Chapter 2 #2
Navigating through the twisting vine and thorn-choked lanes, Eddie tried to not get lost in hopes or dreams. He desperately wanted Jett back, and this was hopefully an opportunity to do that.
It just depended on if Jett would be willing to hear him out, willing to forget and forgive.
Eddie couldn’t blame him if he didn’t. But he hoped beyond hope for the chance.
Once he’d registered the full consequence of his actions, Eddie had hoped for this chance to make amends.
He’d practiced words in the confines of his room, the words he hoped would be proper and correct, the words meant to ease the tension between them.
And he hoped that Jett would give him a chance to speak first. Ultimately there was no way for Eddie to be prepared, no way for him to predict the outcome of what was to come.
When he turned into the grove, Eddie stopped dead in his tracks.
Hunched over, Jett’s tawny skin peeked through the shoulders of one of the long-sleeved bodysuits he favored.
This was the one he wore to the concert where they first kissed.
The one he wore on their first real date.
The one he wore when they went out dancing, when Jett had something special planned.
He hadn’t been wearing it on the Bridge earlier.
Jett’s head raised and his dark eyes locked on Eddie.
Soft black hair framed his beautiful face.
Black-stained tears ran from his mono-lidded eyes down wide cheeks, over plump lips, and dripped from his sharp chin.
He was no less beautiful for the makeup stains or the redness of his eyes.
He’d been born with the kind of beauty that people paid for, and wore it well even now.
But twenty years in the Charon Defense Force had left their mark on Jett.
He was a cyborg after an incident left his body and mind scarred, left him traumatized and distrustful.
He’d lost an eye, needed several muscle and tendon replacements, and was covered in old scars.
His left eye was a near-perfect replacement, save for a glowing amber ring around the iris.
Eddie loved Jett for the wounds, inside and out, because they made Jett the man he was. Even though he didn’t know how they had happened.
Moments passed as they stared at each other, and Eddie couldn’t bring himself to speak lest he ruin whatever chance he had.
Then a snarl crossed Jett’s face, turned venomous by the small scar that marred his left chin, lips, and cheek. “You took your time.”
Eddie felt the words as a wound in his chest. They tore his own scars open, let fresh anguish flow from his soul. He opened his mouth, but all his practiced words slipped away in the face of Jett’s anger.
“What did you want, Lieutenant?”
The words slipped out, tone both commanding and aloof, without thought. The masks they wore now—the Lieutenant and the First Officer—were solidly affixed to them. All of Eddie’s hopes were dashed.
“I want the truth.” Jett crossed the grove in the time it took for Eddie to blink, appeared before Eddie as if he were the taller of the two.
His arms were loose at his side, eyes flashing black and brown, the embodiment of righteous anger.
“You tossed me aside, Captain, without an explanation. So why did you leave me? For this fancy fucking ship? For another man?” He paused to take a breath. “Well, Captain?”
Eddie had never heard a word spoken with such disgust and disdain, and he took an immediate dislike to it.
Another moment passed as they stared at one another.
“What did I do?” Tears continued to fall, glistening off Jett’s lips as if they’d just kissed.
Eddie looked aside. “Our lives were on different trajectories…” he mumbled, startled, uncertain.
“You were comfortable here and the opportunity to further my career was an offer I could not refuse.” It wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t completely right.
Eddie just couldn’t tell Jett the full truth when everything had started so wrong.
Jett crossed his arms, glaring. “That is the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard. You know I would’ve gone anywhere just to stay with you.”
He will not follow you, his mother’s voice whispered.
“Would you?” Eddie felt rather than heard the change in tone. It felt like acid in his chest. “Would you leave your job and friends to follow me through the Systems? Endure people you hate on principal for the sake of me?”
“I would have done anything for you.” Jett spat the words out, grabbed a fistful of Eddie’s shirt, and dragged him down to eye level. Eddie was bigger and stronger than Jett, but he’d never had to prove that.
“I gave you everything, Edward Markus Stone.” Jett growled his name and it lit a fire in his guts.
Eddie placed a hand on Jett’s chest and shoved, freeing himself from the smaller man’s crushing grip.
He does not love you.
“Did you really?” He ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tic he couldn’t shake.
“Did you give me everything? Did you let me see every side of you? Were you there to support me while I was insulted by my family?” He took a deep breath and watched as his words settled on Jett.
There was a perceptible change in his stance: tighter, stiffer, a predator coiled up to attack.
Nothing was going according to plan. He hadn’t said the right words, taken the right tone, done the right thing.
“How do you think it looked when their son showed up without his long-term partner multiple times over six years?”
“Did you ever think about not going to see the people who abused you?” Jett hissed.
“I did, but I wanted you there with me. Like you promised me all those years ago.”
“Why won’t you just tell me the Void-forsaken truth?” Tears fell down Jett’s face once more. “Were you just keeping me around as a pretty piece of ass? Were you waiting for Mommy and Daddy Stone to pick out the perfectly elite partner for their unwanted second son?”
Eddie stiffened.
No Captain should have a partner like him.
“Why are you standing there like we’re strangers, Eddie? Why won’t you answer me?” Jett all but screamed.
In the distance Eddie heard soft voices and hurried movement. Surely others knew something was going on now. Hopefully it was no one that they knew.
“It does not matter anymore, Lieutenant.” Eddie spoke before Jett could throw more painful accusations at his feet. “It is done. We are over. And soon I will never have to see you again.”
The words slipped out again, harsh, distorted, wrong. He wanted Jett more than anything in the Three Systems. He loved Jett with his whole being. But that love made him uniquely capable of hurting Jett, which he’d done. Again.
You have made your bed, Edward Stone, and now you must lie in it.
Jett turned deathly pale, his hands clenched into fists so tight that blood dripped between his fingers. They stared at each other for one long, excruciating moment before Jett turned away.
“Don’t worry, Captain Stone,” he said. “I don’t intend to speak to you ever again.” Eddie watched fat tears well up in Jett’s eyes, spilling over as Jett crossed the grove. “You’ll be a great Captain for all the elitist shitheads out there like you and your family.”
Then Jett was gone. Out of sight. Out of Eddie’s life entirely.
Eddie collapsed to one knee, hands bracing him against the dry, moss-covered ground. Tears ran sticky down his face. He’d fucked up, perhaps more so than the day he’d kicked Jett out of their—Eddie’s—room.
Several minutes of measured breathing later, Eddie looked up at the dark roses. They reminded him so much of Jett, so much of the sharp, beautiful, wonderful man who’d just stormed out of Eddie’s life forever.
“Twelve weeks,” he muttered to the roses. “Twelve weeks and Jett can forget me for good.”