She groaned, dropping her head back. For a few seconds, she held her breath, simply feeling her heart beat. Then she released it slowly, admitting, “I know.”
With a quiet, embarrassed laugh, she shook her head. God, that was exactly what she’d felt like.
Juliet lifted her head back up, staring imploringly at Robbie. There was this gnawing, guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach that she just couldn’t kick.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was so quiet, as somber sounding as she felt inside. She drew up her shoulders in a tight shrug. “You and I have been a team in this for over eight years. And now…”
“And now, you’re part of a different team. With Darcy,” he supplied for her.
She blinked back at him, slowly nodding. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
And Robbie was correct in the way he’d said it: it was already done. She already was locked in with Darcy, and that was where she wanted to be. Even if she felt bad about throwing Robbie’s life into the unknown, even though she was nervous to jump into it for herself.
Robbie leaned back more heavily against the chair, readjusting his feet on the floor into a slightly wider stance. “Can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”
“Since when?” She wanted to scoff at him, but mostly, she was just plain curious. When – how – had it been clear to him, even if it hadn’t yet been to her?
“The Country and Folk Awards.” He informed her, simply, before he took another sip of his coffee, tilting the mug far back, finishing it.
Juliet swore she could hear the record scratch in her mind. She whipped her head around to face him, completely. “What?! That was… that was in October.”
No way he’d known back inOctober; there hadn’t been anything to really know, then! Not – not really.
He let out a satisfiedahsound, putting his mug down on the table for the final time. “Yeah. But you werestaring. Like, in a way you’ve never stared at anyone, before.” He arched his eyebrow sharply up at her. “Think about it, Juliet, I’ve known you throughout every hookup you’ve ever had. I know what’s your typical behavior and what isn’t. Darcy hasn’t been typical since day one.”
She sat with that, turning away from him and staring blankly across her kitchen. She couldn’t argue with that.
Darcy had been different, in every way. Everything about her feelings for Darcy from long before they’d started hooking up ran more intense, more passionate, than she’d ever felt for anyone else.
It was precisely as Darcy had said yesterday: they’d been one another’s since the very beginning.
“Yeah,” he said, tapping his knuckles lightly against the table. “So, I’ve seen this coming for a while, now. Been planting the seeds here and there.”
Juliet’s mouth fell open, aghast. “You’ve beenwhat?”
And, admittedly, she was a little impressed. Robbie’s role for the last nearly eight-plus years had been listening to Juliet’s machinations, and then going along with them. Make no mistake, he went along with them very well. He was agreatperformer. But he was definitely not the one who came up with the plans.
His smile returned, cocky and annoyingly charismatic.
“Nothing overt,” he assured her. “Just mentioning in some one-on-one conversations that we haven’t been as close lately. Made sure to tell people that neither of us was to blame, that nothing was going wrong between us. Just wanted to lay some groundwork.”
She reached out and pushed at his shoulder, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, clearly it was a good idea,” he defended with a chuckle, holding up his hands.
“Clearly it was,” she agreed, softly. She stared down into her own coffee, looking at her reflection, before she looked back at him. “Since you’ve been thinking about your plans, what are you going to do, now?”
Unlike Juliet, Robbie wasn’t under anyone’s thumb. Not even the label; he didn’t have any morality clauses in place. But Juliet knew from their talks over the years that – again, unlikeJuliet – he had every intention of keeping his sexuality firmly under wraps, long term.
“Well, I’m definitely not going back to hooking up with women for real.” He snorted.
She echoed it, because… wow. Yeah, she’d forgotten that he’d done that in the past.
Robbie shrugged. “The last eight years have really…” He trailed off, giving her a stare that was far more serious than she’d expected. “It’s really taught me a lot. About myself. And life. And – funny enough – about relationships.”
She understood exactly what he was saying, nodding thoughtfully in agreement. Their romance might have been fake, but they’d been each other’s most constant relationship for a long time. She’d had Robbie even before she’d had Laura in her life. And managing their arrangement had required a lot of clear and open communication. It had also called for a lot of showing up for one another, being loyal to their commitments.
The Robbie she’d met when she’d been eighteen had been very different than the man he was, now. Barely twenty, he’d occasionally hookup with women for real, like he’d said. Even though he wasn’t attracted to women at all, he was petrified of being found out. Even more than Juliet had been.
