63. Will #3
I buried my face in his neck, inhaling his scent, still not entirely convinced this was real.
“Now we just need to find the key to these cuffs,” Dad said.
Fuck, I’d forgotten about the cuffs.
“It’s in Tony’s pocket,” Derek said.
Lifting my head from James’s neck, I met Derek’s gaze. The scar was still there, slicing his eyebrow in two, but for the first time it didn’t make me want to bow my head in shame.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, tears in his eyes. “I never should’ve left you alone. I didn’t know. You have to believe me.”
“What’s important now,” my father said, stepping away from the bed to retrieve the key, “is that we did it. We stopped him.”
“I knew he wasn’t the best person,” Derek said. “But I didn’t know he was capable of . . . Oh fuck, I’m so sorry. I never should’ve taken him back. I just—”
“Found it,” Dad said, pulling the key from Tony’s pocket. He handed it to me, but my fingers were trembling too much to fit it in the hole.
“I’ve got it,” James said, reaching over with his free hand.
The moment he was uncuffed, he cupped my face in his warm palms. “I know you can’t say shit like this during sex, which means you probably can’t say it right after someone saves your life, but I don’t give a fuck. I’m so unbelievably in love with you it’s not even funny.”
I wanted to believe him, but how could he love me? I was . . . What was I? I didn’t even know anymore. “I’m sorry I said you just wanted my money. I never really—”
“Goddammit, Will, if you say sorry one more time . . .” He never finished the threat, just pressed his forehead to mine.
We stayed like that for a long time, our breaths syncing up. He made no moves to pull away, probably realizing I wasn’t ready to deal with what came next.
It wasn’t until a cloud passed over the sun and the room dimmed that I drew back and turned to face my father, who was crouched over Tony’s body.
My chest hitched as I asked the question I’d been dreading. “Did I kill him?”
My father shook his head. “He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, and he’s definitely going to need a nose job and some replacement teeth, but I’m fairly certain he’ll live to see the inside of a prison cell.”
He took a step back and wiped blood from his already soiled slacks. “James, why don’t you call 9-1-1 while Derek finds me some clothes to change into? Will, call Miles and Tiffany and let them know we’re okay. Then call your mother. She’s never going to believe this.”
“I should probably call Theo, too,” James said, turning my face away from Tony’s unconscious body.
I let my head fall against his once more. Somehow, against the odds, we were okay. “Before you do that. Will you say it again, if you still mean it, that is?”
I could feel his smile in the stretch of skin on his forehead.
“I’m in love with you, William Chapman, and I don’t care about your money or your fame.
We can spend the rest of our lives in a tent city, living off Domino’s and Miller Lite, for all I care.
You’re it for me. I just have one stipulation. ”
My heart began to race again. James hated Miller Lite, even though it tasted exactly like Pbr. “Is it no pineapple? Because I really think, if we’re only eating pizza, we’re going to need the vitamins.”
He chuckled. “No, we can absolutely mix up our toppings to cover the basic food groups. But if we’re gonna do this for real, I’m gonna need you to divorce Miles, because I don’t share.”
For three days, I kept waiting to feel different.
Vindicated. Innocent. Instead, I felt like I’d gotten away with something I shouldn’t have.
Tony had meant to drug Derek—save him from career suicide, from coming out to the teenage son of the woman he’d been fucking—but he’d grabbed the wrong glass.
Bourbon, not Southern Comfort. How do you fuck that up?
If Derek had won the Globe that night, his plan might have worked. I was so in love with him, I might have overlooked the whole you-fucked-my-mom thing. But he didn’t win. I did. And instead of a love confession, I got Derek’s jealousy and the truth about him and my mother.
James still blamed Derek for leaving me alone, and while we listened to Derek’s formal apology at Enrique’s, his hand never left my thigh.
But Derek hadn’t known I’d been drugged, and I had just stolen his glory and his bed.
Still, I didn’t like to think about what might have gone down while Derek was off feeling sorry for himself and Tony was performing damage control.
Though whenever I did, I felt less guilty about putting the fucker in a coma.
The part I couldn’t get over wasn’t Tony and what he’d done to the man he supposedly loved like a son.
It was me. I’d let myself be defined by public opinion, by conjecture and spite, by an insatiable thirst for drama.
But I’d known the truth all along. I wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t a monster either.
I was a caring, empathetic person who prided myself on seeing the humanity in everyone.
Well, everyone but myself. But that was going to change.