Page 47 of Commitment Issues
“We spent many happy times here, didn’t we Elliot?” Gavin drags his cool eyes away from me and settles them on Elliot.
I look at Elliot, a glib comment ready and waiting on my lips but it dissolves into nothing, and I want only to weep.
Elliot’s gaze is locked on Gavin, swirling with memories and emotions I can’t even begin to guess at, memories and emotions I have no part in. My stomach turns to water, because for each of them, the world contains no other. They’ve forgotten not just my presence, but my existence.
I start to turn away, no thought about playing the role I’ve been hired for, wanting only to escape the raw emotion that’s binding them tight.
Elliot’s hand catches at my wrist, holding me fast.
“Good memories as you say Gavin, but memories are all they are. It all happened a long time ago,” Elliot says quietly, before he swings around and all but drags me along the sand.
I don’t say anything because what can I say? Whatever it is I’ve just witnessed, I’ve been an interloper. I cast a glance at Elliot, and my stomach clenches hard. There’s no hint of sadness or regret, or yearning, for the life he’s had, and lost, with Gavin. Instead, his jaw’s hard and tight, his lips pressed into a thin and severe line, and those eyes, those gorgeous blue eyes, are dark and savage.
“Elliot?”
He lets out a long and jagged sigh, and flings his bag down on the sand, under an overhang of rocks.
“This place, this bloody place. Yes, it’s got memories all right.”
His eyes and his words are brimming with fury, but’s there’s hurt there, too.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes losing their anger-filled heat. His brow scrunches up, and he rubs hard at it as though he’s fighting pain. “This place,” he says quietly. “It’s where I proposed to him. This is where I asked Gavin to marry me, and he said yes.”
