Page 44 of Last Call Lindy Hop
Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks at the memory of that video. I closed my eyes, trying to compose myself.
Eli’s arms wrapped around me, and I cried against him for several minutes before I was able to get myself back under control.
“I was hurt, and angry, and I needed answers,” I whispered. “So once I’d wiped away those first tears I stormed down to his suite for answers, and caught them still at it. It only got worse from there.”
Eli’s hand up and down my back, and part of me insisted that I had to stand on my own, while another understood that I could borrow strength that was so freely offered.
“His best man actually smirked at me before I kicked him out of the room. Then I demanded answers, though part of me wishes I hadn’t.”
Eli kissed my temple, and I decided in the circle of his arms was a better place than on my own.
“His best man had been his high school boyfriend, and they’d rekindled things as early as the job interview that had us moving back. But apparently he’d been with others even before. He’d always insisted I bottom because he was a top, but he yelled about me being unable to satisfy him to the point where he didn’t want my dick in him at all. He said that nobody could love somebody like me, and that the only thing I was good for was the money.”
“Oh, Lance…”
“He then said… that it was my job to call off the wedding, because he would still be going through with it if I hadn’t been nosy and butted in where I didn’t belong.”
Eli’s cologne was soothing, a warm scent that I could smell forever.
“Telling my mom, and everybody there… was a fresh level of hell. While I told Mom everything, she convinced me to just make a general statement to the attendees. At the time I thought it would be enough, but…”
I started shaking. “People knew, not everybody there, but all of the people I thought were mutual friends had been keeping his secret for years. Soon enough word got around. It was a small city after all, and I quickly became the bad guy, or at least the man to be pitied. I was quickly ostracized at work as Connor spun everything to his side, and since more people knew him than me they believed his lies. Strangers would come up to me in the grocery store and yell at me for calling off a wedding with such a nice young man. It seemed that everywhere I went, somebody thought that his cheating was my fault, or that I was in the wrong for calling off the wedding and not believing that he was cheating.”
I started crying again. “I couldn’t take it. The man I’d loved had never loved me in return, and only saw me as easy access to money. I was a pariah in public because of his lies. And all of the friends I would have turned to, except for Kenzie, took his side.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eli whispered against me.
I sniffled. “He even went on the honeymoon that my money had paid for, claiming that he couldn’t stand to be around me.”
“Damn…”
I nodded, feeling the exhaustion of it all welling inside me again.
“I tried going home for a while,” I said. “But it wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same. The happy memories of youth were suffocating in my grief. So I called Kenzie. She’d moved out here after college for work. She found me this apartment, and I came here—where there were no memories, good or bad. But even that wasn’t enough.”
“How so?”
“Everything reminded me of him. We’d spent close to five years together. My favorite music, television, movies, even food… It was all connected to what I had thought was a happy memory, and whenever I tried to just exist, a taste, a smell, or a sound would bring it all back. All of those little joys had been a lie—an act on his part in order to get my money.”
“God, Lance. I’m so sorry.”
I sighed, relief and bone-deep weariness filling me at finally getting it all out. “That’s… that’s why I can’t tell you what to avoid. It’s a minefield just for me.”
“Then we’ll find our way through it, together.”
A simple statement, but somehow it was exactly what I needed to hear. I started bawling against him, the raw edges of my pain searing anew, but finally starting to heal.
Chapter 20 - Eli
Pins and needles ran up my leg, but I dared not move.
Lance was asleep against me, exhaustion having won out after he’d cried so long and hard that I expected he’d wake up with a dehydration headache. But there was a bone-deep relaxation about him, and I was pretty sure that the cry had been the catharsis he needed.
I ran my hand up and down his back, trying to soothe him even in his sleep, and marveling that I was there with him.
He was so handsome; masculine, yet fragile. And I was completely smitten.
It was strange, I’d been so worried about him that I hadn’t really faced the fact that I wasn’t as straight as I’d always believed. However, as I gazed at him I wondered how I’d never realized that I was bi. I’d always been able to appreciate how handsome some men were, and maybe that should have been a sign. Lance was just the first man I’d been attracted to.
