going to figure out that their son didn’t always bat for the same team. I wasn’t in the right mindset for that. Still wasn’t.
Getting away from it all seemed logical, but it only complicated things more when I met Austin. He was supposed to be a quick hookup. A fun time. And then I couldn’t stay away. One night together turned into two. Then we went out for dinner. Next thing I knew, we’d been together for a couple of weeks and my transfer was looming. There was no easy way to tell him.
And yeah. I’d changed my number. The panic had set in the moment I’d gotten on the plane to New York. I’d never done something so shitty in my entire life, and I didn’t know how to deal with the consequences.
“Afraid. We’ll go with that.” It was easier to agree with him than to fight.
Austin softened just a little as I sank back into the cushions of the recliner. My eyes pinched closed as all the regret washed over me.
“Jeremy?”
My eyes cracked open because I hadn’t expected him to suddenly sound so much more concerned. He’d flipped like a light switch, angry and now worried.
“Like I said, I don’t have a good excuse. I wish I did. None of it makes it any easier.” With that, I stood from the chair and climbed back up the stairs to the room to go to bed.
Chapter 5
Austin
It still felt surreal that I was actually seeing Jeremy again.
That feeling didn’t get any better seeing him at the dining room table the next morning sipping a cup of coffee while Leah had her head on the table next to her plate of breakfast.
“You two are fired. Never let me do that again.”
I snorted a laugh before grabbing a mug from the cabinet and pouring my own cup of brew. “I’m not sure you would have let us stop you. You were having too much fun.”
“Fun, right?” Leah gave me her own derisive snort before flipping me off.
