Chapter 9
9
ELLIOT CRANE
I’m not going to send you a picture of the finished table, because you have to go see it in person.
The colors are so much better that way.
Anyway.
Thanks for everything these past few weeks.
I’m glad you had to come pick me up at the airport.
SETH MAYS
I’ll definitely go see it.
Happy to help.
Hope you get home safe!
It looked like a completely banal, ordinary text exchange. But I’d stared at his message on and off for two hours before managing to come up with something to say in return that wasn’t horrifically desperate or that didn’t make it abundantly clear how very badly I’d broken Rule Two.
I’d wanted to say that he’d completely upended my life. Which was ridiculous, because almost nothing had actually changed. I was still in Richmond. I was still working the same job, living in the same apartment with my twin brother, and still single. I hadn’t had any life-changing revelations other than the fact that I was absolutely falling in love with a badger shifter who lived half a country away and who had informed me in no uncertain terms that he was not interested in any sort of emotional or romantic entanglements.
And I’d agreed.
And then promptly gotten so hopelessly knotted up that I made the term entanglement look like a simple bow.
Noah would say that I like to fall in love with men who are absolutely wrong for me—just in wildly different ways. Devin was a cheating asshole. Enrique was high-maintenance. Clay was self-hating and self-destructive. And Elliot was a thousand miles away and not looking for romance.
Maybe I did deliberately choose guys who were impossible. Maybe I did it so that I could avoid ever having to really and truly commit.
But I wanted to commit. I wanted the happily-ever-after that had been promised to me by Disney and Hollywood. I wanted the forever promise, whether that came with marriage or not.
I just couldn’t seem to find someone else who wanted that, too. Devin—well, you don’t cheat on someone you want to be forever. When he dumped me, Enrique said that I didn’t match his standards for a long-term partner. Honestly, that had been a relief. Dating him had been exhausting. And Clay—well, he said he didn’t deserve me, and while I really hope he got the help and support he needed, he needed more of it than I was qualified to give. I couldn’t compete with his addictions—so I stopped trying. I did tell him I hoped he’d get help, but I didn’t have the strength to stick it out.
I’d spent too much time around people with addictions. I knew what that meant, and I just wasn’t that good of a person. Whether alcohol, drugs, gambling, or God, addictions destroy lives—the life of the addict and the lives of everyone around them.
Don’t get me wrong—people with addictions deserve to be loved just like anyone else. But when I left Clay, I’d given him the ultimatum that you see in movies: me or the addiction . And he’d chosen a deck of cards and the bottom of a bottle.
And I’d chosen to walk away for my own sanity. I hope he figured it out. Got help. Ended up happy. But I didn’t know. I still felt guilty about that, sometimes. That I hadn’t been able to help him work through it. I guess he hadn’t been ready for that. Honestly, neither had I, which is why I’d walked.
Being single hadn’t lasted long, because I’d quickly ended up in Devin’s arms.
Devin, who’d told me I was exactly what he wanted. That only I could give him what he needed. That I was important to him.
Right up until he decided to wrap his mouth around some other guy’s dick. Or maybe that hadn’t been the first time. Or even the tenth. I had no idea, and I wasn’t ever going to ask. I’d gotten tested for everything I could, then tried to get on with my life.
I’d mostly stopped wondering what I’d done wrong. What I hadn’t been able to give him. Noah’s pep talks— telling me that it was about Devin, not me, that cheaters are gonna cheat and nothing you do will stop them, and so on—must be actually sinking in.
I don’t know how Devin would justify it. I’d literally walked out of his life and didn’t look back. Never answered his calls. Handed my phone to Noah so that he’d delete Devin’s texts without me reading them. Deleted the emails. Eventually blocked both his emails and his phone. Unfollowed and unfriended him on social media.
Cold turkey.
Flash forward two months and two one-night stands.
And now Elliot.
We hadn’t made any sort of promises—other than the one I made not to make promises. We were supposed to have sex, have fun, and then move on with our lives.
I was supposed to go back to my crime scenes, make dinners, and do whatever it was I did.
Except I honestly wasn’t sure what that was. Work, yeah. Eating, yeah. But what did I do? I went to club nights sometimes with Noah. Went to movies with Noah. Went to drag brunch with Noah.
Maybe I spent too much time with Noah.
Noah had a much healthier life than I did. Friends. Coworkers he went out with. A significant other he loved who, for all that I wasn’t the biggest fan, seemed to love him back. Noah stayed at Lulu’s sometimes, and sometimes Lulu stayed with Noah. They went on dates. They snuggled on the couch and watched movies—sometimes I’d watch with them, but more often I’d end up back in my room, reading or streaming something on my laptop or phone.
Maybe I did have a problem finding guys who would be forever because, secretly, I was afraid of it.
Or maybe I was just afraid that if I picked the right guy, I wouldn’t be the right guy for him . And it’s easier to avoid rejection if the more fucked-up person in your relationship is the other person.
Which is, for the record, pretty fucked up of me.
I sighed and forced myself to put the phone down.
I needed to get out more.