November 21, 2020—Tel-Aviv, Israel—The Next Day #4
But Adrian didn’t turn toward him. Instead, he focused entirely on Itay, his hands steady even as his heart wavered.
He needed to do this—to close this chapter with the grace Itay deserved and free him from the burden of a love that had nowhere to go.
“Itay,” he whispered, his words tender but heavy with finality, “you have to stop. This is over. It’s been over for a long time now.
” His voice cracked, but he pressed on, his heart breaking with each word.
“I care about you, and I love you, but not in the way you deserve. You deserve a love that moves mountains, that gives you the world. You shouldn’t have to beg someone to love you.
You shouldn’t have to fight for scraps.”
Itay’s tears spilled over, and his shoulders sagged under the weight of Adrian’s words.
Adrian pulled him into an embrace, holding him tightly, as though he could soothe the pain even as he inflicted it.
“You deserve someone who will love you the way you love them,” Adrian murmured against Itay’s ear.
“And that’s not me. It’s never been me. You miss what we had, I know, but that’s all it is—a memory.
You need to let me go. Please, Itay. Let me go. ”
The room fell silent except for the soft, muffled sound of Itay’s crying. He clung to Adrian, his arms tightening around him, reluctant to release him into a future where he could no longer follow. But slowly, achingly, his grip loosened.
When he finally stepped back, his voice was hoarse and broken. “Will you seek treatment now?” Itay asked, his eyes brimming with hope and despair. “Now that he’s here?”
Adrian hesitated, his face clouding with something unreadable.
His gaze flickered toward Logan, who stood there watching them with fire and hurt in his eyes, ready to bolt.
Then he turned back to Itay, and his expression softened.
“I don’t know. We just talked again last night.
I’m still wrapping my head around it. I don’t know what will happen. ”
Itay nodded, the motion slow, burdened with a quiet finality.
His expression was heavy with the kind of defeat that doesn’t come from losing a battle, but from knowing the war was never his to win.
He stepped forward and wrapped Adrian in one last embrace—not possessive, not pleading, just full of everything he had never stopped feeling.
“I should’ve never let you go,” he whispered, his voice low and breaking at the edges. “Not a single day has passed without me wishing I could take it back, and never break up with you on that damn day.”
He pressed a soft and lingering kiss to Adrian’s cheek and breathed him in like a man saying goodbye to a place he once called home.
Then he pulled back, slower this time, his heart rising into his throat, swollen with the truth he could no longer deny: that he had lost. That maybe he had never even stood a chance.
And without so much as a glance toward Logan—the gravity he could never compete with—Itay turned, walked to the door, and slipped out. He closed it gently behind him, sealing a chapter with reverence, even if it wasn’t his to end.
Logan had watched the entire exchange from the edge of the kitchen, the small space making it impossible to miss.
He’d been silent as Adrian hugged Itay, holding him close, wiping his tears, the kind of warmth in Adrian’s touch that Logan once knew so well.
He’d seen Adrian smile at him—just a faint smile, but it was there.
And Logan had stood frozen, unable to decipher the words they shared in Hebrew, his mind spinning with every possible scenario.
He wanted to cross the room, to wrap Adrian in his arms, bury his face in the place he once called home, and hold him like he’d never let go.
He wanted to whisper into his ear: I missed you yesterday when you left.
I dreamed of you last night. I’ve dreamed of you every night.
I wanted to wake up with you in the morning.
Every fiber in my body longed for you. I love you.
I cannot believe we are here again. I love you.
I miss you. I love you. I will never leave again.
I will never leave you alone once more, I will never leave you in the silence. I will love you till the day I die.
But Logan didn’t move. His hands stayed clenched at his sides as he wrestled with the demons inside him, trying to keep his emotions in check.
“Hey,” he said finally, his voice low and hesitant.
Adrian didn’t turn around. He picked up two coffee mugs from the counter and walked to the living room.
Logan followed him, his heart skipping when Adrian handed him one of the mugs.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. He made one for me too, Logan thought, the small gesture thawing something frozen deep inside him.
They sat in silence for a moment, the tension between them heavy but unspoken. Finally, Logan broke it.
“So, Itay?” Logan prompted, his voice strained, as he tried and miserably failed to sound casual.
“Are you two… hooking up? Is he… with you?” He almost choked on the words, the thought clawing at him.
He would die right here if Adrian were seeing someone else.
Even though both Adrian and Dean had told him Adrian wasn’t with anyone, it didn’t mean there wasn’t something happening.
Something casual, something like an arrangement.
Maybe not a boyfriend, but friends with benefits.
Logan’s stomach churned at the thought, his chest aching.
Adrian sat down on the sofa, his gaze fixed on the ocean beyond the glass doors. For a drawn-out second, he didn’t respond.
“We’re not together,” his tone was flat, stripped of any emotion. “He’s a friend. He comes over from time to time. He… wants to be here for me.”
Adrian paused, his words caught in the quiet struggle of his mind.
Untold stories and unspoken fears circled like shadows around him, heavy with emotion.
The haunting phrase “Because I’m waiting to die” hovered between them, a specter looming large, while the rhythmic whisper of the ocean’s waves filled the silence, echoing the tumult within.
Adrian inhaled deeply, summoning the strength to continue.
“We are friends,” he repeated, as if saying it twice would make it true, or at least easier to believe.
“I told him now that… he needs to let me go. He’s still trying, though.
He’s been hoping, even though I’ve told him repeatedly.
” His voice faltered, a faint crack that betrayed the calm facade he had carefully constructed.
He shifted slightly, his gaze locking with Logan’s. A surge of emotion washed over him as he surrendered to the depths of Logan’s eyes, losing himself in their mesmerizing embrace—finally gazing into the eyes he had been longing to see for so long.
There was no anger in Adrian’s gaze, no bitterness, only an exhausted kindness that cut deeper than any accusation ever could.
“But… I don’t want to see him hurting. I care about him,” Adrian added softly, the words carrying a weight they couldn’t fully hold.
Logan exhaled, but the tension in his chest didn’t ease.
He set his coffee mug down on the table and sank closer into the seat beside Adrian.
Logan couldn’t help but compare his situation with Itay’s; they had both broken up with Adrian, both had forsaken him.
How could they have been so foolish as to let that man go?
Logan glanced at Adrian, his face lit by the fading sunlight, and the longing inside him surged.
He wanted to reach out, to pull Adrian close, to say everything he hadn’t said before.
But for now, he remained silent, allowing the gentle sounds from the street—laughter, a child’s shriek while playing, and groups gathering at the beach—to fill the space between them, as he awaited the moment when Adrian might finally let him in.
But for how long can a suffocating man deny himself the breath of life?
Logan knew small talk wouldn’t get them anywhere.
He took a deep breath, undoing the cuff of his shirt and carefully rolling up the sleeve, revealing the plastic wrapped around his wrist. He noticed the moment Adrian’s eyes fell on it—how they widened slightly, how his gaze sharpened and glued itself to the tattoo beneath the translucent covering.
Adrian reached out before Logan could speak, his movement quick but his touch impossibly gentle.
He cradled Logan’s hand, his fingers trembling slightly as he turned Logan’s wrist to examine the tattoo.
Logan’s body convulsed as electricity rushed through him, each nerve igniting in a burst of sensation.
Adrian’s touch was silky, reverent, but it carried an urgency that sent a warmth coursing through Logan’s chest, striking his heart with a force he hadn’t expected.
A set of whiskey-colored eyes, bright and piercing in the sunlight coming through the large windows, lifted to meet Logan’s.
They were wide, almost frantic, and filled with an intensity that sank all the way into Logan’s soul.
Logan’s eyes grew tender as he looked at Adrian, love evident in their gentle glow.
The quiet affection in his gaze spoke volumes, words unnecessary as he conveyed everything in that single, lingering look.
Adrian’s fingers continued to move over Logan’s wrist, tracing the edges of the plastic and the ink beneath it. It was as though Adrian wasn’t entirely aware of what he was doing, his body responding on instinct, taking the touch he had long denied himself.