Chapter 9 #7
Leo took a clean step back. He hated the way Joshua’s smile dropped, hated himself for being the cause of it. If this was the price Leo paid for his past mistakes, why did Joshua have to pay along with him? Why, when they could have been so fucking good together?
Prince Joshua of Wales could never date a former rent boy. The public would rip them to shreds.
“It really, really doesn’t make a difference,” Leo told him, and his voice broke halfway through, ended up as no more than a harsh whisper.
For the longest time, Joshua simply stood there, staring at Leo as though he was trying to see past Leo’s skin and unravel the mess of heart and lungs and veins underneath.
Then his gaze dropped, lips pressing together briefly.
His words came out slightly unfocused. “Because you’re scared of what the public would say about us?
You’re the one who told me to wear my secrets like armour, remember? ”
Leo felt his throat constrict around the thick, wet pressure of tears. He forced them back down. “This is different. It wouldn’t end well, trust me.”
“You’re still holding something back. You’re always holding something back.” Joshua exhaled, loud in the overwhelming stillness. “Do you want to know the difference between you and me? I’m scared, but I’m doing it anyway. You’re just scared.”
There was nothing Leo could say. He clenched his jaw and looked away, at the woollen light trickling out of the kitchen.
“And,” Joshua added after five seconds, or ten, or a century, “you say you’re in love with me. But why should I believe you when you don’t act like it? When you don’t even trust me?”
“You wouldn’t like the truth.” Leo’s throat felt sandpaper-rough. “All you need to know is that I couldn’t possibly be with you. Not in the way you deserve.”
Another stretch of silence twisted, poisonous like a snake. Then Joshua sighed, and there was no reproach in his voice, no anger. Just resignation.
“Well. I guess we’ll never find out, will we?”
With that, he turned away and opened the door, stepped quietly out into the stairway. The door clicked shut behind him, and Leo stared at its blank surface for a shuddering moment before he squeezed his eyes shut. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t.
Blinking, he moved towards the bathroom and didn’t bother taking off his clothes before he stepped under the spray of the shower. Even though he turned the temperature so far up he could barely stand it, he felt frozen to the core.
He’d made the right decision. Hadn’t he?
* * *
Joshua didn’t bother checking for people before he stepped out of the building. Without sparing his surroundings so much as a single glance, he crossed the short distance to the car, wrenched open the door and threw himself into the backseat.
In the rear-view mirror he caught Zach’s worried look. Joshua slid further down into his seat and bit his lip, nausea pressing down on his stomach. “Home, please,” he said.
For just an instant, it seemed as though Zach would ask a question.
Then he nodded and turned the key, the engine humming to life while the past few minutes rattled around Joshua’s brain, spinning in circles, his own words getting tangled up with Leo’s—You’re just scared and I couldn’t possibly be with you and I’m in love with you. It doesn’t matter.
Closing his eyes, Joshua tried to make sense of it all. He couldn’t. Whatever Leo had done, he’d said it hadn’t been illegal. What could be so bad that he would refuse to explain, even when Joshua had asked him outright?
You wouldn’t like the truth.
Something tugged on Joshua’s consciousness, a statement Leo had made a while ago.
It took him a moment to recall the small kitchen in James’ office, the challenge in Leo’s eyes.
Where I come from, the only currencies are money, sex and power.
More often than not, they’re one and the same.
Nobility accounted for two of those three things, but sex?
Why sex? How was sex connected to money? Or to power, or both?
And—God, there had been that other time on Joshua’s terrace, talking about bottles and shot glasses, about friendship and sex.
Personally, I believe that shot glasses are overrated.
Or that time in the van, how adamant Leo had been about Shayna, insisting that selling her body didn’t make her a victim.
That Joshua shouldn’t pity her. I’m not saying they’re good choices, but they’re hers.
And then… Oh shit. Shit. The way Leo had acted that night when they’d fallen into each other.
That contradiction between his obvious experience and those sparks of innocence, those moments when he’d seemed almost surprised by his own reaction.
As though his own wishes had never quite mattered before.
As though he hadn’t expected to enjoy himself.
Want to stay inside you forever.
Want you to.
The car swerved around a bend, and Joshua’s stomach swerved with it. His heart was trying to beat a way out of his chest, and what if he was wrong? Jumping to conclusions?
But what if he was right?
A guy like me doesn’t get to keep a guy like you.