Chapter Nineteen #2
“No!” I hadn’t even considered the possibility he could have thought that. “God, no! There was only you. I think…if we’d started sleeping together…you know as Dean and Justin, not Jay and Danny, then I would have found the strength to have stopped it…but you kept pushing me away.”
Justin laughed, a short, sharp laugh. “Of course, I did. You would have guessed, surely? I could kiss you, because…well, we never kissed in here, but anything else, I was scared you’d be able to tell.”
I reached out, feeling around in the dark, until my hand wrapped around his forearm, the muscles briefly contracting beneath my fingers, before they relaxed.
It was his left side. I could feel the uneven ridges of scar tissue beneath my fingertips.
I resisted the urge to explore. Not knowing what to stay, I stayed silent.
“So, are you and…that guy…still together?”
“What guy?”
“The one you were talking to…when we were...together…the one I saw you on a date with in the bar.”
“Oh!” I let my hand drop from his arm. For some reason, I’d forgotten what I’d led him to believe.
Justin’s words came out in a rush. “It’s okay if you are. I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy. He seemed—”
Whatever word he’d been going to use…whether it was a genuine compliment or just a bland and meaningless piece of praise he didn’t really mean, it never came to fruition as he left the end of the sentence unsaid. I filled the gap. “No. I’m not seeing him.”
“Things didn’t work out?”
I took a deep breath. “I was never seeing him.” When he offered no response, I figured he was due more of an explanation.
He was right, the talking thing was easier in the dark.
“I don’t know if you remember me telling you about Georgia setting up a Grindr profile under my name.
Well, Jack, that’s his name, he was one of the men that replied to her.
He thought he’d been talking to me, but it was Georgia all along.
That night was the first time we’d met…or spoken.
He didn’t realize. Why would he? Who imagines they’ve been talking to a woman pretending to be a man for over a month.
I put him right. That night. But, that was after you left.
The date was a nightmare. We had absolutely nothing in common.
I just…well, I wanted you to leave. I couldn’t cope with talking to you.
Not then. I felt so hurt. So humiliated.
So, I let you believe…I thought it was for the best… sorry. I’m not proud of it.”
The silence that followed my confession was so deafening that, along with the combination of darkness, it was easy to believe Justin had disappeared altogether. “Justin?” No response. “Say something, please.”
“You don’t think letting me believe you’d been stringing me along the whole time was an incredibly hurtful thing to do?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Of course, it was. But I couldn’t think of another way of getting you to leave me alone.
Every time I saw you, it just made it worse.
I couldn’t cope with it.” I reached out again, my fingers coming into contact with his chest that time.
I was surprised to discover he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
I let my hand rest on the warm skin, feeling the rise and fall of his chest in time with his breathing.
I expected him to step back. That, or pull my hand away.
When he did neither, I spread my fingers apart, covering a wider expanse of skin.
“Anyway, funny story. He and Georgia are now a couple. Would you believe that?”
He let out a strange undecipherable sound: a laugh mixed with something else. It was the first time since the conversation had started that I’d wished I could see his face. Maybe then I’d be able to tell what he was thinking. I waited for him to say something.
“Do you…are you…I mean…shit. Forget it.”
I frowned, my fingers still tracing absentminded patterns across his skin. “What?”
His body moved slightly from side to side like he was shaking his head. “It’s none of my business.”
“Say whatever you were going to say. We’re meant to be clearing the air, right? Getting closure. If I leave here and you’ve still got questions you haven’t asked, then…you won’t have it. So…ask away. Whatever it is.”
“I just wondered if you were still…escorting. I know it’s stupid, and incredibly hypocritical of me to ask, but I hate to think of you…you know…with other people. Especially for money.”
My heart picked up speed. Was he saying he still cared? I answered honestly. “I’ve only done the straightforward dating jobs. Not the…other. I picked up a couple of acting jobs: another drama and an advert. It’s meant I haven’t needed to.”
“Acting jobs! That’s great.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. My heart leapt at his ability to still sound genuinely pleased for me. “Thanks.”
Conversation suddenly dried up, like we’d both run out of things to say.
Was that it? Was that meant to be closure achieved?
Because it certainly didn’t feel like it.
I felt better in some ways now that I knew he hadn’t been finding the situation secretly hilarious, but it left me feeling…
empty. Was I meant to make my excuses and leave now?