Chapter Seventeen
It had been a terrible idea. Probably one of the worst ideas I’d ever had.
It had started well. I’d arrived at the bar to find a handsome man waiting.
He’d smiled broadly at my arrival, ignoring my outstretched hand and pulling me in for a brief hug instead.
Even better, he’d insisted on buying the drinks.
It was a relief to find Georgia hadn’t been lying or exaggerating, either about his looks, or about how nice he was.
We’d found a quiet table at the back of the bar.
Jack seemed equally pleased. He’d flirted outrageously, casting admiring looks my way, and giving those little touches that proclaimed interest without being too over-familiar.
However, once small talk was out of the way, things started to go downhill rapidly.
It soon became clear we had absolutely nothing in common.
Even worse, there were numerous things Jack was under the impression I was into, that I knew absolutely nothing about and didn’t have any desire to find out more.
I’d just spent ten minutes trying to bluff my way through a discussion of “my favorite film.” We’d supposedly talked about it online several times.
Apparently, we’d even watched it together, sending messages and discussing the action as the film progressed.
Only problem was, it wasn’t my favorite film.
In fact, I’d never even seen it. It was, of course, Georgia’s favorite film.
She’d tried to convince me to watch it several times, but I’d never gotten around to it.
My knowledge extended to the odd comment I remembered her making, and a review I’d read more than a year ago.
After Jack had given up on the subject of films, an awkward silence fell between the two of us.
I stared at the table, racking my brain to try and come up with a suitable topic of conversation.
We’d already exhausted sport: I liked football, he liked cricket.
He hadn’t shown any great interest in the acting profession, so I’d quickly given up on discussing anything to do with that.
With nothing coming to mind, I risked a glance back in his direction.
He smiled weakly, before scooting his chair closer to the table. “I’ve got to admit. I’m a little confused.”
You and me both. “About what?”
“I mean. Don’t take this the wrong way, but—”
When he didn’t finish the sentence, I raised an eyebrow in a clear question.
He rubbed his chin wearily. “We got on so well online. I mean, I’ve been talking to you for months.
I thought when we eventually met up, it would be…
well, I just, I’m not getting that same vibe.
I’m not sure this is working.” That time the smile was apologetic, and I felt like a complete shit.
“Listen…I think, I’m just going to go. Sorry.
It’s been really nice meeting you, but…yeah.
All I can say is sorry. I hope you don’t feel like I’ve wasted your time. ”
“You don’t need to apologize. You…” The words I’d been going to say, whatever the hell they were going to be, died on my tongue as I caught sight of the man striding across the bar toward us.
How the hell had he found me here? There was only one possible explanation: Georgia had told him where I was.
I was going to kill her, painfully and slowly.
Either she’d completely forgotten everything I’d said to her the other night, or she’d decided she knew best. I had a sneaky suspicion it was probably the latter.
I reached over, grabbing hold of Jack’s arm in a firm grip and ignoring the faint look of alarm that immediately crossed his handsome face. “Please don’t go yet!”
Jack carefully extricated his arm from my grip, a slight flush appearing on his cheekbones. “Erm…I don’t really think we have anything left to say.”
“Five more minutes, please!” A flash of inspiration came to me.
“If you hang around a bit longer, I can explain why tonight’s been so weird.
There’s a perfectly good explanation, honest. Hopefully, you’ll find it funny.
” After all, why shouldn’t I tell him the truth?
It wasn’t like I was ever going to see him again, and if it pissed Georgia off, well tough shit!
She shouldn’t have sent Justin there. Speaking of Justin, he’d arrived at the table and was currently casting a rather large and ominous shadow over Jack’s left shoulder.
I kept my gaze fixed on Jack’s confused face for as long as I could, until there was no putting it off any longer.
I forced myself to lift my head and make the briefest eye contact possible with Justin, a matter of milliseconds before I returned my attention to my date. “Go away!”
Jack frowned. “You just asked me to stay.”
“Not you. I want you to stay. I want…” I was saved from having to physically point out Justin’s presence when he took it upon himself to seat himself on the spare chair on Jack’s right.
Jack immediately turned. Before he could question the other man’s right to sit there, I got in first. “You can’t sit there.”
“I already did.” Justin’s stare held a clear challenge.
“Then you can just get straight back up again and go. I presume Georgia told you I was here. Which she shouldn’t have done.”
“She told me you were on”—Justin threw a quick glance at the man next to him, the dislike on his face clear to see—“a date. Do you think that’s a good idea, dating already?”
Jack, to his credit, hadn’t moved an inch.
He did however look supremely uncomfortable, his gaze darting between my face and Justin’s, evidently trying to work out what was going on.
I threw him an apologetic glance before responding to Justin.
“It’s none of your business. You need to accept, we’re done.
We both need to move on. And please stop following me around.
I can’t go home. I can’t go to work. I can’t even go on a date without you turning up. ”
My last words finally got a reaction from Jack. He turned to Justin, a look of surprise on his face. “Listen, mate, I don’t know who you are, but you can’t be following him around. That’s so not cool, dude. If he asks you to leave him alone, you need to leave him alone.”
A muscle twitched at Justin’s temple. He turned his full attention to the man next to him. “You don’t know who I am! Who the hell are you? You’ve known him what? Two minutes? You have no idea what’s actually going on here.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, a conditioned response to the aggression present in Justin’s tone of voice.
I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to intervene but not sure what to say.
Jack folded his arms before replying. “We may have only met face-to-face tonight, but we’ve been talking for months.
Every evening, for hours sometimes. We know everything about each other.
So, I think you need to leave and let us get on with our date. ”
Justin’s eyes flicked straight to mine. “Is that true? You were talking to him, while…” There was no mistaking the look on his face as anything other than pure hurt. I suddenly found it difficult to pull my gaze away from his. Jack had ceased to exist. It was just the two of us.
“I…” My first instinct was to come clean, admit I’d never spoken to Jack before tonight, but then what?
If he accepted my explanation, we’d be back to square one with him wanting us to talk, wanting to sit and calmly discuss his reasons for continuing to pay me for sex, even after knowing who I was, even after we’d started dating.
As usual when I allowed myself to think about what had happened between us, nausea hit.
I swallowed it down, my gaze dropping to the surface of the table.
Surely, the best course of action was to let Justin believe I’d been talking to another man.
That way, he’d be more likely to leave me alone. Which was what I wanted, right?
I lifted my head, forcing myself to meet his gaze head-on.
I shrugged nonchalantly, using all of my acting skills to give a convincing performance.
“Yes. It’s true.” I reached across the table, letting my fingers brush the back of Jack’s hand in a tender gesture before encircling his wrist and letting my hand rest there.
I was grateful when Jack went along with the charade and didn’t immediately snatch his hand away.
Justin’s gaze slowly dropped, taking in the sight of our joined hands.
He stiffened, his expression rapidly turning stormy.
Then, without a word, he simply pushed his chair back, got up, and walked away.
I watched his departing back, a whole myriad of feelings warring inside of me from relief to regret and a few others I couldn’t even identify.
I was barely aware of Jack pulling his hand away from mine.
I’d achieved what I wanted to achieve. I should have felt happy. Instead, I just felt empty.
“Who was that?”
Now that Justin had gone, Jack’s face looked almost as stormy as the other man’s had. “My ex-boyfriend.”
“Recent?”
I nodded.
“So, you were stringing us both along?”
“No.” I sighed. “Not at all. I can explain. But…you’re probably still going to be pissed.”
He sat back. “Try me.”
“I have this friend, Georgia. We live together. She wanted me to date more. She set me up on a date, which…didn’t go well.”
With Jack looking like he was rapidly running out of patience, I decided I should get to the point quicker. “Anyway…to cut a long story short. She set up a profile on Grindr for me. She’s been the one you’ve been talking to all this time, not me. We’ve never had an online conversation. I’m sorry.”
Jack rubbed at his temple, clearly struggling to digest the information I’d just given him. “We’ve never spoken at all.”
“No. Sorry.”
He let out a long exhale. “Then why did you just let”—he pointed to the empty chair recently vacated by Justin—“him believe we had.”
“It’s really complicated. Our relationship, well…it didn’t end in a good way. He’s finding it hard to accept that I don’t want to dissect it. That I just want to move on. I needed to get rid of him. It seemed like an effective way. Thanks for going along with it by the way. I appreciate it.”
There was a long silence where neither of us spoke. Finally, I broke it. “It’s a shame you’re gay. You and Georgia obviously had an awful lot in common and got along really well.”
Jack laughed. “Who said I was gay? I’m bi.”