24. Cowards
COWARDS
Alex dragged Jake along to the bookstore early in the morning. She insisted on walking, and though Jake’s back and knees were sore from sleeping on the couch, he acquiesced, only slowing to compose himself a little when they neared the store.
Robbie was behind the front counter as usual, alone in an empty building. He looked happy enough, and he smiled when Jake and Alex walked in.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Jake said back, his voice higher than usual. “How—” He cleared his throat. “How are you?”
Robbie raised one eyebrow. “Fine. And how are you?”
“Good, right Alex?” Jake turned to his sister.
“I’m gonna have a look around,” Alex whispered. “You go talk to him.”
Jake rolled his eyes, but as soon as she disappeared behind a shelf, he sidled up to the counter and rested his arms, one crossed over the other, on top.
“What is it, Jake?” Robbie’s weariness wore through in his voice, and his eyes had dulled in the few seconds since he’d greeted them.
“I was wrong,” Jake said.
“And what were you wrong about this time?” Robbie asked, his utter disinterest in the conversation keeping his voice in a monotone lull.
“About you loving me. I’ve had some time to think about it, and I believe you.”
“Wow, lucky me.”
“Please, Robbie, hear me out.”
Robbie’s eyebrows dropped, shadowing his eyes, then he nodded. “Okay.”
“I have something I want to tell you about, and maybe it will help you make sense of my attitude.” Jake straightened up as he realized he needed all the confidence he could muster to get through this story. “You know I left my job a couple of months before I came here, right?”
“Yes.”
“And I never told you why.”
“You were pretty cagy about it.”
“I left it because of a guy.”
“A guy?” Robbie couldn’t hide his sudden interest no matter how hard he tried.
“Someone I dated for a little while—a couple of years. We ended up working at the same place, and when we broke up, it caused a lot of interpersonal problems. It was a nasty breakup. I thought we’d be together for a lot longer. I…”
“You loved him.”
“I thought I did.” Jake sighed. “As it turns out, I have no idea what love actually is. Or I didn’t back then, anyway. I just couldn’t stand being around him any longer at that point, so I left, but saying I quit my job because of an ex makes me sound like a fucking fool.”
“You told me you never dated someone long-term.”
Jake looked down at the wooden counter. “I lied. I really didn’t wanna talk about that time in my life, and it was just easier to leave Ethan out of the picture. I’m sorry, Robbie. I should’ve told you.”
Robbie shrugged. “You had no obligation to. It wouldn’t have changed how I see you now, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It changes the fact that I can and do date with a future in mind.”
“Not me, though.”
“Not in the beginning.” Jake swallowed hard. “Robbie…”
“I’m going to tell my parents that I’m moving away from Eventide,” Robbie said suddenly. “Now that they’ve decided the fate of this place, I’m going to give the house back to their care, and if they cut me out of their will, so be it. I need to get away from here. It’s eating my soul to stay.”
“What about the town? It needs you.”
“It will survive. I can’t do this all on my own anymore.”
“Won’t you miss it, though?” Jake asked.
“Of course I will.” Robbie closed his eyes, squeezing his eyelids shut tight. “I don’t want to go, and maybe I’ll come back when my parents are gone. But I need a change, Jake. I need it as much as you did a few months back.”
Jake didn’t speak. He couldn’t. He was waiting for it: the question to which he had finally determined his answer.
“Will you come with me?”
Jake glanced back. Alex peeked her head out from behind a bookshelf, then quickly walked to the other side of the store, heels clicking on the floor.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I can manage that. But you need to face your family first. You need to tell them the truth. No more secrets, Robbie.”
“I will—tonight.”
“Really?”
Robbie nodded. “Last night after I went home, I decided I’d had enough and emailed them to set up a time to meet. They’re coming over in the evening. You can come too if you want.”
“I have to drive Alex back to the train station, but I can come over after that.”
“I would appreciate it.” Robbie smiled nervously. “I hope this is the right thing to do.”
“It is,” Jake said. He stretched his hand across the counter, taking Robbie’s pale fingers in his own. His hand was cold and stiff, and he almost pulled away before relaxing as Jake ran his thumb over his knuckles.
“I want this to work,” Robbie said. “I’ll do anything to make it work.”
“I hope that’s true, because I’m not nearly as convinced as you and everyone else that this is for the best.” Even as he said it, Jake regretted it.
Robbie’s face fell, all the confidence Jake had given him over the past few minutes draining like a punctured oil drum.
“But,” he said quickly, “you have to leave no matter what. It’ll kill you to stay here for the next forty or fifty years. ”
“I want to be with you,” Robbie said, his voice now barely above a whisper. “It will kill me to not be with you.”
“You’d manage,” Jake insisted. “You’re much stronger than I am.” He tried to smile. “You lived without me for all of your life up until earlier this year, and even then you didn’t like me for a while.”
“I always liked you,” Robbie said. “You intrigued me. You still do. I want this to work out, Jake. Please.”
Jake let Robbie’s hand go as he backed away from the counter.
Alex was approaching with a hefty stack of books, and the desperation in Robbie’s eyes was starting to make his heart ache.
He wished he could be certain that Robbie wasn’t acting out in panic.
He wished he could be certain that he loved Robbie as much as Robbie seemed to love him.
He wished he could close his eyes and wake up back in his old apartment, his alarm ringing for the job he left entirely voluntarily to get away from a cowardly little man who continued to haunt him.
“Ready to go?” Alex asked. She had already checked out, her books nestled safely in the brand new tote bag she’d bought to go with them.
Jake wondered if Robbie had added it on for free or let her pay, and as he caught sight of the receipt dropped hastily on top of the books, he saw that the bag had cost exactly zero dollars, and a twenty percent off sale had been applied to all the books.
“Yeah,” he said. “See you tonight, Robbie.”
“Tonight, Jake. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.”
“That went well, didn’t it?” Alex asked as the door jingled shut behind them.
“Great,” Jake muttered. “Alex, I think I’m—I think Robbie and I are a couple.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Yeah, except that I’m not sure either of us is ready for that. I mean, besides the sex, what do we have?”
“Everything any other given couple has. You’re just too caught up in your little bubble to see it right now. What was that about seeing him tonight?”
“He’s breaking up with his parents.”
“What?”
“The whole family-business-inheritance thing. He sticks around because of all that and because he’s the only person who can keep them in line. Now he’s leaving in spite of them.”
“Wow, that’s a big step in the right direction.”
“I hope he follows through with it.”
Rain was falling intermittently, so they picked up their pace, and by the time they reached Isabel’s house, it was falling as hard as it had during the storm the previous week.
Jake couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign—from Mier, perhaps—telling him he needed to back off with Robbie before he made everything worse for both of them.
But he’d never felt quite like this with another man before, not even with Ethan. Whatever flimsy excuse for love he thought he had for Ethan couldn’t ever hold up to what he had with Robbie, hard as he’d tried to suppress it for so long.
If he couldn’t have Robbie, no one would do. And right now, he hated the idea of going back to being alone forever.
After having Alex in the passenger seat for a full hour on their way to the train station, Jake’s drive back to Eventide was quiet and boring.
He already missed his sister, though he’d promised her he would come visit her as soon as he was finished with his business in Eventide. Robbie was invited too, of course.
Carson was holding the first open house at Isabel’s the following day, and Jake continued to hope, perhaps in vain, that the place would go quickly. He was ready to leave, especially if Robbie got his things in order and wanted to go with him. The world was their oyster.
Almost.
Robbie still had his meeting with his parents to get through tonight.
Jake drove straight to the Eaton Manor. He’d tried to wear nicer clothes than usual, though they paled to the expensive looking three-piece gray suit Robbie had on when he came out to greet Jake.
He wasn’t even fancy enough for the manor at its most casual of times, if he was being honest with himself.
“I should go home and change, shouldn’t I?” Jake gestured to his slacks and dinner jacket.
“No, you look great.” Robbie planted a kiss on his cheek, then hesitated, and graced his lips with a second one. “You smell good, too.”
“I put some aftershave on. You don’t have any clothes I could borrow, do you?”
“My parents would see right through that. I promise you, Jake, you look perfect. You look like yourself, and that’s what matters.”
“Yeah, they’ll hate me for stealing you away from them either way.”
“Mm, I don’t think that will be their main problem with you.” Robbie’s brow furrowed deeply.
Jake wanted to retort with something about how this wasn’t all about Robbie, and how Robbie’s world didn’t shape everyone else’s, except it was, and it did.
This was Robbie’s domain. It was Robbie’s and his parents’ domain, and Jake had no real part in it aside from the fact that he had fallen in love with an Eaton.
Now he, along with Robbie, bore the curse that came part and parcel with that five-letter name.