Page 38 of Lance
“I’ll meet you at noon,” Jamie told the other man firmly. Dom didn’t get to dictate his life anymore. Jamie could decide things, too, and he heard a brief silence on the phone and couldn’t help but smirk.
Dom had really expected for Jamie simply to sit around and be told what to do, hadn’t he? Like Jamie would have been spending the last eight months just simply pining over Dom, ready for him to take up the reins again?
Breathless at his own audacious daring, Jamie ended the call before Dom could comment. He let his eyelids part and saw that Ken was gone, which was probably for the best. Still, it sort of sucked to be alone, and Jamie made his way to bed, his cold, solitary bed because there was really nothing better to do.
* * *
Noon at the cafe in the hotel and Jamie was waiting. He hadn’t really been early, but he hadn’t been late, either. A desire had taken hold of him to just get this over with. To close off this last part of his life so that maybe someday, with some luck, he could open himself up to someone else.
Someone else. The only person he was interested in was Lance, but that ship had sailed. Still, someday wasn’t it possible that Jamie would meet someone else who interested him? Either that or he would just be single forever. Regardless, he didn’t need even a thin thread of a connection to Dom anymore, that he knew.
As he sat, a cup of coffee in his hands, Jamie found himself fidgeting with it. His fingers ran over the smooth, glossy, hot surface of the mug, plucking at it, and he felt like there were eyes on him. Not just the security that was around him pretty much all the time now, either, and not the normally friendly gaze of the public.
Jamie lifted his head suddenly and looked right into sardonic, amused brown eyes, eyes that he had once spent hours lost in. Dom was there, sitting at a table nearby, just watching Jamie. It was creepy. How long had the guy been there?
Dom beckoned when he noticed Jamie noticing him, and Jamie half rose to his feet before shaking his head slightly and sinking back into his chair. He wasn’t the same person who would have tripped over his own feet getting to Dom. Things had changed.
After all, Dom had wanted to see him, not the other way around. So he sat back down, looking at his former lover and shaking his head. And, a little bit to his shock, Dom gave a graceful shrug with his broad, strong shoulders and moved over to sit with Jamie instead.
Still just as handsome as ever. The better part of a year had passed, but Dom was still as gorgeous, with those shoulders, the slender waist, the long legs. His dark hair was artlessly messy, and Jamie had teased him once about how much time the man spent to get it looking like that.
Dom really hadn’t changed, he realized, as the man sank down in the seat opposite Jamie. He was still gorgeous, and he was still, Jamie was pretty sure from the slight smirk on the other man’s full lips, that he was still a bit of a prick.
“Jamie,” Dom commented, looking him over, and there was a bit of heat in his eyes. There was a time when Jamie would have done anything to see that look, to know that Dom wanted him around and wasn’t just tolerating him, but all he felt was a sort of vague wash of pity, maybe mixed with some annoyance.
“Hey, Dom,” Jamie greeted and then just looked at the other man with slightly narrowed eyes. This was his show. He had agreed to come meet Dom, so Dom could have his say and then take off. That was the agreement.
“I think this has gone on quite long enough,” Dom commented, glancing around, probably noticing the fact that Jamie had security guards around him. They tried to be unobtrusive, but Dom was pretty good at noticing things like that. Probably had some guards of his own around, but that didn’t worry Jamie because he didn’t intend to do anything to trigger them.
“Hmm?” Jamie murmured, tilting his head as he looked at Dom and marveled at the simple fact that he really felt almost nothing while looking at him. Nostalgia, that was it. And that was, quite possibly, the biggest relief that he’d ever felt.
“Look, this stunt of yours has proven your point,” Dom commented, and Jamie’s eyes sharpened as he listened to the man with growing disbelief. Stunt? “You showed me that you can be some sort of big deal. So come back, already. You know you belong with me.”
Even two months ago, Jamie thought, he would have been willing to entertain such a comment. Now, it just seemed ridiculous to him. Dom might as well order the moon to come down out of the sky and be with him. Jamie was gone, just plain not interested anymore.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I walked out on you,” Jamie protested, and Dom shrugged, a magnanimous, infuriating look on his face as he gazed smugly back at Jamie. Like he’d already won.
Won. Because that’s what Jamie was, he was some sort of prize. Dom had enjoyed pursuing him at the beginning and then had started to ignore him more and more. Now Jamie had gotten away, so Dom was interested again. He only wanted Jamie when Jamie didn’t want him.
What a fucked up way to live.
“Yes. I’m prepared to forgive that,” Dom smirked at Jamie in a way that should have made his knees weak, should have made the front of his jeans feel tight, but at the moment all it did was annoy him. Dom thought that he could have anything he wanted, that money and privilege and good looks could get him what he wanted.
Well, Jamie wasn’t something that Dom could buy. He had never been, and Dom didn’t even seem to know that.
“You know what, Dom?” Jamie commented, his tone very casual. He watched the smile on Dom’s face widen, knew that the other man was already celebrating his victory in his head. For just a moment, he studied his face, realizing that he was really saying goodbye. That, if Dom kept his word, Jamie would never see him again, and Dom was a jerk, but he did keep his promises.
A little to his own surprise, he felt nothing but relief at that thought. So he rose to his feet, drinking down the last of his coffee and setting the cup gently on the table.
“I really think you can go fuck yourself. Goodbye.”
With that, Jamie swept out of the cafe, trembling a little with the reaction of what he had just done. He’d freed himself, and it was only when he’d done so that he realized he had still been in a cage the whole time.
He would be okay now. Whatever happened, he would be okay. But as he went up to the hotel room again, he knew that he had to figure things out with Lance, too. Things were finally cleared up for Jamie, except for this one thing, this one, rather enormous, thing.
He loved Lance. He felt it through every muscle of his body, and while he had been sure at the time that he’d loved Dom, he now knew that what he’d called love was really just dependence and physical attraction. But Lance, that was different.
Lance might tell him no, and that it was too late. Jamie had, after all, been the one to break it off. But Jamie had to try.
No more secrets, though. No more lies, no more kissing other people, even for show. Jamie was determined about that. If he was with Lance, he was going to be with Lance, and he was going to expect the same thing from Lance in return.
They’d both screwed up, but maybe there was time to fix it.
