Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Even if maybe, for an instant, he wished he was. Wished he was the guy Dylan believed him to be. Wished he could be the one for Dylan—because someday, sometime, Dylan was going to get tired of waiting, and he’d meet someone nice, someone his own age, and that would be that, and all Apollo would have left would be this empty feeling.
* * *
“Hey, stranger!” Dustin’s voice boomed across the sidewalk as Apollo walked from his morning meeting to get lunch on base. “I’ve texted you, but you’re a hard guy to get a hold of these days. And we need to talk.”
Apollo stepped to the side near a tree and bench. He’d been dreading this encounter even as much as he deserved it. “If you’re going to punch me, you might want to wait until we’re off base—you don’t want us both written up for fighting just because I was stupid.”
“Hold up. Why would I...” Dustin’s eyes went wide. Hell. He hadn’t known. Apollo had been so sure that at some point in the last week that Dylan would have spilled everything to Dustin that he’d been avoiding his best friend’s calls, sure a royal ass-chewing was on the way. But as usual, Dylan had been far more trustworthy than Apollo gave him credit for, and certainly more trustworthy than Apollo’s own foolish mouth. “Why would I want to punch you? Unless, of course, you’re the reason my brother’s been moping around, in which case, yes, we are going to have words.”
Apollo squeezed his eyes shut and leaned against one of the well-manicured trees lining the path. Might as well get this over with. “Pretty sure I’m the reason, yeah. We had an argument. Of sorts.”
“Of sorts.” Dustin was a hair taller than Apollo, and he used that to his full advantage now, looking down at him with disdain. “Are you going to explain?”
“I’d rather not.” Apollo went for honest.
“How about you try before I call Dylan at work and shake the story out of him?” The hardness in Dustin’s blue eyes said he’d do just that if Apollo didn’t cooperate.
“It’s complicated.” Apollo tried for the need-to-know voice he used with subordinates all the time.
Dustin rolled his eyes, two decades of friendship saying that he wasn’t going to be intimidated by Apollo, before he let out a long groan. “You slept with him. I knew this would happen.”
Apollo blinked. “You did?”
“I saw the way you were looking at him at the barbecue, yeah.” Dustin shrugged.
“And you still let him stay with me?”
“No one lets Dylan do anything. He’s a pretty determined kid, and honestly I thought it might be good for both of you if it happened. I mean, I sure as hell wasn’t setting you up, but the thought did occur to me.”
“Well not to me,” Apollo grumbled.
“Clearly,” Dustin drawled.
“And you didn’t care?” Apollo thought of all the hours he’d wasted worrying about Dustin’s reaction.
“I didn’t say that. But you’re both consenting adults, and it’s not like you went and broke his heart.” Dustin shrugged, expression as placid as the sunny blue sky.
“Right,” Apollo said weakly, but something in his voice must have given him away.
“You bastard.” Dustin got up in Apollo’s face. “I should have known that you of all people couldn’t keep it to just sex. It’s not that hard—”
“For you, maybe.” Once upon a time, he’d been good at the same kind of casual sex that Dustin specialized in, but those days felt long past.
Dustin waved this criticism off. “This is why he’s been in a funk? You tossed him out?”
“God, no. Actually...it was kind of the opposite,” he admitted.
“He tossed you out? How’d he end up the one with the broken heart?”
“It’s complicated,” Apollo repeated.
“Try me.” Dustin moved away from him to sit on the bench under the tree. “Remember I can’t hit you here. Might as well get it all out now so I can prepare the proper beating for later.”
Apollo wasn’t entirely sure how much Dustin was joking, but he took a seat next to him. He could take it on the chin like a man if it came to that. “He wants a relationship. A future together. And I can’t give him that. It wouldn’t be fair—”
“To whom? I mean, true, you’re older than the sun and grouchy as hell, but if he’s willing to put up with your sorry ass—”
“It’s not fair to either of us. I don’t want to lead him on, but I’m never having another relationship. That part of my life is done.”
“At not even thirty-five? And just adding a point to when I deck you, it seems you did a pretty good job of leading him on if things got this far and he’s got feelings and you don’t.”
“I didn’t say that I don’t. Just that it’s—”