“It’s not so simple,” I said. I pulled my hand away—missed his touch immediately, but it was too distracting. I turned and met his wide, pained eyes. Frustration built in my chest. “You’re so big on honesty, and being true to yourself, and yet—you kept this from me. All this time. Through everything. I told you everything. And you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” Nix said. “I just—”
“You didn’t want me to know,” I interrupted. That much was obvious, from the way the club members had reacted. Nix had actively been keeping this from me. The knowledge that I was the last one to know—that everyone in the club knew about Nix but me—made me feel even worse. Even less important, held at arm’s length. “I’m not an experiment. I’m not a way for you to figure things out. You can’t just drop that on me and pretend it’s not a huge deal.”
Before Nix could respond, I turned and stormed off the porch. I needed to clear my fucking head. There was so much swirling inside me: disappointment, betrayal, confusion—what did this mean for our relationship?
I ignored Nix’s voice calling my name behind me. I climbed into my truck and drove off with no destination in mind. I just needed to get away. As I drove down the highway, away from Elkin Lake, the feeling in my chest worsened and worsened, into a sick, overwhelming sadness. Of course, as soon as I’d thought I’d found something good, it was wrenched away from me. I couldn’t be that lucky. No matter how hard I’d worked to get sober, that didn’t mean I deserved a relationship—at least not one like the one I’d thought I had.
Nix had seemed so perfect. Of course, that façade couldn’t last.
I didn’t care about whatever Nix called himself—straight, bisexual, demisexual, whatever—it was that he’d lied by omission. Coming to terms with new kinds of attraction was a big fucking deal. It was scary, and overwhelming, and disorienting.
Part of the reason I’d decided to get sober was so I could be as stable and reliable as Nix was. So that together, we could support each other. I’d thought he was so established and put-together, with his whole life in order—and now he was telling me he was still figuring out his sexuality. And that process wasn’t easy. It was big, and overwhelming, and confusing, and fluid. There might be more explosive revelations. Hell, maybe he’d decide that he didn’t want to be with men at all, that I was just a fluke.
I’d been so stupid to think I could be the one for him. It was only a matter of time before he figured out that this experiment was a failure, that a guy like me could never live up to the legacy of Sienna, his lost love.
This whole time I’d thought he’d been so open with me, but he’d still been holding this back. Our foundation had been rocked. How could he not understand that this was a big deal?
I needed stability. I needed trust. I thought we’d had that all along—and now I wasn’t sure if Nix could give me either of those things.
He’d said he wanted to be partners. But how could we be partners if he couldn’t even talk to me about something like this? I know I’d fucked up big time, but I’d thought we were starting fresh, rebuilding. Making our relationship into something even stronger. And yet he hadn’t trusted me with this—and his entire club knew it.
Before I realized what I was doing, I saw the neon sign of Tempest around the corner. So I hadn’t been driving aimlessly—I’d reverted to muscle memory. How fucking embarrassing.
I should’ve turned around. But instead, I pulled into the parking lot, right under the flickering sign, and turned off the engine. I grasped the steering wheel tightly—my chest hurt, my throat itched. The anxiety was getting worse and worse. God, I wanted a beer so badly it hurt. I could almost smell the inside of the bar from here—I was already getting sucked into my thoughts, my fears, my worries and griefs, they were escalating, worsening, and a beer would stop it all. Just one.
I stared at the neon sign.
Just one.
25
Nix
I watched Dawson’s truck round the corner and drive away.
Where was he going? Part of me wanted to blow up his phone—but I knew he wouldn’t answer me. I could only hope I hadn’t fucked up his sobriety.
God, I was so fucking stupid. I knew this was a possibility when we decided to continue our relationship, and yet, my own selfishness and desire for Dawson outweighed what I logically knew. That if our relationship exploded, somehow, he’d be the one at the highest risk. I just hadn’t thought that there was anything to detonate.
I took a breath, then stepped back inside the clubhouse. As I crossed the threshold, the room immediately went quiet. Priest had joined the group, too, and was apparently caught up, from the way he cast me a concerned look from his armchair. I pressed my lips together, then stalked across the room to the kitchen, where Eli was leaning against the counter. “What the hell were you thinking, butting in like that?”
“What?” Eli asked. “Where’s Dawson?”
“He left,” I said. “And no, I don’t know where he went.”
Murmurs around the room. Obviously, everyone was thinking the same thing as me: to a bar.
“Seriously, Eli,” I said. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked down my nose at him.
Eli raised both his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t told him that! It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d, I don’t know, hold back.”
“I wasn’t holding back,” I said. “I was planning on talking to him about it. There just hasn’t been a good time with everything that’s been going on.”
“That’s bullshit,” Brennan said, from where he was on the couch in the seat I’d vacated.
Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?”
“Come on,” Brennan said. “You know that’s bullshit. You’ve been with Dawson for months now, you had nothing but time to talk to him about something that’s such a big deal.”
Exasperation flared in me. “That’s what I don’t get! Everyone is saying this is a big deal, but why the hell does the label matter? Who gives a fuck if I’d never been with a man before, or that I’m still figuring out the words to explain my sexuality? I care about him, isn’t that enough?”
“Well, it’s obviously a big deal to him,” Raven said. “And a big enough deal to you that you talked to us about it. That you feel like there’s something to figure out.”
I grimaced. He had a point there.
“If it wasn’t a big deal, why didn’t you say anything about it sooner?”
“I don’t know,” I said automatically. But—I did know, didn’t I? I knew my sexuality was… different. And that explaining it to Dawson would mean explaining the depth of feeling I had for him. And I was worried saying too much, too soon, would scare him away.
Great fucking plan, apparently. I’d driven him away, anyway.
“What did he say?” Raven asked.
I sighed and raked my hands through my hair. “He said he didn’t want to be my ‘experiment.’ Which isn’t the case at all. Why would he think that?”