Page 58 of Prodigal

“You don’t even know who he is. He threatened?—”

“Oh, trust me, I knowexactlywho he is.” André slid his hand into Gideon’s. And Gideon squeezed him gently, releasing a pent-up breath. “This meeting is over, I take it?”

“Definitely over.” Gideon couldn’t help turning into André’s side, burying his face in his lover’s neck and inhaling him. He’d taken a shower, and that made Gideon want to dirty him up again so that he could smell their sex on him.

“Samir will show you out,” André told Ty. “And Ty, whatever Gideon told you to do ornotto do, listen to him. Please. For your own good.”

Ty didn’t say anything else and Gideon listened to his footsteps and the sound of the door closing.

“Are you mad at me?” he mumbled against André’s skin when they were alone.

“Yes.”

He lifted his head, peering into André’s eyes. “Would you like to punish me?”

André’s lips twitched, eyes blazing. “Yes.”

“Would fucking me over my desk suffice?”

André leaned forward, lips brushing Gideon’s. “It might.” He released Gideon’s hand and reached for his belt buckle. “Only one way to find out.”

“Tellme why you and Ty broke up.”

That was not what André expected to hear come out of Gideon’s mouth after he’d just put in work fucking him over his desk. He blew out a breath, shifting against the other man. They’d stumbled to the couch after their orgasms, holding on to each other as they rode out the aftershocks. André’s chest wasstill heaving, heart still racing, and here was Gideon, trying to get him to string more than two words together.

Ty was the last person he’d expected to see in this place. He’d thought his ears were deceiving him when Jules called to tell him she’d seen Ty. Why wouldn’t Gideon tell him that was who he’d be meeting?

But André already knew why.

“Hey.” Gideon peered down at him, arms tightening around him. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to.”

“No, it’s—” He shook his head. “It’s fine.” It wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t want to keep secrets. “Ty and I were together for a few years. I loved him and things were going great, but then my mom died and I had to focus on Jules, so I kinda… I put us on pause. I had other things to focus on.”

“Okay.” Gideon rubbed his back, his touch soothing. Almost therapeutic.

“We were never truly out of each other’s lives because he lives close by and we both work at Jules’s school, so we were constantly running into each other, crossing paths. And sometimes, I would—I would slip.” He wasn’t proud of that. “We’d fall back into bed and then I’d regret it because I knew it wasn’t fair to him. He wanted more and I didn’t think I was in the right space mentally for that. But after a while, he wore me down and we got back together. And again, things were good. Then a couple of months in, a woman walked up to us while we were out on a date.”

He stopped then, reliving that moment. It’d been a slap to the face, a rude awakening that took a long time to get over. “She was visibly pregnant. She just stood there next to our table, staring at Ty, waiting for him to speak. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she got loud, telling the entire restaurant she was carrying his child and that she hated him for fucking her and leaving her.” He shook his head. “What she didn’t know was thatnot even twenty minutes before that, Ty had asked me to marry him and I’d said yes.”

“Fuck,” Gideon muttered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It felt like this weird dream that I just couldn’t wake up from. I didn’t know he was bisexual, which was honestly not an issue for me. I also didn’t know he was seeing anyone else while we were broken up. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I deserved to know. It happened while we were on a break, so again, I wasn’t mad, but I needed that information.”

“That shouldn’t have been the way you found it all out.”

“No, it shouldn’t have. And I tried to be understanding. I forgave him and stayed once he explained. Started planning a wedding. I tried to be accommodating. I tried even though she made it so difficult, always showing up at my house and calling our phones all random hours of the day and night. Demanding he be with her, telling him their child deserved to have both parents present when they were born.” He chuckled dryly. “Man, she did not make it easy.”

“And how did Ty handle it?” Gideon asked.

“He didn’t.” That had been the biggest bone of contention between them. “I think he was afraid of her maybe keeping the child from him, so he didn’t want to anger her, but he also didn’t want me to leave, so he would walk on eggshells around me without addressing any of the issues I kept voicing. I insisted they get a DNA test done because I didn’t trust her. She fought it for a while but eventually gave in. And when it came back that the child she was carrying was indeed his, I resolved to have her be a constant presence in our lives. I mean, I was gonna marry this man.”

Gideon hummed. “But you guys did eventually break up. How and why?”

“She gave birth and Ty took one look into that child’s eyes and decided that was where he wanted to be.”

“What?” Gideon stared down at him. “Are you— He broke up with you?Seriously?”

“He did, and I was devastated because I was trying so hard to make it work. I had silenced all my issues with his child’s mother. I kept to the background, allowing them to deal only with each other.”

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