Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Logan
I call again, but get no answer. For the third time.
We really need to have a conversation about this—I should have brought it up already.
Being ignored by Baby feels extra shitty now that he’s mine.
He always has his phone with him, so I know it’s intentional.
Probably expects me to give up, but I’m not too proud to keep trying.
“What?”
I blink, the tone unexpected. I should be the one annoyed. It took me calling five times just to get an answer.
“Where are you?” I know he had a class today, but that was a while ago.
“On my way to my moms’ house.”
That’s also unexpected. “I thought we were gonna take that drive together.” The wedding is in a few days.
“Changed my mind.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, not sure what his deal is. “I guess I can drive alone. I mean, I’ll miss out on your Y2K playlist, but—”
“Actually, you don’t have to come anymore. You’re off the hook.”
“But… I’m taking you to the wedding.” I literally scratch my head. He’s in a mood and not making sense.
“Yeah, no. I’m going al—um. With someone else.”
I stand up, my body forcing me to do something other than simply sit there. “Someone else.”
“Yup.” The p pops in my ear, and I flinch. What the fuck is he talking about? “Zeke, actually.”
“Zeke.” Huh. “Are… you’re joking.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Baby—”
“Look, I need to find a place to get some gas, so I’m gonna go. I’ll see you next week.”
“Baby!” I take a breath and listen, making sure he didn’t hang up. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand—you don’t have to go to the wedding anymore, Logan. You don’t have to pretend to be gay anymore—thanks anyway.”
“I’m not—I don’t know what I am, but I wasn’t pretending to be anything with you, Baby. I wanted to go with you, and—”
“Okay, well, I’m glad I helped you branch out and try new things, but I’m going with someone else. So, bye.”
This time, he does hang up. I try calling back, but it goes straight to voicemail.
∞∞∞
The physical ache isn’t something I ever would have expected. There’s an actual pain assaulting my chest. It’s sickening—it’s truly making me sick to my stomach. Someone should have warned me that the word heartbreak was so fucking literal.
I’ve been going over everything that’s happened the past couple of months on a loop for three days. If I’d manned up and said something, told him how I felt…
I cover my eyes when they begin to burn again. Baby obviously doesn’t feel the same way. If I’d told him that I’m completely and hopelessly in love with him, it probably would have led to this exact scenario.
He just doesn’t want me.
Baby doesn’t want me, work doesn’t need me, and my limbs are too tired to drive back home.
My boss said he’d call me in if anything changed, but since I’d requested this week off anyway, they were covered.
I could make myself go see my family—I could really use a hug from my mom—but part of me thinks I’d end up driving to him instead, and I don’t even have the address.
I don’t know what Zeke said to Baby to make him change his mind, and nothing I can imagine explains why they’d be going to the wedding together.
The whole idea is absurd. Zeke doesn’t deserve him.
I don’t either, a truth I’ll have to endure with agony for the rest of my life, it seems, but Zeke really fucking doesn’t.
The sense of impending doom keeps hitting me in waves. I haven’t actually cried yet. Honestly, I’m not sure when I last did, but I get close to it about every five minutes now. I don’t see how it can get any worse, but my body keeps on warning me that it will.
My phone rings, and I simply let it. It’s not Baby. He’s back to ignoring me. Not that I’ve tried too hard to get in touch with him.
Thanks anyway.
That’s not really something I need to hear again.
I sit up in a rush, the suddenness of it making me lightheaded.
It’s not Baby trying to get ahold of me, but it could be work.
The distraction could be useful. It’s on my bed somewhere under the sheet, meaning I have to stand up.
My body protests the more I move, is stiff from hours of lying on the floor—why, I have no clue.
I was just tired of being in bed. Alone.
“Hey,” I answer the phone without looking, and it takes me a second to realize who it is.
“Can you let me in? Cade has my key.”
I grunt agreeably, wondering how Nic got my number—and then I remember the group chat that Baby added all of us to.
Liam doesn’t even live here, and he’s still in it.
His boyfriend, too. I wonder how long I’d last if I were to move out.
If Baby comes back with a boyfriend, he’ll probably get added too.
I’d have to leave then—seeing him and someone like Zeke together…
I clutch my stomach. It feels like a longer walk than it should as I head down the hall and to the door.
“Are you sick?” Nic asks me as I step to the side to let him in.
“I’m fine.” It wouldn’t be a lie if I told him I actually was sick, though.
Soul-crushing devastation might not be a recognized illness, but it should be.
He can obviously see some of it on me, standing there holding a pizza box and staring with definite skepticism.
After a moment of holding the door open for him, I give up and turn back towards my room.
“Want some pizza?”
“Nah.”
“Eat some anyway.”
The command stops me in my tracks. He saw more on my face than I thought. “Thanks, Nic, but I’m not hungry.”
“You already ate?”
It feels like a chore to answer him, so I don’t. Instead, I walk past Baby’s room and go back to mine.
∞∞∞
This movie is sort of awful. The soundtrack is decent, but the dancing gives me secondhand embarrassment. There’s always something cringey in an eighties film, but this one was supposed to be a good one. It’s not. It’s lame.
I would know. I’ve watched it a dozen times in a row.
They don’t even end up together, Baby and Johnny. Which is a little too on the fucking nose for me, and yet, here I am. Restarting it.
Cade walks in as Be My Baby starts playing on the TV and groans. “Again?”
I ignore him. He wouldn’t understand even if I knew how to explain it. He’s got Nic.
“There are other movies.”
“Go watch one then.” When I look at him, I regret it. The sheen of sweat on his skin has me wishing Baby were here to tell him he needs to put on a shirt. “Dude.” I spot the boner he’s sporting in his shorts and look away.
He snorts. “Water break.”
Must be nice.
“Hey, I have a friend coming over in a bit. He’s going to crash here for the night.”
“I don’t think Baby would—”
“Yeah, I know. But Baby’s not here.”
I cross my arms over my chest and try not to take it personally. It’s not like he was trying to hurt me. He’s just stating a fact.
“Alright.”
“Yeah,” he says carefully, now in front of the fridge. “So, how long are we gonna be living with Jessica Day?”
“What?”
He laughs at some joke I don’t get. “Never mind. But as much as I love the depression-fueled Dirty Dancing marathon, my friend is gonna be here in like an hour, and I did say he could have the couch.”
I huff. “Don’t you have an extra bed?”
“Yeah, but there’s no way Nic is going to let him sleep in our room. He kind of hates him.”
I don’t bother asking why he’d be friends with someone his husband doesn’t like. “Whatever. I’ll go to bed when he gets here.”
“Cool. Oh, and can you let him in?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for me to answer, already on his way back to Nic.
They do this a lot, fuck. Like, a lot. This isn’t the first time I’ve been out here while they’re back there getting busy, but it is the first time I’ve been jealous. Everything makes me miss Baby.
I miss him more than the sex, but it adds to my suffering knowing that Baby doesn’t want even that from me anymore. Touching him, holding him, loving him—I don’t get to do any of that ever again.
It feels like I’ve lost my purpose in life.
We weren’t together for that long—a fling shorter than even that of the couple in this movie—but he’s left his mark on me. Plenty of marks, actually.
I lean my head over the back of the couch at the thousandth reminder that there’ll be no more of that either.
My little vampire—how can that be when he’ll no longer bite me?
Such a silly thing to be so miserable about, but I am.
One day I’ll be over him—that’s something I keep telling myself, but part of me doesn’t believe it.
It’s the goal. That’s sad in itself—to think that there might come a time where I won’t be aching for Baby—but I want so fucking badly to believe that I’ll stop hurting at some point.
Watching this movie over and over probably isn’t helping the situation, but it’s all I can do at the moment.
When Cade’s friend finally shows up, Hungry Eyes is playing.
It’s one of my favorite parts, so it’s extra irritating that I have to stop watching now.
I don’t feel like chatting, especially with someone I’ve never met, so I plan on letting him in and then going straight to bed—where I’ll most likely play the movie soundtrack over and over.
Getting up, walking to the door, doing pretty much anything at all feels draining. I’m hungry, tired, and dehydrated, and there are solutions to those problems, but all I want to do is torture myself with the movie that Baby got his name from.
When I open the door, it’s to find a boy who seems very confused at my presence. “This—does Cade live here?”
“Yeah, he told me to let you in.”
“Oh.” He raises his thick brows and goes to push his hair back, but there’s a headband in his way. “You’re one of his roommates.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.
“This is awkward.”
I don’t get why, but I also don’t care. “You coming in?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a choice. I mean, I have nowhere else to go, but…” He bites his bottom lip nervously as he shoves his hands in the pockets of his puffy bomber jacket. “Please don’t tell Cade—or Nic! God, do not tell Nic. He already doesn’t like me hanging out with Cade.”
“Don’t tell him what?”
He cocks his head back, surprised at the question.
“You don’t remember me?” Whatever he sees on my face gives him my answer.
“Jax Juicy,” he tells me, expecting it to ring a bell.
“Oh. Um, rude. I mean, you’re supposedly straight, so I guess that tracks, but I highly doubt there are many guys who have seen me dance and just forgot.
That’s…” He shakes his head at the thought, clearly upset that it’s possible he’s wrong. “You can call me Jax.”
I do remember him now—he was the bartender at Fruit Punch who ended up on the stage a few times. I’m pretty sure Baby put some cash in his shorts at one point. He looks different, fully clothed with dry hair. His skin is a lot less glittery.
Something he said is still ringing in my mind. “What do you mean, supposedly straight?” I don’t have much of an opinion about what he does for a living, but I have to assume that he and Baby talked. There was nobody else there that night who I think would have told him that.
“Well, that’s what your fake-boyfriend said, but the cum on your lips told a whole other story.”
I hum. Baby told him everything, it seems. “It didn’t feel fake,” I say quietly to myself.
Maybe that’s all it was to Baby, nothing more than a deal between friends.
If so, I can see why it was so easy for him to end it like he did.
It would have been really helpful if he’d warned me before I got so invested.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I kind of blame him for this renewed sorrow hitting me, so I don’t try too hard to convince him.
If he’s uncomfortable, that’s too bad. I tell him where the couch is—forgetting he has eyes, I guess—and let him know where he can find Cade to get some blankets and pillows.
Just when I’m about to warn him that they might still be busy back there, he mentions Baby. “He’s not here right now.”
I can hear my roommates’ door open, and kind of wish that this guy had interrupted them. The distraction would have allowed me to escape.
“Ah, okay. That’s why you’re so sad.”
Cade scoffs as he enters the room, and Nic shoves an elbow in his side. “I just don’t get—”
“Mind your own business,” Nic says.
“You don’t get what?” I ask him, because I’m pretty sure he was scoffing at me.
“Anything,” Nic answers, even though I was talking to Cade. “He’s kind of dumb.”
“No, really. I want to know.”
“Okay,” Cade finally speaks, all too happy to share whatever it is he has to say. “Baby told us about you and Liz.”
“No,” Jax gasps. “Ugh. I was rooting for you, man.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask the room, needing anyone at all to help me clear shit up.
Cade rolls his eyes. “Nic was worried about you, so I called Baby. He told me you slept with someone else. You cheated—pretty much dug your own grave, and now you’re crying about it.”
“I can’t believe he did that.” Jax shakes his head at Cade, and the two share an agreeing look.
I feel panicked, my body actually shaking with adrenaline at the very thought that Baby could somehow believe I’d do something like that. “I would never.”
Cade rolls his eyes again, and I could fucking scream. “Whether you were exclusive or not, it was a shitty thing to do.”
He’s absolutely correct—it would have been a really messed-up thing to do. But I simply would never.
I have to talk to Baby.