Page 72 of Your Pace or Mine
“What the hell is going on, Darius?” Jackson prompted.
“I think you might need to be more specific.”
“With Jamie!” Jackson shouted. “One minute you’re all, ‘he’s it for me, Jax, I’m going to tell him,’ and the next I’m seeing articles about a breakup and how he’s some modern-day gay lothario, and you aren’t answering when I ring. The fuck, mate?”
Darius felt himself sink into one of the rarely used kitchen chairs. “It was horrible.”
“Is any of it true? What they’ve been saying?” Jackson asked.
“Sort of, some of it,” Darius replied. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated my arse,” Jackson said. “That man bloody loved you, and you know it. If you had a fight, you need to fix it.”
“I don’t think it can be fixed, Jax. Some things are too broken to fix.”
Jackson wasn’t having it. “Well, this isn’t one of those things.”
“He was just using me, Jackson!” Darius exploded. “For the press, the attention, fuck, for the money even.”
“You said he wouldn’t take a penny from you. Complained about it even!” Jax argued.
Darius glared. “Can’t you take my side for like five minutes? You’re genuinely the worst friend.”
“Love you too, babe. Now tell us what happened.”
So Darius did. The whole thing. From the agreement to the dates, and the sex, and how he’d fallen so damn hard he could barely think straight. And the night it all went wrong, from the car with Cressida and how he found out about everything the papers had been reporting through an overheard conversation.
Jackson let out a low whistle when he finished. “In fairness, that does sound quite bad, but it just doesn’t add up to me,” Jackson insisted. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that is something he’s done in the past.”
“It is,” Darius grouched. “You saw the articles.”
“Okay, so for argument’s sake, the tabloids have got something right. Doesn’t mean he’d do it again. Doesn’t mean he was using you, does it?”
Darius was silent for a moment, allowing himself to fully process what Jackson had said. “But why would he say he loved me then? If it wasn’t to get something from me?” he asked, voice quiet and unsteady.
Jackson sighed. “Darius Hewitt. You are a goddamn idiot. Do you really have no idea how many people love you? How many people just want to be around you for who you are? You’rea fucking great man, Darius. You’re driven and intelligent and thoughtful and fucking sexy.”
Darius’s cheeks burned, and he ducked his head.
“No, listen,” Jackson continued. “I know you don’t see it, I know it’s been drilled into you that all anyone wants from you is a payout, but you have so much more to offer, and I know Jamie saw that. He’d have had to be fucking stupid not to.”
Silence fell over them as Jackson finished. The words sank in slowly as Darius’s tea grew tepid. He sipped it absentmindedly, as he thought.
“But if he didn’t want something from me... then do you think he meant it?”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“Oh fuck,” Darius hunched in on himself. He felt physically ill. “And I, I... Jackson, I was horrible to him, and then I just left.”
Over the past few days, Darius had oscillated between anger at Jamie’s deception and deep-seated sadness over not having him in his life. Now, he found himself sinking into a new reality. One where he had thrown away his chance at a meaningful relationship. Where the man he loved had said those words to him, and he’d thrown them back in his face. A reality he didn’t think there was any coming back from.
That was what he needed to face; there might be no coming back from this at all. “Jackson, I don’t think there’s anything I could say to him to make this okay.”
“Well, you’re going to have to figure out something, because you can’t be this mopey for the next four months; Olympic training will be unbearable.”
Darius felt like he’d lost the thread of their conversation. “What are you talking about?”
Jackson gently took the empty mug from Darius’s hands and busied himself tidying for a moment. Darius spent the brief interlude musing over what he could possibly say to Jamie togo back to where they were, or even start over. Darius knew he didn’t deserve a second chance, but maybe he could, one day.
