“Then, why are you sulking?”
“I’m not.” Even I hear how quickly I answered that.
He turns his attention to Isabel and Drake, giving her a quick, warm smile, which she politely returns from the front of the room. Then, he looks at me.
“Why is he up there and not you?”
“He’s better at it,” I reply.
With a nod, Emerson frowns, a crease forming between his brows. “Well, they do look good together.”
I force myself to swallow, seething jealousy and profound attraction warring inside me. “Yes, they do.”
“I’d lose my mind if Charlotte was that intimate with someone else—especially Drake.”
I flinch, my head spinning toward them. “Emerson,” I snap. The couple closest to us turns our way, but Emerson just smiles at them, and they lose interest in our quiet conversation.
“There’s nothing going on between them, if that’s what you’re implying,” I whisper in an almost silent, seething tone.
But he doesn’t even bother to look skeptical because the look on his face says it all—he knows. With a flat, unimpressed roll of his eyes, he pulls me into the hallway. I expect him to argue, but he doesn’t. “Drake said something strange to me this morning,” he says, adjusting his tie, and I tense. “He asked if I had any other projects for the club that needed to be completed before the end of the month.”
I force myself to swallow, without looking surprised or worried—both of which I am.
“Do you know if he has plans of leaving or taking on another contract?” he asks when I don’t respond.
“No.”
A round of applause accompanied byoohsandaahsfill the room behind me, and I turn in time to see Isabel, once again, wrapped around Drake; this time, her hands bound above her head. They’re smiling at each other, intensity coursing between their stares.
“I’d hate to lose him,” Emerson says quietly, and I turn to face him with a furrow in my brow. He cracks a smile. “I know you all think I’m not the biggest Drake fan, but that’s only because he tends to push my buttons more often than not, but he does good work. And I like having him around. Even if I’m the asshole who doesn’t say it enough. I should do a better job of making it known.”
With that, he just…walks away, and I’m left here standing speechless. I’m sure he has no idea why those words hit so hard, but I can’t help but be annoyed at just how right he sounds.
Walking back into the room, I watch the rest of the demonstration, and Silla comes around to each table, instructing the various couples and groups. Isabel and Drake do the same, their eyes finding each other more often than not, and I don’t see the same tension in their faces that I did before. The same tension I feel now.
I wish I could erase all of the stubborn demons making this so hard on me. I wish I could be exactly what they need, a man able to accept who he is without struggles, a man unafraid to tell the world he loves two people and wants them both. But what they don’t understand is that my flaws aren’t my choice, they are ingrained in the DNA of my very existence. The things that keep us apart are woven into who I am as a person and if I unravel those things, I don’t know what will be left of me.
And just like that, the solution hits me.
It slams into me like a tidal wave, knocking me to the bottom of the ocean. Because now I know how to fix this, and it means removing myself from the equation.
* * *
I askedDrake to drive Isabel home, feigning a headache. She offered to come with me, but they were smiling and having fun with Silla and the rest of the team, and I couldn’t bear the idea of ending that. Plus, I needed to get home first. It would be easier this way.
As I’m standing in my closet, I think about my dad. And a really distinct memory pops into my head. I was somewhere between childhood and adulthood, maybe twelve. It was almost a good day, when he was a little more sober than the rest of the days and both he and my mother could stand the sight of each other. They took me to the beach on my first day of summer vacation, and I remember thinking that that was the day everything was going to be better. If I just didn’t make him mad, he wouldn’t have any reason to hit me. If my mom could just keep smiling, they wouldn’t split, and she wouldn’t leave. If everything stayed the way it wasthatday, then everything would be fine.
We splashed in the waves, and I smiled as I watched them kissing in the water. It was a moment of perfect peace.
In the distance, a couple parked a pair of towels on the sand, not too far from ours. And the moment they unpacked their umbrella, a sense of doom settled over my heart. I mentally begged them not to doanything.Don’t touch each other. Don’t talk too comfortably. And definitely,please don’t kiss.
Those two men had no idea they were about to ruin the perfection of my day. Although I guess my father was the one who ruined it—I realize that now. But to my prepubescent brain, it was their fault.
One look at them, and my father knew. It was enough to have him barking at us to pack up our things. Enough to make him mutter something ugly in their direction before leaving. Enough to make me promise myself at that moment, no matter what, I willnever, everlet myself be like those men.
I choked on that promise every day of my life. Even after he died twelve years ago. Even after that perfect day turned into another daily nightmare with his beer breath and belt bruises. That stupid fucking promise became my curse.
My stupid childhood perception stayed with me as I aged, like an ill-fitting suit that imbedded itself into my psyche. I can’t just un-feel the way I felt as a child. But I can fix it now.