“Not true!” I shook my head vehemently and tried to grab his arm, but he shook me off and stalked out of the room. I rinsed off quickly, grabbed a towel, and followed him to the bedroom.
“Please listen, Beale, please. That’s not what happened. It was a setup. I wasn’t at that club to hang with Jayd—I’ve spoken maybe five words to the guy in my entire life, and I didn’t have any kind of sexual anything with him. In fact, I went to that club with the guy sitting next to Jayd in the picture, and he yanked me into Jayd’s lap so that the paparazzo could take the shot. Jayd was fully clothed.”
“You were half-naked,” he said roughly.
“Yes, because I was dancing at a club,” I repeated, trying to keep my patience. “A gay club called Dive, specifically, where the clientele are not always dressed in suits and ties and sweaters, because they are dancing at a club.” I swallowed hard. “And the fact that it was—is—a gay club is exactly why I wasn’t going to tell you the story. By confirming that Jayd was there—”
“I don’t want to hear this right now, Toby. I’m angry. And I thought I got over being angry, back when we were—” He waved a hand at the kitchen.
“Fucking like bunnies?” I supplied.
He yanked a T-shirt out of the closet, not caring that three others fell to the floor. “Yeah. But it turns out I’m not over it at all. I’m… hurt. I opened up to you. I cared about you. And…” He licked his lips. “Look, I know this was never a long-term thing in your mind, like you said earlier—”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t force a single syllable out.
“—but I really thought you cared about me and that we had something. Friendship, or respect, or like… damn, I don’t know.” He wrinkled his nose like he was horrified he’d admitted that. “I feel like a fool.”
The past tense of “I cared about you” was not lost on me… but it was the last word that squeezed my chest so hard I couldn’t draw a deep breath. “You are not a fool,” I whispered. “Fuck, Beale.”
He grabbed a pair of worn-in cargo shorts from the closet, too, and as he yanked them on, I felt that kind of melancholy feeling you get when you wonder if you’ve appreciated a thing enough while you had it.
Jesus. Pining for raggedy cargo shorts would be a new lifetime low for me.
“How long did you honestly think you could keep this a secret?” Beale asked softly. “Or maybe it didn’t matter to you, as long as you were back in New York before I caught on, leaving me to explain to everyone around here who you really are?”
“It wasn’t like that, either! God, please understand. I didn’t want to have to tell you, Beale. I was… I was embarrassed, okay? I got duped by this guy, and I panicked and… it wasn’t my proudest moment. But I also didn’t want to share about Jayd until he was ready to make a statement. I didn’t want to out him—”
“Well, it’s good to know you were thinking of someone.” He sounded bitter, and my Beale—fuck. He was not my Beale and never would be—was not a bitter person.
“Hey!” I scowled. “You said motive matters, Beale! The other day on the boat, you said there were no villains. How can that be true for the bad guy in every movie ever, but not for me?”
He shook his head sadly. “Because this was real life, Toby. And this was important. At least for me it was.”
I blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. I wanted to say that it was important to me too, but I didn’t know how to say it convincingly. I made a living using words and telling other people what to do, but when it came to myself? To being honest with a man who deserved the best of everything? All my words dried up.
If Aunt Hagatha were here, she’d have said…
Oh, who fucking knew? She was me, and we were both idiots.
Just a few minutes ago, I’d felt closer to Beale than I’d ever been to another person. Now there was a giant chasm opening between us, thanks to me, and I was clinging to one side with my hands and the other side with my feet, and I was not strong enough to keep things together. There was a reason I didn’t do relationships, after all. A reason why Mason was the only person in existence who’d ever put up with me for very long.
So, I fell back on what came naturally: I nodded stoically and forced my voice to be light… though I wasn’t sure I quite got there. “Well. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that there is a man out there somewhere who would’ve handled this better. Your real soul mate wouldn’t have fucked this up, right? He would have known exactly what to say and what to do that would be fair to everyone.” I shrugged one shoulder. “This is merely further proof that I’m not him.”
Beale stared at me for a second, then whispered, “Yeah, I guess.” He nodded and cleared his throat. “Anyway. I’m done talking about this right now. I’m gonna go help… someone. With something.”
“Good. Yes.” I nodded also. We were a great nodding duo. A pair of life-sized bobbleheads. “You should. I’m gonna go pay the piper.” I leaned toward him and stage-whispered, “Mason is the piper.”
“I figured. I guess I’ll see you around.”
Ugh. That hurt. A sharp, metallic tang filled my nose, and I was pretty sure tears would come soonishly. In my entire life, I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted him to smile at me and wrap those big arms around me and be my safe place again. What a fucking sap Whispering Key had made me. The sooner I left, the better.
“Sure. I’m hard to miss, darling. Enjoy the party.”
Beale looked me up and down, from my bare, damp chest, to the towel around my waist, to the tips of my toes. Then he nodded once and walked out.
I shut the bedroom door softly behind him and locked it tight, then sat on the bed and stared at my hands for a long moment, waiting for tears to come. I was pretty sure I loved Beale Goodman, and I knew that because him walking out felt a lot like when my family had asked me to leave.
Apparently some of us were destined to only see love in the negative, in the void left by its absence.
What a cheerful thought.
The bed jostled as Marjorie jumped up from wherever she’d been hiding and butted her head against my chest looking for pets.
“You come to comfort me? You’re a good girl,” I told her, scratching her soft head until she closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise, okay? And promise you won’t like anyone better than me, no matter how soul-matey they are, m’kay?”
Marjorie gave a chainsaw cough that indicated agreement and commiseration.
“Toby!” Mason shouted from the living room, and I sighed.
Marjorie hissed, which was thoughtful of her.
“Coming,” I yelled. I pulled on my Alexander McQueen jeans with the gray stripe, a deconstructed floral shirt, and pair of leather slip-on Louboutins, because I had a fairly good idea how this conversation would go, and I required tactical armor.
And then, because I also had a fairly good idea how this conversation would end, I opened my suitcase on the bed and chucked the rest of my clothes in haphazardly. All I needed was my toiletry case to make a clean getaway.