Page 36 of Royal
Chapter 10
Gray
I’d let Royal walk away from me once before. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I got off the couch and chased after him, my heart pounding against my ribcage.
“Go away,” he spat, twisting around as I barged into his bedroom.
“No.” I walked closer to him.
“Gray…just go.” Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he shook his head. “I don’t know what you want, but I can’t do this.”
“I came here tonight because I can’t stop thinking about you.” I stopped a few inches in front of him and gently grabbed his side. “You calm my mind, Royal. You make the bad shit go away. You always have.”
“And yet you still tossed me to the curb like a piece of trash,” he said, as anger blazed in his eyes.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly, goddammit.” I pushed him against the wall and slapped an arm above his head. “My whole life before meeting you was one letdown after another. I didn’t have stability for sixteen goddamn years. My dad kicked my ass every time I cried, every time I showed any signs of being a ‘little sissy.’ We moved a lot because we kept getting evicted. I had to change schools constantly. It hardened me to the world, and the only way I could deal with it was to hide away. To be angry and unapproachable. Then, Dad got offed in some bar, and I met you after moving in with Aunt Abby.”
Royal watched me in silence, letting me talk it out. He already knew it all, but I had to talk it through, for my sake. Being so close to him was like being able to properly breathe for the first time in years.
“I didn’t even know I was gay before you,” I continued, refraining from tracing the outline of his soft lips. “I fucked all the time but never felt anything for anyone. But when we screwed those chicks in the same room and I looked at you, something came over me. I realized the way I felt about you, the way my pulse quickened when I was around you, it all meant something. Meant more than anything else ever had. It took a hell of a lot of self-control not to pull out of her and go fuckyouinstead that night.”
I knew I was rambling and jumping all over the place, but I hoped he was able to follow it. I’d never been good at expressing my thoughts. There was no balance. I either kept them bottled up inside or they came spilling out like a fucking torrential downpour.
Royal smiled. “You know I felt the same.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you rehashing it?” he asked in a gentle tone.
“Because I need you to understand. When we started dating, I woke up every day thinking it was a dream. That I was still living with my asshole dad in our shitty mobile home. Then, I’d see you and know it was real.” I touched my fingertips to his cheek, softly, as though I’d break him if I wasn’t gentle. “In college, that went away. I got comfortable in our relationship, for the most part. I was happy.”
Sad eyes held my stare. “So was I.”
“But then all the talk about our future got me twisted in my thinking again,” I admitted. “That insecurity came back. I didn’t feel like I deserved you. I was terrified of you eventually realizing that and leaving me. And instead of talking to you about it, I bottled it inside. Let the anger take over. We started fighting over stupid shit, and then, I got drunk at that goddamn party and made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You could’ve tried to make amends afterward,” Royal said. “You didn’t even try to explain yourself.”
“Would you have listened if I had?”
“Probably not.”
“I didn’t try to get you back because you deserved better.”
Royal’s eyes filled with more tears, and his chin trembled. “You know…it’s my fault Jonathon died.”
“What?”
“I was so upset about our breakup that I called Jon and begged him to come to the college.” Royal’s voice cracked. “I was in a bad place, and I needed my little, shithead brother to cheer me up. And you know Jon.” He smiled through his tears. “He was always going out of his way to help people. On his way to campus, a drunk driver slammed into him.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes, but I blinked them away. My heart, however, was in shatters. I knew how Jon died but not that he’d been on his way to see Royal when it happened.
Jonathon had been like my little brother, too. That kid smiled all the time and loved making people laugh. When I’d heard he died, I had wanted to check on Royal, but I’d done enough damage. The last thing he needed was me coming back around and causing him even more grief.
“I’m sorry for not reaching out to you. If I could go back and change it, I would. I’d take it all back.”
My one mistake had set off a chain reaction of events. Royal blamed himself for his little brother’s death, when really, he should’ve blamed me. If I hadn’t broken his heart, he wouldn’t have needed Jonathon to cheer him up that night.
“God, we’re both a mess.” Royal rested his head against the wall, staring at the ceiling. “I feel like we’re in some soap opera. Soon, some friend of your aunt’s ex-boyfriend’s brother will show up saying you knocked her up or something.”
