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“And you thought the one was me?” he asks, dumbfounded.
I stay quiet for a moment before deciding to give him an honest answer. “I thought it could have been, yeah. Looking back now, though, I realize we never would have worked.”
“Why not?”
Licking my lips, I try my best to search for words that don’t make me sound pathetic or cruel. “Because you don’t need me.”
“That's not true—”
“No,” I insist quietly. “It’s the truth. You're stable. Got a nice boring job, two partners that love you. Parents who chose you. We never would’ve been equals.”
“That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Mom and Dad want to see you, Dev. It took a few months, but they’ve accepted me and my sexuality.”
I shake my head. “You’d try to fix me. Maybe we’d play house and pretend it all worked, that I didn't mind not being the center of your universe. The second something went wrong, though, I’d run. Because that’s what I do. And you'd let me go. We're doomed to fail from the start.”
“And Christian?” he asks roughly. “You think you’d be equals with him? The king of threesomes?”
I bark out a hollow laugh. “No. I'm not deluded enough to believe he'd ever settle for me.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Exhaling through my nostrils, I busy myself with cleaning up the counter as I try to formulate a response. Honestly, I don't even know what I'm doing here, what I'm doing with him. “Christian’s a stubborn asshole, but he fights for the shit he wants. For the people he cares about. I’m not… afraid I’d disappear next to him.”
A long silence stretches between us. Logan tilts his head, studying me like someone he's never seen before. “You want someone to fight for you instead of walking away.”
I squirm, feeling exposed beneath his piercing gaze. “Not that I expect that person to be Christian. Don't expect it from anyone, honestly, but while he's trapping me here, I might as well have some fun with him, right?”
Logan smiles sadly as he touches my shoulder. “You fool a lot of people, Dev, but you don't fool me. Wanting someone to choose you isn't a weakness.”
“I don’t want someone to choose me,” I scoff, stepping out of his touch. “I want someone who doesn’t need reasons to stay.”
“That’s choosing you.”
“No. Choosing is active. It means they could go if they wanted, but they don’t. I don’t want that. I want—” An aggravated breath leaves my lungs when I stumble over the words, because saying them feels humiliating. I've never said them out loud before. “I want someone who couldn’t walk away even if they tried.”
There. It's out for the world to see. Devon fucking Peterson doesn't want to be another option to someone, because there shouldn't be one. Leaving isn't even on the radar. It's either me or nothing.
“That sounds…” Logan trails off, brows slowly rising high. “Sounds intense.”
No fucking shit.
“Loving someone is intense,” I grumble when my gaze catches on a bottle of vodka above the fridge. “At least it should be. Otherwise, it ain't worth it.”
Know what else ain't worth it? Sobriety. Fuck this shit.
Grabbing the bottle, I clap Logan on the shoulder and spin around toward Christian's room. “Thanks for dinner, man. I really appreciate it.”
“Dev, shit. Look, I didn't mean to upset you. Put the bottle down.”
He's close on my heels, but I manage to get inside and shut the door before he reaches it. My phone buzzes from where I left it on the nightstand, a few missed texts lighting up the screen, but I ignore them. What's the point anymore? Logan’s right—the kind of love I want doesn't exist. It never has.
From the moment I was born, I was raised to believe that love was conditional. That it was something I needed to earn, and work to keep. Be good, do and say the right things, be useful. Kneel when told, keep my mouth shut…
Let people do what they want to me.
Because I'm good, and I want them to stay. I'll be so good, I promise.
The vodka burns my throat going down, but it feels better than the gaping void in my chest—better than the memories taking up space in my brain.
