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“Riley and me aren’t together anymore so it’s not like he’s keepin’ tabs on what I do.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I wish I could.”
“Maybe…”
“Don’t, okay. It’s fine. Not everyone gets a happily ever after. As many times as I’ve turned my back on the chance to have one, I kinda deserve to have the door slammed in my face.”
“Bullshit. You deserved to be taught a lesson, which I think you’ve learned, but, that fucker loves you and he’s a better person with you in his life. If there’s a chance you two can fix it, I think you should try. Wouldn’t want it to be another regret, would you?”
“Don’t think I have room for any more of those.”
“Exactly. So, you know what you need to do.”
“Should never have done it the first time. There were reasons I said I wouldn’t date a bandmate.”
“So let’s hear them.”
“Why? I’m sure you’ll have just as easy a time guessing as I will stating the obvious.”
Ahh. He’d thought that was the case, what with the vehemence in Dez’s tone the first few times the subject came up.
“Who helped you arrive at that determination?”
Dez pried the half-finished joint from between his fingers and took a hit, eyes drifting closed as he held the smoke in. Zakk watched thin tendrils curl around his lips before he exhaled. “Knightly.”
“And how’d he manage that?”
Dez’s eyes remained closed, golden sunlight bringing out all the layers of color in his hair.
“I managed it for him, by stupidly falling for all his flattery and the fact that I wanted him, bad. Wasn’t the first time I’d desired someone, or acted on it, but it was different with him. The feelings were different. Deeper. I…”
Dez’s words trailed off into a silent hum.
“You fell in love with him.”
“Yeah. Thought he felt the same, but I’d read more into it than what was there. Was my fault, not his. He was just being a flirt and I stupidly ate it up. Humiliated myself in the process too.”
“And I’m guessing that humiliation is why you cry his name out at night sometimes,” Zakk offered, trying to put two and two together and hoping they equaled out, though, it worried him there might be a darker element he hadn’t accounted for yet.
“Something like that.”
“Just say yes and tell me what he did.”
“Nuthin’, it’s what I did. Tried to surprise him. We were sharing a hotel room. I fucked up. He didn’t come in alone.”
Zakk cringed, wondering how shy, intensely private Dez had handled that.
“I shoulda just gotten dressed and left them to what they were gonna do, but, Knightly played it off as if we’d planned it, and I tried to roll with it….”
Dez was hedging on the details, but what he had given was enough for something to click with Zakk. “You didn’t know him.”
“No.”
“You panicked.”
“Yeah.”
