Page 96 of Until Tomorrow
I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. I shut the door to my office once more, needing a minute to get it together—if that was even possible. My hands shook something fierce as I pulled out my phone and called Eva.
“What do we think of mauve as a color for the living room?” Eva asked when she answered. “I feel like it’s such an understated neutral pink color. It’s muted and warm… I think it’d look fantastic—”
“Elliot knows,” I interrupted. I wanted to listen to my wife go on about living room colors—I really did—but I couldn’t handle it right now. Not when Iwas ready to crawl out of my skin and right into the deepest hole I could find.
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know you were planning to tell him.”
“I didn’t,” I replied. “He came across my profile onTumble.”
“I thought you said he wasn’t on that app.”
“He is now!”
“Breathe for me, Logan.” Eva’s voice was calm and soothing as she spoke. “I can feel your anxiety from here. Tell me what happened, sweetheart.”
“He stormed into my office,” I told her. “Yelling and screaming about it—he thinks I’m cheating on you, Eva.”
“Oh, good Lord,”
“Yeah.” I exhaled heavily, feeling as if I couldn’t catch my breath. I wasn’t ready for Elliot to know. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation. And I hadn’t anticipated this becoming something that raged its way through my job. “I sent him to lunch and told him I’d meet him. I have to tell him—I know I have to tell him—but I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t…”
I couldn’t get all the words out as the air stuck in my lungs all over again.
“What are you afraid of, Logan?” she asked. Her question gave me pause, and I collapsed in my chair, suddenly exhausted by the weight of it all. “Elliot will love you no matter what. I can promise you that.”
“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” I admitted quietly. I pinched the bridge of my nose, sighing.
“How would this ruin your friendship, sweetheart?”
“Because friends shouldn’t want to kiss their friends.” There. I said the fucking words out loud. To her. Maybe to myself.
“It was one night, Logan,” Eva reminded me, her tone gentle.
“Except it wasn’t just one night, Eva.” I swallowed. “And I wasn’t drunk that night. He was. Nothing happened, I swear—”
“I’m not questioning that,” she interrupted. “But I do think this is a bigger conversation for a different time when we can sit down and talk it all out. You and Elliot, I mean. I think right now you need to go talk to him. Just… tell him what you’re questioning about yourself, what you’re doing, and what we’re doing. If he has an issue with any of it, I’ll come kick his giant ass myself. We’re a team, Logan. This isn’t something you have to go through alone.”
“Okay.” None of that made me feel any better.
“I love you,” she said. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“I love you too,” I replied. Ending the call, I set my phone down and just sat there for another five minutes, trying to find the courage to go talk to Elliot.
Elliot sat in my usual spot, angrily drumming his fingers on the table as he waited for me. I used the café often for more casual business meetings, which meant the table was tucked out of the way from everyone else. It gave us the privacy we needed to havethisconversation.
“Talk,” Elliot said the second my ass was in the chair. I said nothing as the waitress came over and put my usual iced tea on the table. When she tried to get his order, he just dismissed her.
“First and foremost,” I began when we were alone, “I’d never cheat on Eva, and if you think I would, you and I need to have a very different conversation because you clearly don’t think of me the way I thought you did.”
“I don’t know what I think of you right now,” he admitted with an angry edge in his voice. Once again, he pulled up my dating profile onTumble.“What is this?”
“Did you read my profile?”
“I did, but it doesn’t answer my question.”
“I mean, it should,” I muttered. My profile seemed pretty self-explanatory.Bi-curious, polyamorous, unsure of exactly what I was looking for.I took a long sip of my tea as the waitress dropped it off.
“So, you’re telling me you’re bi-curious?” he asked.
