Fuck, it was so stupid. He was a grown man. He shouldn’t have been scared of seeing one small, middle-aged woman, just because he had never been good enough for her.
But with Vivian gone, he had nothing to hide behind anymore. He was still as unwanted and unneeded as he was thirty years ago. A man who outlived his usefulness. A man who shouldn’t have outlived his wife. It was her everyone wanted back, not him. Even Aunt Rebecca was fonder of Vivian than she had ever been of him. Andrew being back just reminded everyone that Vivian was dead while he was alive.
Maybe he should have died with her.
Maybe he should have stayed on the island and let everyone think he was dead.
He suddenly yearned for it, for the sheer simplicity of that life. It might have been weird, messed up, and downright unhealthy, but at least on the island he hadn’t felt as though he was insufficient, unneeded, or wanting. He hadn’t felt so useless. He had felt… he had felt content.
“Are you fucking serious?” he whispered with a hoarse laugh.
He needed help if he seriously thought being stranded on the island was better than his normal life. Maybe he’d gone crazy after all. Maybe this was all a weird dream, and he would wake up any moment now to Logan’s hand threading through his hair and the heavy, comforting weight of Logan’s cock in his mouth.
Andrew flushed. Fuck, he really needed help. He shouldn’t long for the comforting feeling of a cock in his mouth, what the hell. How messed up was that? He wasn’t a… He wasn’t gay. He was normal. What had happened on the island didn’t matter. He didn’t want to suck Logan’s dick. He didn’t miss sucking Logan’s dick—or miss him, period. The island had just fucked him up. That was all.
This sickening longing… it would pass.
It had to.
Chapter 14
Vivian’s funeral was on a Friday.
Andrew stood by the Rutledges and stared at the coffin numbly, trying to feel something other than unease and discomfort.
He hadn’t been sure how he felt about Vivian’s body being transferred from the island to be buried next to the other Rutledges, but he hadn’t said no when Vivian’s family asked for his opinion. Now he was beginning to regret it.
It was just strange. He felt like a fraud among all these crying people. He felt so guilty for no longer feeling grief. He was sad, of course, and he missed her, but that pain was duller now, tinged with affection and good memories. He’d had time to grieve his wife. He’d buried her with his own hands ten months ago. It didn’t feel right to have her funeral again when he felt so far removed from that time.
He was glad for his dark sunglasses. He didn’t need more judgmental looks than he already got.
Finally, after what felt like forever, it was over.
Andrew hurriedly walked away, the knot in his chest lessening with every step he took. God, why wasn’t this getting easier? Why couldn’t he stay among other people without feeling like he wanted to jump out of his own skin?
“Andrew!”
He cringed but stopped at the sound of his aunt’s voice.
“Yes, Aunt Rebecca?” he said, turning around reluctantly.
His aunt was glaring at him. “You have been back for two weeks, but you haven’t bothered to visit me even once. I had to find out about your survival from the news!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant to visit you, but things have been crazy, you know—”
“No, I don’t know,” she said, her tone scathing. “Because you haven’t even bothered to call me, you ungrateful, heartless boy.”
Andrew tugged at his collar, but found the top button of his shirt already undone. He wasn’t actually choking. It was all in his head. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better, Auntie,” he said, looking around desperately for an escape route. Any excuse to leave.
None was presenting itself. No one seemed interested in approaching him, everyone too busy offering their condolences to Vivian’s grandmother and brother. Never mind that he was her husband.
Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, Andrew said, “I just got caught up in the legal issues, I swear. I’ll visit you soon—”
“This Sunday,” Aunt Rebecca said in a tone that brooked no argument.
“Right. On Sunday,” Andrew said, forcing a smile onto his face.
Dammit.
***
After the funeral, Andrew went to a liquor store and bought a few bottles of cheap whiskey.
Vivian had liked expensive red wine, but Andrew’s tastebuds didn’t notice any difference between a bottle that cost a thousand dollars and one that cost ten. He used to buy high-end booze anyway, pretending that he knew the difference. Well, he had no one to pretend for anymore.
He returned to his hotel room and got smashingly drunk.
At least this time no one was there to judge him.
The memory of dark eyes looking at him disapprovingly flashed to the forefront of his mind, and he was hit with a wave of unbearable, crushing longing. Normally he pushed these thoughts—these feelings—away, tried to squash them down, but he was too drunk for that now.
He reached for his phone and opened Chrome with unsteady fingers.
In his defense, looking Logan up was laughably easy. Information about him was in every article about their miraculous survival.
Logan McCall. Thirty-four years old. An owner of a rather popular hotel chain.
Andrew’s lips curled into a faint smile. He’d suspected that Logan wasn’t a simple owner of a hotel when his family had sent a goddamn private jet for him, but this was kind of funny. Way to downplay one’s business.
Apparently, Logan’s family lived near Boston, but he lived by himself in NYC. His address and phone number obviously weren’t listed anywhere, but it wouldn’t be hard to find out. All he had to do was go to one of Logan’s hotels and talk the manager into giving him Logan’s number. After all, everyone and their dog now knew that he had been Logan’s fellow plane crash survivor. The manager was unlikely to refuse to give Logan’s number to the person he had spent nine months living—surviving—with.
After looking up the nearest hotel that belonged to Logan, Andrew grabbed his unpacked suitcase, tossed in the few things he’d bothered to pull out of it, and called a cab.
As he stood in front of Logan’s hotel, a sliver of doubt crept into his alcohol-addled mind. He shook it off and went inside.
“I’d like a room,” he said at reception. He was pretty proud of himself for not slurring.
“Of course, sir. Your ID please,” the woman said with a polite smile that didn’t quite mask the curious look in her eyes. So she had recognized him. Considering how often his face had been plastered next to her boss’s, it probably shouldn’t have been surprising. Oh, well. Maybe it was for the best.
Giving her his ID, Andrew said quietly, “I have another request. I need Logan McCall’s phone number.”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly. “I’ll have to ask the manager,” she said, her voice hesitant. “We don’t give Mr. McCall’s private information to anyone, but… I’ll ask.” She added softly, “And I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Reyes.”