"There is no this." Getting louder now. Getting uglier. "There never was a this. Whatever you convinced yourself was happening — you're wrong. I'm not like you. I'm never going to be like you. And the sooner you accept that and back the fuck off the better."
Something changes in his face. Gets mean. The air between us is violent, the temperature keeps rising and rising, but no one is cooling it down.
"Not like me," he says.
"That's right."
"What does that mean?"
"It means what it means."
"Say it." His voice drops. The situation feels perilous, like it’s hanging over the edge, but I can’t stop what’s happening, I’m too far gone now. "You want to say it. Say it."
"I'm not gay." Each word separate. "I am not like you. I will never be like you. And I need you to get that through your head and leave me the fuck alone."
He looks at me for a long moment, eyes gone black with rage.
"You know what," he says. "Fine. Stay in your head. Be fine." Doesn't look at me. "But don't stand here and act like you're not lying to yourself because we both know—"
"I'm not lying to anyone."
"—we both know exactly what happened in that locker room and exactly what it meant—"
"It meant nothing—"
He looks at me directly. "You can call it whatever you want. Call it nothing. Doesn't change what it was.” His voice is low and tight. “Because you’re not gay like me, right?”
I don’t think. I don’t decide. I just move.
My fist connects with his cheek hard enough that it travels all the way up my arm. He stumbles back into the counter. Catches himself with one hand flat on the surface. Straightens up slow and touches his face. Looks at me with a look I’ve never seen from him before.
Not anger. Something past anger. Something colder and more final than anything he's aimed at me before. I've seen that look on the ice. When someone's trying to start something and Rhys is deciding whether to finish it. That's how I know exactly how badly he wants to hit me back right now.
He doesn't.
His fists close at his sides. Knuckles white. Jaw so tight the muscle in it pops. His mouth pulled with restraint. His whole body is coiled with it — all that anger sitting right on the surface.
He swallows it down.
All of it.
"Fuck you," he says instead and walks out.
The bell above the door rings. The coffee shop is silent once more.
I stand in the middle of it with my hand throbbing and thespecific clarity of someone who just did the one thing a captain should never do settling over me like cold water.
My father would probably call that a good hit. Would finally look at me like I did something right.
That thought makes me want to be sick.
I stare at the door.
I really fucked up.
Chapter 16
Jamie — Past
