Chapter 26
KINCAID
DrunkenPoet: I have to stop looking for you. It’s been four months and I’m losing myself.
DrunkenPoet: I’ll never forget you, Index. You changed my life.
DrunkenPoet: I hope wherever you are, you’re happy.
_____________________
When I heard the crunch of tires on my driveway, I steeled myself.
After a long, sleepless night, this was finally it. I needed to confess the truth. Talk to Alex about our shared past. The forum messages. My accident.
My palms were damp, and my stomach was in knots. The last thing I wanted to do was cause him more pain.
I opened the door before he could knock. “Hey, Firebug.”
He looked as awful as I felt. His eyes were red and scratchy-looking, his hair stood in all directions like he’d been yanking at it, his skin was pale and dull, and there was absolutely no life in his expression. Only exhaustion and resignation.
I stepped forward to pull him into my arms, but his words froze me in place.
“How long have you known?” He didn’t even come in. Simply stood on my front porch and looked up at me. “I need to know how long you’ve known that I was DrunkenPoet.”
Hearing that name in Alex’s own voice was somehow still shocking. But whatever he saw on my face must have given away the fact that it wasn’t entirely a shock. His nostrils flared, and his eyes hardened.
“Since the night of Mattie’s wedding,” I said quickly. “Since Spokane. And I was going to tell you immediately, but you—”
He closed his eyes and rocked back on his feet. “How did you find out?”
I hesitated. Somehow, despite spending thirty hours overthinking this, I hadn’t considered this part. Did I admit to him that I’d hired an investigator to find my long-lost love while I was already hooking up with Alex, or did I tell him—
“You have two seconds to tell me the fucking truth,” he hissed. “Or I am out of here.”
“Please come in,” I urged gently. “We can talk about it.”
Alex shook his head. “That would be a mistake. Just answer me.”
“I… I hired someone. An investigator. To look for you. I mean, DrunkenPoet. But then…” I stopped.
Keep it simple, stupid. “He told me the same IP address used in DrunkenPoet’s posts was being used at Alexander Vineyards.
And that the only person who’d lived there during that time who also got an Incident Command certification was you. Alexander Marian.”
His face fell. “You came back from that trip and had sex with me without saying a word.”
Made love to you, I wanted to bark. But I kept myself calm and regulated for fear of making him bolt.
“I wanted to tell you,” I began. “I tried to tell you, but you—”
“Me?” he snapped. “Are you seriously getting ready to tell me I was the reason you didn’t tell me that my dead lover was alive and oh by the way his cock was already inside of me?
” His voice had gone ragged until he was croaking out the last part.
Tears fell down his face, and I tried reaching for him again.
He pulled away and took a big step back. “No,” he said, swiping angrily at his face. “Do not touch me. Because I can’t… I… Just don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so fucking sorry. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Start by telling me what happened! I thought you were dead! I thought… I thought only death would make you leave me like that. Without a word. Without a single fucking sign.”
Alex’s arms folded over his chest, his fists tucked into his armpits.
I clenched my own hands into fists to keep from reaching for him again. “Baby, please—”
“Do not call me baby!” he wailed. “Please do not act like you care about me when you let me mourn your fucking death for four fucking years.” Tears spilled down his face and dripped off his chin as he swiped at his nose.
“I waited for you, for any word. And then I searched desperately for anything that might explain it. And I learned about the mortar strike in Iraq. Was that it?”
I nodded.
“And were you hurt?”
I nodded again. “Bad concussion. Head injury. They kept me under for a long time, and then I was out of it for a while after that, Alex. For months. I’d been transported to another country.
No cell phone or computer. No access to anything.
They contacted my next of kin, which is my friend Max in Philly. He… he didn’t know about you.”
Alex winced like that was yet another blow. “I guess I wasn’t that important.”
He was tearing my heart into shreds. “You were! You are. When I got back, I was desperate to find you. But you told me your family had a farm! I had no idea what part of California or what kind of farm. Alex, I told Max all about you, once I got home. I hired an investigator, for fuck’s sake—”
“After you were dating someone else.”
I stared at him, unsure whether he was mad at me for cheating on him with him, or what. “I… I don’t know what to say right now to make this right,” I confessed. “Please tell me what to say to make this right.”
“Do you have any idea how long I waited for you? It took me months of therapy before I agreed to delete my message board accounts. Nearly a year of it before I could consider moving on and doing something meaningful with my life. And even then, even then, I saved myself for you. It took two more years before I could wrap my head around having sex with someone who wasn’t you.
And now here you are, fucking me while carrying around the knowledge that the man I thought was dead was alive this whole time! ”
Alex clenched his jaw, sucked in a breath through his nose, and dropped the next words like a killing blow. “And lying to my face while telling me you gave a single shit about me.”
The emotional storm settled low in my gut like a lead weight. This wasn’t a catharsis meant to help him move past the painful past and into a new future together. No… this was… this was starting to sound like the end.
Like forgiveness wasn’t even something he was considering.
“Please, Alex. Please, I am begging you. I fell for you twice. Please don’t throw that away without letting me tell you… Just come inside so we can talk.”
“Talk about what? How can I ever trust you again? I can’t. I can’t, Judd. It… it almost killed me getting over you, and I can’t do it again. Just ask my family. They’re the ones who had to pick up the pieces.”
His sister’s words echoed through my head like the clang of a cell door being locked. The whole experience… it broke Alex, Chief. Crushed him. It’s like he’s expecting to get his heart broken again.
At this point, I hope the asshole stays gone because no good could come of them getting in touch again.
My own heart was shattered for Alex, for the hollow grief in his eyes. But the look on his face, the one that said I was losing him, made me desperate and stupid. Made me want to lash out.
“So that’s it, then?” My own eyes were burning.
“You got over me once, so now you’re just going to run back to your perfect family and your fancy therapist and get over me again?
How nice for you. How nice that it’s that easy, Alex.
How nice for you that you have that kind of love and support. Go ahead.”
I regretted the words the second they were out of my mouth. The last fucking thing I wanted was to hurt Alex. All I wanted was to protect him, dammit.
But it was clear by the way Alex’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened, by his single punched-out “wow,” that my outburst had put the final nail in the coffin.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Obviously, you did because you said it. I’ve had an easy life with no challenges, and all I have to do is go confess to my giant fucking family with their giant fucking opinions that I fucking failed at something they do as if by fucking magic.
Twice. That I trusted the wrong person. Twice.
That I thought that person actually cared about me. Twice.”
Every time he said twice, his voice broke a little more until he was crying again.
I felt my own tears soaking the front of my collar. “Alex, please.”
“No. This… I can’t do it. Maybe it’s a good thing we figured it out now.
Maybe we were never meant to have a first real date.
” He took a shuddering breath. “Because if this had happened after we were already officially together?” His face fell, and his voice became nearly impossible to hear. “I wouldn’t survive it.”
Then he turned around and left.
By the very next day, it was as if the past six months had never happened. Alex Marian treated me like nothing more than the annoying fire marshal who hassled him for no good reason.
And after a week of trying everything I could think of to get him to give me another chance…
That’s exactly what I became.