Chapter Fifteen
“Someone’s dressed up.” Georgia loomed in close, watching with apparent fascination as I fixed my hair in the mirror. “Hot date?”
I had to admit I was making a particular effort that night.
I’d had something of an epiphany about my relationship with Justin after putting myself in his shoes.
He’d made it clear he wanted to take things slowly, and I selfishly kept trying to rush him.
I’d met a wonderful guy. I should concentrate on being happy with that.
Everything else would come with time. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him away.
So, tonight I was looking forward to an evening of good conversation, a bit of flirting, and most importantly sitting with a man who was on the same wavelength.
And if the evening only ended with a kiss—so what?
There were worse things in life. “Definitely, a hot date.”
“Two nights in a row. Wow! You’ve got it bad.”
“What?” My hands stilled in my hair. “Oh, right…yeah.” I hadn’t told her I’d been with Justin the previous night. She’d obviously just assumed that’s where I was, and I wasn’t going to correct her. “Well, you know how it is when you meet a good man. No point in playing it cool.”
Georgia planted herself on the edge of my bed. “I wouldn’t know about that. I thought I had met a good man. Turns out his other girlfriend thought so too.”
I grimaced and sat down next to her. “Sorry. Me and my big mouth. I didn’t think.”
She laced our fingers together, her smile genuine. “Don’t apologize. It’s nice to see you happy, Dean. Give Justin a big kiss from me, would you?”
My jubilation still hadn’t faded by the time I reached the restaurant where I’d arranged to meet Justin.
Spying the familiar back of his head, I almost skipped across the floor, leaning over his shoulder and dropping a loud kiss on his scarred cheek, before throwing myself into the chair opposite, a big grin on my face.
“That one’s from Georgia, by the way. She’s a big fan of yours. ”
“You know I have very little feeling on that side, right?”
I feigned an eye roll, before standing and leaning over the table to deposit a matching kiss on the other cheek.
I then dropped a quick one on his lips. “The last one is from me.” I eased back into my seat, still smiling.
Expecting it to be returned, my smile slowly faded as I took in the stony countenance of the man on the other side of the table.
In contrast to my good mood, Justin looked downright miserable. “What’s wrong?”
He looked away. Never a good sign when your boyfriend can’t bring themselves to look at you.
I sought for a reasonable explanation for this sudden lack of enthusiasm at seeing me. “Sorry. I didn’t think you had any issues with PDA.”
“PDA?”
“Public displays of affection. Is that why you’re upset?”
He shook his head, his gaze still fixed somewhere in the distance. Finally, his eyes swiveled back to mine. “Can we get out of here?”
Surprised, I found myself speechless for a moment. I’d been expecting to eat there. What was the point of meeting in a restaurant if it didn’t involve food? “Sure. You want to go somewhere else? Did something happen today? Something medical? Did someone say something to you before I got here?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
He got up and left the restaurant, with me trailing after him.
On the way out, I offered an apologetic shrug to the waitress who’d been on her way to take our orders.
“So, you don’t fancy Mexican food. What do you fancy?
We could do…tapas…or Italian. There’s a really good Indian place which opened up a few months ago.
Georgia raved about it when she went with Benedict.
Obviously, this was before she found out he was a two-timing dick.
She’d hardly go anywhere with him now. As long as you don’t make me eat at the place I work at, I’m happy to go anywhere else. ”
“Can we go back to my house?”
“Your house?” I’d never even seen Justin’s house.
In fact, he’d never been particularly forthcoming about where exactly it was that he lived.
I knew it was somewhere close to my workplace, and that was about it.
“Okay. Sure. Sounds good. As long as we’re going to eat something.
I’m starving. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you should cook. Takeaway’s good. Maybe a pizza.”
Justin said nothing as we walked. The longer he was quiet, the more my worry bloomed into something approaching fear.
Whatever was going on with him couldn’t be anything good.
Uncomfortable with the silence, I did what I normally did, I rambled on about anything and everything that came to mind in a completely one-sided conversation.
I hoped that once Justin was in the safety and security of his own home, he’d share whatever the problem was.
Maybe, it was a medical issue and he just hadn’t wanted to talk about it in a public place.
That would make sense. He’d recently mentioned having to have more skin grafts.
Perhaps it was linked to that. It had to be a good sign though, him inviting me back.
Maybe I’d get to spend the night there. Even without sex, that would be a good step forward.
There was also the fact I was intrigued to see what his house was like.
I was so caught up in detailing the ins and outs of a hectic night in the restaurant with a particularly awkward customer that I hadn’t registered the direction we’d been walking in.
I almost stumbled into Justin as he stopped suddenly with an announcement that we were here.
I lifted my eyes to a red door. Not just any red door.
A red door that was particularly familiar to me.
After all, it was only the previous evening that I’d last seen it.
Right before I’d walked through it, up the familiar stairs, and spent time being royally fucked into the mattress.
Confused, I turned to Justin. His face was tight and guarded, like he was waiting for something.
Random thoughts swirled through my head.
None of them making even the slightest bit of sense. “What’s this?”
Justin crossed his arms defensively, a muscle ticking in the unblemished cheek. “My house.”
I laughed, convinced that any moment now, I’d realize the house was similar, rather than the same one.
It couldn’t be the same one, because that would mean…
“It can’t…you don’t. I…” My brain completely short-circuited, and I found myself unable to form a complete sentence, absolute and complete panic clawing at my insides.
I tried again, my tongue struggling against the sudden lack of saliva. “You live here?”
Justin nodded, taking a step toward me. “I didn’t know how else to tell you.
I figured if I brought you here, then…” He trailed off, and I went back to staring at the door, my brain still trying to compute all the possible ramifications.
“Dean, I—“ He reached for my arm. I knocked it away. The last thing I wanted or needed, was him touching me. I took a step back. He followed, a beseeching look on his face. “Come inside with me. We can talk about this. That’s why I brought you here, so we can talk. We need to get everything out in the open. This”—he gestured toward the house— “this has been the thing coming between us. I’ve got secrets. You’ve got secrets.
But, don’t you see, they’re the same secrets, so—”
I felt like I was going to have a full-on panic attack.
I couldn’t stop shaking my head, denial coursing through every part of my body.
I bent over, trying to force more oxygen into my lungs, hoping it would take away the feeling of dizziness.
“When did you know? That…it was me?” I peered up at him through my lashes, needing to see his face, needing to see if he was telling the truth.
He looked stricken. “At the restaurant. I recognized your voice straight away. I thought I was imagining it at first. You had”—he gave a small smile— “the wrong-colored hair, but then the way you said certain words, I realized it really was you.”
I managed to pull myself back to a standing position, staring open-mouthed at the man standing opposite me. “At the restaurant. But, that was weeks ago. That was before our first date. You’ve lied to me all this time.”
A belligerent look crossed the other man’s face.
“I wasn’t the only one lying, Dean. As you well know.
If you want to get down to semantics, we’re both as bad as each other.
” His face suddenly softened. “Shit! Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.
You’re in shock. I’ve had longer to wrap my head around this…
situation. Let’s go in. I’ll make us a hot drink, and we can discuss this like adults. Sort out what our next step is.”
He reached out again. This time I backed away out of touching distance, the nausea still bubbling away inside. How could he be so calm about this? Treat it like it was nothing? Like we could have a perfectly reasonable conversation about it. White-hot anger suddenly engulfed me. “There’s no point.”
“What?”
“Discussing it.”
“I get that you’re angry, Dean. But—“
“We’re done.” I hadn’t planned for those words to come out of my mouth. But, as soon as they did, I immediately felt better. They were the words which would take me away from this situation. It felt like a great weight had suddenly lifted from my chest.
“You don’t mean that.”