Something I couldn’t come back from.
Nodding to the bartender, he looked behind me, no doubt looking for Simon. His brow crept up and my eyes turned hard, shutting down his questions before he could ask them.
He placed the glass of gin on the table and gave me a disgusted look. He wasn’t the only one. When I found my eyes in the mirror behind the bar, I glared at myself until a man sat down on the stool beside me. He was good looking, though not quite as tall as Simon, and definitely not as built. His arms had no definition, and his chest was as narrow as his hips.
“Hi,” he greeted, turning in his stool until his knees brushed the side of my thigh. I gave him a small nod as I brought the glass to my lips.
“I’m Logan,” he offered, as he rested his elbow on the bar and his chin in his palm. The bartender put a pink drink in front of him, which told me he came here often. He knew the score.
“Tony,” I returned with a smile.
The house was dark when I pulled up. I didn’t go inside; instead, I walked around the back and sat on the deck. An ashtray sat on a pedestal next to the chair I often sat in. It hadn’t even been a week, and he bought me a fucking ashtray, despite hating the fact that I smoked.
I didn’t deserve him. He deserved someone better. Someone open about who he was, and proud to call Simon his. Not an old-as-fuck lawyer who couldn’t get out of his own fucking way.
The sun broke over the horizon, painting the sky pink, orange, and yellow, and I thought about the past twenty-four hours. Everything that had happened, and everything thathadn’t. I tapped the cigarette into the ashtray and watched the ashes fall.
The door slid along its track, and Simon stepped out onto the deck to join me. He didn’t speak—just sat in the chair beside me watching the sunrise.
“Thanks for the ashtray,” I said, finally breaking the silence.
“It was either that, or you’d burn the house down one of these days.”
I huffed at his attempt to make a joke. Simon flirted, he made people smile with his charm, but he didn’t make jokes. He tried, but somehow, they never quite landed. Or maybe that was just my lack of a sense of humor.
We sat in silence, both of us afraid to speak. Him afraid to tell me the truth, and me scared to ease my guilt. I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, then leaned my elbows on my legs, clasping my hands together between my knees, and looked at the floor.
“I went to the club,” I confessed, closing my eyes.
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear the hurt in his eyes. He took a deep breath but kept his thoughts to himself while he waited for me to continue. I glanced in his direction and saw his eyes staring forward, not looking at anything.
“I didn’t cheat,” I promised. “I’d never fucking do that to you.”
“I know. Gary called me and told me you were there. He told me about the guy who hit on you and how you practically made him piss his pants when you told him to get lost.”
“Fucking Gary,” I cursed, standing up and walking to the edge of the deck. “He still wants to fuck you.”
“I know.”
I turned and caught a ghost of a smile on Simon’s face. He thought I didn’t know that he secretly loved how fucking feral I got when I was jealous.
“We aren’t together, Tony. Not really. You could have fucked him.”
“I didn’t want him.”
Simon finally looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “You don’t really want me either.” He stood, and I grabbed his wrist as he walked by.
I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, that I did want him. He was the only man I had ever wanted. Would ever want. Instead, I stuck my foot in my mouth again.
“We need to talk about Sadie.”
He nodded slowly. “We will, just not right now.” He looked down where my hand held his, and I let him go.
“I’m going to call Uncle Alex later and tell him to assign someone else to keep track of me. I think we need some time apart.”
“Like hell you will,” I growled. His back stiffened, and his steps faltered, but he caught himself quickly and walked inside, leaving me alone to think about what he said.
What he really meant.