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“I love you and I’m sorry if I made you feel like I wasn’t here for you.” He shakes his head and goes to deny it and I place my finger over his lips. “Don’t lie. I did and I’m sorry. I don’t ever want you to think that you’re not enough for me because you are, Beck. You’re the love of my life and nothing will ever change that.”
“But you miss him.”
I could lie, I could tell him I don’t miss Xander, but that’s not who we are. “I do miss him. Xander made me feel something different. He gave us a different dynamic and it’s not that I don’t love this one, I just…”
“It’s okay, I get it. I miss him too. I’m so angry with him for how he treated you and yet I can’t help but worry about him. I hate the idea of him going through this alone.”
“He has Norrie.”
He kisses me and holds me closer. “I know and it’s ultimately his choice.”
I kiss his chest and rest my head against his heart. “Do you think you could ever forgive him?”
His fingers slide through my hair and I smuggle closer. “I honestly don’t know. I told him I loved him and his first reaction was to walk away and leave us to the wolves. I’m not sure I could do that again or trust him.”
I get that. It takes a lot for Beck to give his heart and trust and Xander mistreated it. Not that he’s shown any signs of wanting that, even the texts between us were brief and awkward. Perhaps a few months of fun was all it was ever meant to be. Maybe Beck and I will look back one day with fondness and not like we each have a Xander-shaped hole in our lives.
But today is not that day.
26: Xander
“I can’t believeI trusted that man for so long.”
Harrison gives me a look that is less angry than the ones I’ve been receiving from him the last two days. “It happens. You’re like Norrie, she sees the good in people too, and thank God she does, or I’d be a lot worse off for it.”
A grin stretches over my face at that. “Yeah, you would, but I still feel foolish.”
“Well, you found out and you’re fixing it now.”
Harrison parks outside my manager’s office and I see Hudson waiting on the sidewalk for me. The things I found out about Len, once a private investigator got involved, turns my stomach. Not only has he shafted me but everyone he’s ever worked with. That includes Lois, who was angry but not surprised. I guess when you’ve been in the business as long as she has, nothing shocks you.
“Ready?”
I nod, this is part one of getting my life back, part two is to beg and grovel until Amelia and Beck forgive me for the way I’ve treated them. Not having them in my life these last few weeks has been hell, and shown me a lot of things about the man I am and the man I want to be.
I’ve spent more than a few late nights talking with Norrie and Harrison, admitting my addiction, the shame I hold about being so weak, the shame I have about my sexuality, and it’s purged a lot of the pain I’ve been hanging on to. Tears have been cried, mine and Nora’s, but new bonds have been built too, and I feel stronger in some ways than I did before.
“Xander.” Hudson shakes my hand.
“Thanks for coming, man.”
Hudson is a fucking good lawyer and, more than that, a good man, and he’s helped me untangle the messes that Len has gotten me into. Like the exclusivity deal with a certain studio that involved a backhand payment to him of four million dollars.
“Let’s do this. I have places to be.”
I walk in with my head high, a confidence that doesn’t feel natural to me etched across my body language and face. I’m channeling Beck right now. My gut twists with pain. What I wouldn’t do to have him beside me, to have him at my back, but I don’t deserve it and that’s the truth.
I almost trip over my own feet when I turn the corner and see the very man I was just thinking about standing tall, a three-piece suit fitted to his gorgeous body. Beside him, Amelia is talking to Lois, her long hair falling down her back, a sexy red pantsuit, and nude heels giving her the look of a woman you don’t fuck with.
Turning to Harrison, my mouth hangs open and I’m glad Beck and Amelia haven’t spotted me yet. “What is this?”
“I called them. Thought you might want the support.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
Harrison shrugs. “Maybe not, but they came anyway.”
“I don’t know what to say to them.”
