“That’s not true, and you know it.”
Henri took a step forward until Priest had to crane his neck to look up at him. “All I know is that you moved on and didn’t have the balls to tell me.”
“Moved on? Moved on from what? This constant fighting? Because that’s what we’ve become really good at, Henri: fighting. Whenever you visit, whenever you go, we’re always at each other, and the only reason I can think of is because I know what you’re going back to.”
Priest’s chest was heaving as he stood waiting for Henri to say something, and when he couldn’t, Priest continued. “You’re going back there. To the one place I want to forget exists, and every time you come back, I’m reminded of it all over again. I’m sorry, I—I thought I could do this, but…” Priest lowered his head, and as though that train of thought was too painful for him to finish, he changed course. “We weren’t exclusive. You knew that.”
Henri clamped his teeth together in an effort to fight back the thunderous shout that wanted to escape him, and then he shoved aside the stupid, hopeful idiot who’d gotten off the plane earlier with plans to leave his past behind.
He wouldn’t be that guy. That pathetic, delusional guy who’d fallen for someone who didn’t love him back. And when he could finally bring himself to speak, he said, “I knew there were guys before me; I didn’t care. But that guy, Julien? He makes you feel guilty, Joel. It’s written all over your fucking face. That means you care, which means I’m fucked, because ultimately, it means that this is over.”
When Priest didn’t say anything, just stared at Henri’s face, Henri knew he was right and pushed for that confirmation, needing the pain that he knew would come with it, needing to hate Priest, instead of loving him.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Priest licked his lips, lips Henri would never feel against his own again, and then said in a voice that Henri had to strain to hear, “I never meant for it to happen this way.”
“But it did, didn’t it?” When Priest didn’t deny it, Henri said, “Why him and not me? He speaks French; so do I. He’s a criminal; so am I. He’s practically the L.A. version of me, but you told me you wouldn’t date a criminal. So tell me, Joel, why him? What did he do that I didn’t?”
Priest looked him dead-on then, and those steel-colored eyes were so sad that they made Henri’s heart ache all the more.
“He bettered himself. He changed. And he makes me want to change too.”
Henri knew that this battle was over.
The one thing he thought he’d always had in his corner, the one thing he thought Priest loved about him above all others, was that he was the same boy Priest had always known. The one who’d never forgotten him, the one who’d fought off the monsters with him, the one who loved him his entire life…
Who knew that was the one thing that would eventually drive him away.
HENRI STARED DOWN at the photo he’d found tucked in the visor of the car when he first took it. Priest had clearly put it there as a memento. It was of him and Julien on their wedding day, and as he stared at the two of them wrapped in each other’s embrace, Henri felt a lone tear roll down his cheek.
After the day he’d walked in on them, Henri had gone back to New Orleans and disappeared off the map. But instead of falling back into old habits, he’d focused on doing some changing of his own. He’d become a full-time off-the-books investigator for one of the law firms down there, and it had given him the opportunity to use his connections with his old life, even as he cut back on the more illegal shit.
Over the years, he’d kept an eye on everything that happened around him, from those trying to take Jimmy and Victor’s place, to the two men themselves, who were behind bars, and when he’d heard through the grapevine that someone by the name of Priest was looking for him, Henri eventually reached out, and they’d developed this…strained relationship they now had.
Henri put the photo and registration back in the glove box and locked it, and as he sat back in his seat, he twisted the black diamond around his finger, his last tie to the past.
It was time for him to move on. Time for him to stop thinking about a man who would never be his, and instead focus on one he knew could be for a night—with the right amount of persuasion.
Was it risky? Considering his past, and Bailey’s occupation…definitely. But when it came to the men he seemed most drawn to, Henri was starting to realize that the easy, safe route would never be for him.