Chapter Twenty-Six
Anthony
“How are things going with you and your hockey guy?” Chelsea asks. “That man is fine.”
“Oh my God. I know, right? Unbelievably hot.” And he’s mine, mine, mine. I’m getting more used to thinking that, and honestly, it’s fucking incredible. “Being in love with the right guy is ten out of ten. I highly recommend.”
“I know. It’s the best,” she replies in this quiet, wistful voice.
“Shit. I’m sorry. That was really insensitive of me. I wasn’t thinking.”
Chelsea waves off my apology. “No, no. I didn’t take it that way. I know what you meant. You’re just happy, Anthony. And it’s good to see.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
“Thank you. It’s good to feel.” I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far, that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Makayla comes running out of the bathroom.
We’d just finished her dance lesson, so we say our goodbyes.
Justin comes in next, then afterward, I change and head over to meet Hayes and Donovan for a late lunch at this cute little spot in West Hollywood.
They do drag brunch on the weekends and have evening shows.
Like many spots in WeHo, it’s unapologetically queer, and I love every second of it.
I spot them in a booth, so I tell the hostess I see my party. I slide into the seat beside Donovan. “Sorry I’m late. Justin needed a little extra help, and I didn’t want to bail on him.”
“Who’s Justin?” Hayes asks.
“Oh, sorry. He’s one of the kids I teach private dance lessons to.”
They both stare at me as if I’ve grown a second head.
“Have I never mentioned that before?”
Donovan shakes his head, and Hayes says, “Nope. I would remember that.”
I wince. Why wouldn’t I have told them that?
I can’t think of a good reason—not even a bad one.
Hell, I hadn’t even realized I did it, which is a bit of a mindfuck.
How much of myself have I been holding back from people?
I’m really good at pretending, at being the life of the party, at being loud and claiming to be proud of who I am, but really, I’ve been hiding so much of myself, and for what?
What have I actually gotten out of it? None of it protected my heart, because Malcolm still found a way to manipulate and hurt me.
All it had done was keep the wrong people at arm’s length, or kept me bound by these ridiculous rules I’d put on myself that haven’t done anything to protect me.
“I haven’t been a very good friend.”
Donovan frowns. “What are you talking about? You’re the best kind of friend.”
And he’s got one of the biggest hearts of anyone I’ve ever known.
When Donovan reaches over and takes my hand, I thread our fingers together, holding tight, and I just…start talking. I tell them about my childhood, my mom, my uncle, about Aliyah and dance and then losing her when she moved away. How my uncle paid me to get lost as soon as I turned eighteen.
I tell them how much dance has always meant to me, about the lessons I teach, the times I’ve felt useless or thrown away.
Even about Malcolm telling me I was his least favorite, which is how I learn he said that to Hayes too.
The only moments I stop talking are when the waiter approaches and we give our order.
I talk between bites of food, spilling my guts to my best friends, right there in the middle of a safe, queer space in the city I’ve fallen in love with.
“Wait…so you’re telling us you own Lush?” Hayes asks.
“I do.”
“I don’t get it. Why that’s a secret.”
“It shouldn’t be,” I admit. “And hell, I don’t even know if I get it either.
I think it started because I wanted friends, wanted people to like me, not because they had to because I’m the boss or own the club, but for me.
I wanted a place where I could just be me, and I didn’t know if I could do that as Anthony, the owner of the club. I just…”
“Wanted to be a part of something and wanted to know that the people you let in, the people you were getting close to, weren’t there for any reason other than they care about you,” Donovan fills in for me.
“That. Exactly.”
Hayes reaches across the table and grabs my other hand. “I’m sorry you felt that way. Emotions are confusing and don’t always tell us the truth. They’re good at making us believe things that aren’t real and ignoring things that are.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. Of course, if anyone would get it, it would be them—well, them and Kason.
“Thank you for getting it, and for being here for me. I’ve never really felt a part of something until I met you.”
“None of us did, not really,” Donovan says. “I always had Eric, but it still often felt like I was on the outside looking in, but now I’m here, with the two of you. A Jilted Ex for life and proud of that.”
We let go of each other’s hands and lift our glasses in the air. “To the Jilted Exes’ Club,” I say.
“To the Jilted Exes’ Club,” they repeat, and we clink our glasses.
“Now, do we have time to talk about how I’m madly in love with Kason Maddox? Because I really, really am.”
“Ant…we always have time to talk about that,” Donovan replies, and for the first time ever in my life, I gush to best friends, about a man I love, and one who just so happens to love me too.
Better late than never.
*
The Rebels had one win and one loss so far on their road trip.
Their third game is tonight, and then they’ll be coming home.
Even though we talk every day, I miss him when he’s gone.
I stalk his games and the score like crazy.
We used to tease Hayes about that, but now I get it.
When your boyfriend is a hockey star, it’s impossible not to be all in.
I always loved hockey, but now I have a stake in it, and I also kinda want to kill anyone who gets too close to Kason.
I can’t imagine how I would feel if he was a d-man like Rylan.
Kason doesn’t get knocked around the same way Rylan does.
I head to work early. There’s not much going on, and my apartment feels empty without Kason.
Plus, I love the vibe at Lush—the music, the happiness, the freedom this queer space provides for so many.
Young Anthony couldn’t have imagined ever having access to a place like this, never mind owning it.
I built this club, and I’ve been keeping it to myself for too damn long.
“Hey, Ant. What’s good?” Adrian, one of the head security guys, asks.
“What’s up?” I give him a quick hug. Adrian is a big-ass guy. I swear, one of his arms is the size of my head. He’s tall and tattooed, which makes him look scary as fuck to people who don’t know him, but really, he’s the world’s biggest teddy bear.
“Gonna be a good night tonight, I can feel it,” he says.
“I hope you’re right.”
“I been paying attention to your man. Never watched much hockey before, but he’s pretty good.”
“He’s really good.” I grin, my chest warm.
I have friends all around me, don’t I? In more places than I realized.
Or if not friends, just people who care—coworkers, customers, Chelsea, and others.
They’ve been here a long time, but I never took the time to notice, never let myself see what I had right in front of me because I was always afraid I’d lose it, and acknowledging it would make it that much harder.
Not anymore.
Adrian and I talk for a while longer before I excuse myself. People say hi to me as I walk through the dancing crowd, bartenders and dancers waving or saying hello. Funny how much brighter the world can be when you’re looking at it through a different mindset.
I make my way back to the office, unlock the door, and head in.
I’m dancing later tonight, but there’s some payroll and other maintenance I can work on first. I’m just finishing getting payroll sent in, when there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I call out, and Bryson, one of the dancers, enters.
He’s wearing a jock and is covered in glitter, so he must’ve been mid-shift when I arrived.
One look at his face tells me something serious is up. “What’s wrong?”
He closes the door behind him. “I, um…wasn’t sure if I should show you this, and maybe you already know, but people are talking about it, and if you didn’t know, well…”
My heart drops, the back of my neck burning. “What is it?” I ask when he doesn’t seem to want to say.
“Malcolm…did a podcast. One of those shitty ones that rips people apart. God, why is that a thing? Why are there people who love tearing others down? But in it he shares what he calls his side of the story, and clips have started popping up online… It’s…
A lot of it is about you. I just didn’t want you to go out there and be blindsided. ”
My pulse throbs in my head, the room feeling slightly echoey. I shouldn’t be surprised, nothing should surprise me anymore, but it does—surprises me and makes me sick.
“Should I not have said anything?” Bryson asks when I don’t reply.
Ignoring how fast my heart is beating, the twisting and turning in my gut, I say, “No, you should have. I appreciate it. Thank you.”
“Okay.” He nods. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Bryson. I will.” Before he walks out, I add, “It’s mine. Lush is mine.”
His forehead wrinkles. “Okay…”
“I just wanted you to know. I’m not the manager, it’s mine, and you’re doing a great job.”
He seems struck speechless, mouth hanging open. All he can do is nod.
After Bryson closes the door behind him, even though everything inside me is screaming that doing an online search is a bad idea, there’s no stopping myself. Self-preservation is thrown out the window. How can I not know what he said?
Bryson was right. Some of it is about Hayes and Donovan, but most of it is about me…
saying I’m toxic, how I have family issues and was controlling, jealous, that I was promiscuous and slutty and hadn’t been faithful to him.
That all the things he did, I did to him—all these vile things that aren’t true.
He uses against me the things I did trust him with—my mom, my uncle—to make it look like he was the good guy, just trying to have a relationship with this man who didn’t know how to love himself.
And he’s partly right—I didn’t know how to love myself.
If I had, I would have walked away from him long before everything went down because Malcolm was mean.
He reinforced every negative thought I had about myself.
He never made me feel good about myself.
He made everything my fault. Just like he did now.
I’m not a perfect man. I have my faults, my insecurities, but I’m not what Malcolm says I am. I didn’t do the things Malcolm says I did. And maybe I didn’t know how to love myself then, but it’s something I know how to do now.