Page 5 of Loving You

Bronx didn’t bother looking back when he answered. “Because if you don’t, I’ll sue you for your twenty percent, then I’ll drag your ass to court for alimony. And I’ll be sure to mention you’re wealthy enough to live on a fucking yacht. See how well you pay your crew and spoil your little fuck toy whenthathits your bank.”

Jules had nothing to say after that, and Bronx managed to keep it together until he reached his hotel. But the moment his hands touched the bed, his knees hit the floor, and everything unleased in an angry, furious, heart-crushing wail that was a damn long time coming.

Jules was smart enough not to make eye contact as they signed the closing docs. The mortgage company had the court order,and they said they’d be splitting the payment between their accounts. Bronx watched the last dot of ink dry on the sweep of his last name—back to Reed once more, and he never felt so good about seeing his name there on that piece of paper.

He could feel the tension in the room. No one was trying to make jokes. Everyone seemed to sense it was a day that didn’t call for smiling or celebration.

Bronx had money again—which was a relief. But it was closing a chapter on his life he never thought he’d be closing until Jules pulled the rug from under him. Now he had to face the fact that he really had married a man he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure how much of it was him that didn’t see the man Jules was or if he really was that good of an actor.

It was true, Jules hadn’t been overly enthusiastic when it came to family planning. He didn’t attend any of the sonogram appointments, and he was late to the hospital when the surrogate went into labor. Lucas had been rushed into the NICU right after his second APGAR score was distressingly low, and Jules didn’t bother visiting their tiny little preemie in his plastic cot.

He wasn’t there when the doctors sat Bronx down and told him that he wasn’t sure how the scans had missed it, but their son was born with a rare condition where cysts had formed around his optic nerves.

There was surgery for it to prevent the cysts from growing, but they would leave his son totally blind with no light perception.

Jules didn’t hug Bronx after that. He didn’t let him cope in the arms of his husband. He just got to work pulling down all the visual sensory stuff they’d gotten at the baby shower because what was the point of keeping it up? Hedidn’t shop for new things to engage Lucas’s remaining senses. He just…shut down.

Bronx thought he was mourning. But then three years went by. Then five. Then ten. Now seventeen.

There were school meetings and IEP sessions and occupational therapy that Bronx attended completely alone—like he was a single father. Bronx had a library of photos when Lucas took his first steps when he was three and when he used his first tiny little cane when he was four. And Jules wasn’t in any of them.

Bronx had tried his damnedest to bridge the gap. To find some sort of common ground where Jules would snap out of whatever the fuck was wrong with him and start paying attention to their child. He’d given Jules the name of Dad, the thing Bronx had wanted so badly for himself. He thought Lucas calling him that would create a connection, but the word became something almost mocking in their home.

And nothing ever helped.

Lucas was six when Bronx realized Jules was completely checked out, but he thought eventually he’d get over it. Maybe Jules would wake up one day and realize they had a really fucking cool kid who was a blast to be around. But it didn’t happen. Instead, there was an empty space where Jules should have been.

And the more Jules pulled away, the more Bronx pulled Lucas close. Before he was really aware of it, Bronx was smothering his child in an attempt to make up for the love Lucas was lacking from his other parent. It was a hot mess that led to long years where Lucas resented him for the choices he’d made for the both of them. And once Bronx realized what he’d done, he fell into a spiral of self-hatred he wasn’t sure he could come out of.

He’d sacrificed so much of himself—so much of Lucas’s young life—on a lie. How did he come back from that?

But it was over now. It was time to let go and heal.

After the signing was finished and the deposit hit his account, he took himself to lunch and called his brother while he waited for his food.

“How bad was it after we hung up?”

Bronx snorted into his iced tea. “It got weird. He tried to hit on me.”

Dallas choked. “I’m sorry, hewhat?”

Bronx gave him a quick recap of Jules’s fuckery, which had them both laughing, though it wasn’t really funny. “I’m amazed at his audacity. I really am. I mean, just when I think he’s done being a dipshit, he has the nerve to act confused over why I don’t want to get drunk and have a last roll in the hay.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dallas groaned.

Bronx rubbed at his tired eyes and wished he was home. “I know I wasn’t supposed to lose my temper, but I did.”

“What did you do? Tell me you hit him.”

Bronx rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hit him. I called him out on his crap. I told him he was a pathetic waste of space and a sorry excuse for a partner. It felt…”

“Cathartic?” Dallas offered when Bronx couldn’t find the words.

He wished it had been, but it wasn’t. “It kind of crushed me. Was I really living with my head so far up my own ass I didn’t realize the kind of person he was? I forced Lucas to live in a home with a man who never loved him. What does that make me?”

“A dad trying to hold his family together?” Dallas said. “You’re not a monster. He is. And Lucas doesn’t blame you.”

“Maybe he should,” Bronx said quietly.

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