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I watched him leave the cafeteria and then sat back against the booth and studied my cooling coffee. If my family could see me now, they’d be absolutely horrified. But everything they’d hate about my new life, I fucking loved.
Not just the fact that I was finally free of that damn closet I’d been forced to hide in for most of my life. No, it was so much more than that. I had a career I loved, a side business I was growing that was all mine and friends who didn’t know, or even care, what being a Wilder really meant.
Yes, I’d lost some things along the way, but I’d gained more.
I’d known I was screwed the first time I’d realized boys were what did it for me, not girls.
Because Brody Wilder, member of one of the most influential and very conservative political families in the country, couldn’t be gay.
I’d fought my needs for years and had even managed to fool myself into thinking the whole thing was some crazy phase fueled by the stress that came with living a very public life…until the night I’d had sex for the first time with my girlfriend, the daughter of my parents’ closest friends. On paper, we’d been the perfect couple and our families had already started mapping out our future together. But as soon as I’d dropped her off at home after an awkward and humiliating encounter after a clichéd prom night when I was eighteen years old, I’d gone home and cried. Then I’d done something that had shattered any illusions I’d had left that I could have a normal life.
I came out to my twin brother, Nathan.
It was the first time since we’d shared a womb that he hadn’t had my back.
And he’d never had it again after that.
After telling me I was a sick pervert, he’d gone directly to my father and I’d been ushered right back into the closet. Countless sessions with our family’s Baptist minister followed until I was deemed “cured” of my depraved urges and I was welcomed back into my church and family because I’d repented.
But my definition of repented had been very different than my family’s. I’d spent my days excelling in my classes at Yale Law School and my evenings shuttling my longtime, respectable socialite girlfriend around to various events, and making love to her on the rare occasions when I hadn’t been able to put her off with the standard excuse of being busy with studying. But nights…nights had been all mine and I’d taken full advantage of that fact.
Gay clubs had become my salvation because they’d offered me the anonymity I’d needed so I could explore every facet of my sexuality. Fucking, getting fucked, group sex, bondage and pain…I’d tried just about all of it. And soon I’d been caught up in a revolving door of needing more and more forbidden sex to balance out the constant fear of discovery and shame of who I’d become. It wasn’t until I’d gotten sucked into the dangerous world of breath play with a guy who had no clue what he was doing that I’d come to my senses and stuck to the things I knew were a sure thing for me.
Living a lie became second nature to me after graduating law school and planning my upcoming nuptials to the young woman who’d been selected for me like some broodmare. But the guilt of what I’d become had weighed heavily on me, to the point that I’d finally broken down and told my fiancée the truth, though I’d left out the part about it being men I’d been cheating on her with. I’d expected histrionics, anger, despair, betrayal…what I’d gotten was a lecture on being discreet and a stern warning to keep my baser needs out of our marriage bed. Her response should have freed me, but all it had done was spill more water into the already waterlogged glass box I’d been living in my whole life.
Until the night I’d finally woken up.
“Hey, Brody.”
The feminine voice distracted me from my thoughts of the past and I nodded at the young nurse I recognized from the ER. “Hey, Jill,” I responded politely as she walked by. I could tell she was looking for me to invite her to sit with me, but I was too distracted to deal with her. She’d flirted with me the last few times Luke and I had brought patients to the rural community hospital and I hadn’t yet had a chance to tell her she wasn’t anywhere near my type. I stood up quickly so she wouldn’t invite herself to sit down and said, “Have a good night.”
My thoughts drifted back to Beck and Quinn. I was at a loss as to what to do next, but I couldn’t shake the need to do something. Even though my role in the encounter between the two men at the club had been minimal, I still felt responsible for fixing it.
Only problem was, I still didn’t have a clue how the hell to fix something I wasn’t even sure how had gotten so broken in the first place.
ChapterFour
Beck
I’d seen a lot of things I shouldn’t have early on in my life, but the sight I woke up to would surely haunt me for the rest of my days.
I’d felt light pricking at the backs of my eyes and had initially thought it was yet another doctor shining his light into my eyes looking for what, God only knew. But it had actually been a little bit of sunlight streaming in through the gaps on the vertical blinds covering the window. My first thought was that my body shouldn’t hurt so bad considering I hadn’t been going very fast when I hit that tree. At the least, it should have just been my head that hurt from where I’d hit the window, but just about every part of me felt some twinge of pain, though I knew it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
But none of it held a candle to the fiery stab of agony I felt as I opened my eyes and saw my father sitting next to my bed, his elbows on his legs and his hands holding his head. His face was downcast and his fingers were buried in his dark hair. I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes at the sight of Cade Barretti looking so broken. The man was larger than life itself, but I’d managed to reduce him to this.
“Dad,” I managed to rasp out, despite the dryness of my throat.
My father quickly lifted his eyes and I was dismayed to see they were red and swollen. “Hey,” he said as he dashed at his eyes and then stood so he could lean over me, one hand taking mine where it was resting on the bed, the other settling on my head as he stroked over my hair. “How are you feeling?”
I nodded but stopped abruptly at the pain. “Good,” I said. “Water?”
My father snatched up a cup from a table next to the bed and filled it with water from a pitcher and then grabbed a straw. He held the straw to my lips and let me drink my fill before setting it down again.
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t,” my father immediately said and then he shook his head and leaned down to kiss my forehead. He seemed to be struggling to speak so I just focused on holding his hand until he pulled back a little so I could see his face.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I whispered.
