Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry, Amani,” floated after him, small and chagrined.
“Sorry isn’t understanding,” he whispered. “Sorry doesn’t fix anything.”
He made it two steps before the crash of glass followed, shattering and loud and harsh as a stab through vulnerable flesh. He turned back sharply, as Vic’s glass dropped to the floor, as Vic reached after him, catching at his fingers gently.
“Don’t go,” he begged. “Amani, please. I’ll…if I made you feel cheap, tell me what won’t.”
“Don’t.” He pulled his hand back, stepping out of reach of the spreading puddle on the floor. “Please don’t try to buy me again.”
“I’m not! I just…” Vic shoved both hands into his hair, staring at Amani across the plain of broken glass. “Don’t you understand that I’d pay anything to be with you?”
Amani smiled bitterly. He supposed that was the nail in the coffin, illusions as cracked and fragmented as the sharp edges littered all over the tile.
Because in the end, Vic just wanted to negotiate price.
“You don’t understand that that’s the problem,” he said. “I don’t want you to buy my love. I just want you to want it. And unless you can see me as more than someone to be bought…”
Amani retreated, and made himself turn his back on Vic for the last time. Before he gave in to the anguish in those eyes that had made him laugh, made him weep, made him cry out with more passion than he’d ever known. It had just been an act, a roleplay, and now the curtain was called.
“I just can’t be with you, Vic,” he finished.
And ran, pelting from the apartment before Vic could try to stop him again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VIC SANK DOWN AGAINST THE wall, the glass cold against his back, and curled forward, hanging his head between his knees and dragging his hands against the back of his neck until his nails dug in and the burn of the pain made him snarl out a coughing, hoarse sound that wanted to be a sob but he just wouldn’t let it.
Fuck. Fuck. How had he fucked up everything this quickly?
He’d just…he’d been trying to keep the different parts of his life in order, trying to compartmentalize, trying to arrange everything the way it was supposed to be, and somehow supposed to turned into something all wrong. In trying to hold on to all the pieces, they’d instead been torn from his fingers, ripped away.
And in trying to control Amani…
Vic had driven him off.
He leaned back against the glass, closing his eyes and letting the cold soak in to numb him. Control was his entire problem, wasn’t it? All this time he’d been playing at giving up control, but he’d been lying to himself and lying to Amani, treating it almost like a game instead of something he needed on levels so deep they were engraved in whispered script upon his bones. He had to learn…learn…
He didn’t know.
He only wished he’d met Amani in some other way, for even the smallest chance to be something more to him than the client who treated him like trash.
His eyes burned; he felt like he’d been crying for hours although they were completely dry. He was completely dry, husked out and fragile and ready to crumble. He didn’t know what to do. If he went after Amani, he’d just be making it worse, treating him like he wasn’t even enough of a person for Vic to listen to no. If he called Ash, Ash would just yell at him to apologize, and Vic didn’t think an apology was enough. He’d thought he’d known helplessness in Amani’s hands, but it was nothing compared to knowing the man he loved was running away from him in this very moment, and there was nothing Vic could do to get him back.
He stared at the mess of broken glass, then dug into his pocket and glowered down at his phone. Amani’s contact was right there at the top, and Vic tapped it, looking down at their message history. Terse exchanges of information. Hardly any laughter, any warmth, no little check-ins just to say I’m thinking of you or I miss you or you won’t believe the shit I just found on Twitter. None of those idle little things that happened in a relationship, because they hadn’t been in a relationship and he’d been too damned caught up in himself to recognize the quiet thing growing day by day.
He swallowed back the knot of pain in his throat, then dialed past Amani’s contact to Julie’s and hit Call.
“Hey,” she said after a couple of rings, the call picking up on Siorse’s laughter in the background, and even if his heart was spiderwebbed fragments barely holding together, that sound never failed to make Vic smile. “Vic? What’s up?”
“I think,” he dragged out raggedly, “I really fucked up, Jules. And I don’t know what to do about it.”