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“I totally support that. And if you need any money while you figure things out, let me know.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve been squirreling away money for years, because my parents always taught us to save for a rainy day. Well, it’s fucking pouring.” Daniel pulled his phone from the pocket of his hoodie and handed it to me. “Could you text Alan Allen for me and tell him I quit? I don’t want to leave the other servers short-handed, so hopefully he can find someone to cover tomorrow night’s shift.”
I composed a professional-sounding message and read it to Daniel. “You were a lot nicer than I would have been,” he said. “I would’ve told Alan Allen Alan to go fuck himself.”
“You might need that place as a reference someday,” I reminded him, as I hit send. “It’s probably best not to burn bridges.”
“I’m definitely the bridge-burning type, though.”
“In that case, it’s a good thing you let me handle it.”
My phone beeped a few minutes later, and I read the text from Aleksei and sent one in reply. I sighed as I returned the phone to my pocket, and Daniel asked, “What’s going on?”
“Aleksei let me know he caught up to Lee, but his son was too angry to talk to him. No real surprise there, since Lee isn’t exactly the calm and level-headed type. Aleksei also said he decided to head home, and that he’d talk to me tomorrow. I told him I’d done the same thing.”
“That’s all pretty much as expected. So, why the big sigh?”
“Because I bet it’s weird for him now, knowing his son and I—” I really didn’t want to finish that sentence.
“It shouldn’t be weird for any of you. You’re all consenting adults, and you didn’t know who Aleksei was when you started. Besides, you were with Lee well over a year ago, and there were other guys in between, right?”
“Yeah, but what difference does that make?”
“It means you had a sex buffer. You didn’t go straight from banging Lee to—”
“Please don’t finish that thought.”
“Fine, but you get what I’m saying,” Daniel said. “And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with fucking two people who happen to be related. Take my brother Donny, for example. He dated this girl for a while in high school, and a few years later he started dating her sister. Nobody thought that was weird, so why should this be?”
“Maybe people would have thought it was weird if it had been her mom though, instead of her sister.”
“Maybe. But people get hung up and judgmental about all kinds of shit, so whatever.”
“True.”
He glanced at me and said, “The most important thing to keep in mind though, is that the only way this can become an issue between you and Aleksei is if you let it.”
“Or if he lets it,” I muttered.
Many hours later, I grabbed my duffle bag, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and followed Daniel into his brother’s huge, two-story house. Everything looked very new, including the neighborhood, which was the type where all the houses were the same style and color.
As he entered a code on an alarm panel, I asked, “Are you sure it’s okay with your brother that we’re here?”
“He’s glad, actually. I messaged him when we stopped for gas. He won’t be home for another two weeks, and he was worried that no one was checking on the house while he was gone.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
I followed Daniel to an upstairs landing overlooking the massive living room below. “There are two guest rooms, one at either end of the hall,” he told me. “You take the left, I’ll take the right, and I’ll see you in a few hours. If you wake up before I do, feel free to search the kitchen for food and coffee. Not that my brother probably left much, since he was going away for a month.” I murmured a thank you, and we went off in opposite directions.
I dropped my bags on the floor when I reached the guest room and shut the door behind me. After using the adjoining bathroom, I stripped down to my briefs and fell into bed.
But even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, I curled into a ball and kept replaying the same five minutes over and over again. All I kept seeing was the confusion on Aleksei’s face, and the betrayal and accusation on Lee’s.
It was all just such a mess. I wanted Aleksei more than anything, and I was so scared I’d lose him. Maybe I already had. Maybe he’d never look at me the same again, knowing I was his son’s ex-boyfriend.
I needed to think of a way to fix this. But right now, I didn’t have a clue how to do that.
18
Aleksei
The night had started on such an incredible high. I’d been happy. I was still getting used to what that felt like.
