Could meeting me really change so much that he let go of his principles of doing what was right?
He released a breath, and right in that moment, I didn’t doubt him. Five years later, and that exhaustion was evident on his face. “Another point is,” he went on quietly, “it wasn’t a matter of justifying my cheating. It was a combination of not caring enough because he and I were over and…meeting someone who changed my life forever. Seizing that evening with you was so much more important than breaking up with Angelo twelve hours before or after I crossed a line.”
And in his world, that night, he wasn’t crossing a line with Angelo’s childhood friend. It was a stranger, someone who was single and more than interested.
He hadn’t known who I was until it’d been too late.
I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. “What a goddamn mess.”
I faced a new problem now. It wasn’t as easy to maintain an absolute position when someone had shoved nuances down my throat. How could I hold on to my anger after this? How could I keep from taking pleasure in the impact I’d made on Archie’s life? Wasn’t that what I’d dreamed of for as long as I’d lived?
Furthermore, in case it needed repeating, five years had passed. I’d considered Archie history, and my resentment had faded. I’d moved on. Even if anger had been easy to produce tonight; hell, it’d jumped out all on its own, I wasn’t the same man I’d been back then. I’d processed every ounce of hurt. Sometimes, I was reminded of it. Sometimes, I felt that pang of loss of what could’ve been. Sometimes, I wondered if Archie was my “the one who got away.” But that was life. Processed or not, some pains would shadow you until the day you died.
I sank down in my seat, threw my feet on the table, and leaned back against the cushion.
What the fuck happened now?
I wasn’t sure this changed anything. All while…it changed everything.
Fuck.
“Greer, may I ask what happened when you met Angelo the morning after?”
I lolled my head along the back of the couch and eyed him tiredly. His exhaustion had rubbed off on me.
“You must’ve seen him when he got back.”
He offered a one-shouldered shrug. “He left angry and returned angrier. I told him I wasn’t feeling well—since you didn’t want me to show up, I needed an excuse—and that’d been his hope, to introduce me to you. And then when he got back…” He winced. “He just yelled a lot. He wondered if you had coerced me—”
“He fucking said that?” I chuckled. Un-fucking-believable. Yet not, because I’d been there that morning. He’d blamed me a whole lot more than he’d blamed Archie.
“Despite it all, I was the one who broke up with him,” he confirmed. “When he started shouting about how he could trust me after this, I had to cut him off. I told him it didn’t matter because we were over. I’d already packed my bag and bought a new ticket. Then I apologized for the way things ended—I said it was my fault—and I left. I think it was maybe ten minutes between his return and my leaving.”
Yeah, my showdown had been a little longer.
Given the circumstances and what I had planned to tell Angelo, I’d invited him to my place instead. Breakfast at his hotel wasn’t gonna happen, for more than one reason.
“He came out to my house,” I murmured. “I didn’t even cook breakfast. I knew he was gonna be furious.”
For some reason, those memories weren’t as clear as the ones I had of Archie.
“I managed maybe two minutes of catching up before I told him everything,” I said. “Starting with that I’d met someone the night before. He jokingly said it’d been a good thing he’d gotten in late.”
“Ouch.”
Yeah, the joke had fallen flat, so to speak. “I gave him the CliffsNotes and downplayed what I’d actually felt. So I’m fairly certain he was under the impression that it was just a random hookup. And then I finished by saying it turned out to be you. I threw you under the bus as swiftly and harshly as I could—partly because I was so fucking mad at you that I barely knew what to do with myself. And partly because my main concern was to see if my friendship with Angelo could be saved.”
I’d been a naïve idiot to believe it might actually work. I hadn’t done anything wrong. The second I discovered the truth, I’d mentally shoved Archie out of my care; he’d stopped being a possible dream come true, and I’d been fully aware that Angelo deserved to know.
Somehow, I had been the villain anyway. I didn’t remember everything he’d yelled at me, but he’d thrown a clay pot on my kitchen floor, a gift Jason had made me, and he’d called me everything from a homewrecker to a deceiving asshole. I’d had to physically remove him from my house. He’d refused to listen to a word I’d said in my defense.