Chapter Ten

The real trouble was simple. I had agreed to work for Roland’s business. I still really wanted to, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so when I couldn’t maintain a professional demeanor with the persistent questions.

“What’s wrong? Was it me? Have I done something?”

Roland bombarded me with these questions each time that we were alone behind closed doors. I had asked him not to. I had requested that he drop it and leave it alone. Eventually, I think that I had gotten through to him because he did. The silence, I found, was as equally painful.

The day that Roland had stopped asking questions, we were able to complete our work in silence. Roland had had an idea about a project that brought the community together. He, Nathan, and I were working on drafting up some ideas of what could possibly work to our advantage. So far, none of the ideas were working. We had considered a monument of some kind but the budget necessary would have been exorbitant. We had come up with the idea of a fundraising event but in the end, a suburban community already had enough of those without our help. So, all our ideas came and went. Roland insisted that we file them rather than scrap them as they may come in handy for future reference. I was with him on that one.

It had been a full month when I walked into the office without knocking. Nathan was sitting on Roland’s desk and he was on the other side of it. I had not heard any of his words, but Nathan had been whispering to Roland. I felt my belly flip unpleasantly at the sight of them. That was until I caught sight of Roland’s facial expression. He looked deeply uncomfortable.

“Ah,” Nathan said. His voice was smooth as ever. “We were just talking about you, Lyle.”

“You were talking about me?” I shut the door behind myself.

“Yes,” he said, “but I have been so kindly informed that that’s none of my business. You two have things to discuss, I’m sure. I’ll leave you alone now.”

Nathan walked passed me and pulled open the door to the office. He was taller than me but with the grimace on his face, he looked far less attractive than he usually did. He gave me a once over and with that he was gone. The door clicked shut behind him.

“What is going on?” I asked as soon as I was certain that he was gone. I walked over to Roland’s desk. He still looked uncomfortable. “Are you okay?”

“No, Lyle. As a matter of fact, I’m not okay,” Roland said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, so now you want to talk to me, now that Nathan is all huffy and you think you’re in trouble or something? I’ve been trying to ask you that very question for weeks now. Everything seemed fine and now it’s all fucked.”

I stared at him, my eyes wide. He looked as though he was about to burst into tears. I hoped he wasn’t. I wouldn’t know what to do if Roland chose that moment to start crying.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I had meant to speak in a normal tone of voice but it came out as a whisper.

“What are you sorry for, Lyle?” Roland asked. He stood up from the chair behind his desk, throwing his hands into the air. “Are you sorry for kissing me last month? Are you sorry for leading me on when we were teenagers when you really weren’t interested in me? Are you sorry for ignoring my letter and breaking the promise you made to me by never showing up?”

I swallowed. There it was. All the guilt that had been bottled up for so long rose to the surface and I felt sick with it. I wanted to throw up but there was nowhere to be sick. I didn’t get the luxury to feel all of the emotions that were suddenly overwhelming me, however, as Roland had more to say.

“I waited for you. I thought that you might actually come. After I left and grew up a little, of course I had figured out that you were never really interested in me.” Roland ran a hand along his face. “I have a brain, you know. A part of me had always suspected it and known that that was why you had never made a move and I forgave you for that. I really thought that you would have come though, if for nothing else than to see your best friend or to tell me the truth once and for all.”

“I know,” I said. My voice was still softer than I would have liked it to be. I felt anguish as I stared at him, the same expression of hurt I had seen when I walked away from him on the floor at the jazz club was on his face. I knew now that by walking away from him I had dredged up all the memories he must have had of me doing exactly that – walking away and abandoning him. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m sorry for all of it.”

“Are you?” Roland said, disbelieving. “I feel like if you were really sorry you might have said something before now. Did you even get my letter?”

That was the question I had been dreading. I had thought it might have come up sooner. I had kind of expected it to come up the very night that Roland had come back into my life, at that little table beneath paper lanterns and in the midst of being punch-drunk. I had considered lying about it, saying that I had no idea what he was talking about, but of course I couldn’t do that. I still had the letter in a shoebox at the bottom of my closet. “Yeah,” I said. “I did get the letter.”

“But you never came.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“I dropped it on your doorstep myself, you know. I didn’t want to mail it. It felt too impersonal.”

“I wanted to be there, Row,” I said. I dropped into one of the armchairs across from him, burying my head in my hands. I couldn’t look at him. “It killed me not to be there. It killed me for months afterwards that I wasn’t there for you. I’ve  never regretted anything more in my life.”

“Then why weren’t you there, Lyle? You chose not to come.”

“I was afraid…” I said. I looked up at him, my eyes burning with tears, and my face hot with emotion. “I was afraid of the same thing that I had always been afraid of. It was the reason that I never told you how I felt when we were teenagers, the reason why I let you hold my hand even though I didn’t think that I was interested in you, and it was the reason why I signed that freaking pact in the first place.”

“What was the reason? What were you so afraid of?”

“The same thing I’m afraid of even now, to this day. I’m afraid of hurting you, Roland. More than that, I’m afraid of losing you.”

Roland shook his head, glancing down at the desk between us. His hands were fidgeting with a loose thread on the hem of his expensive blazer. “You would never have lost me, Lyle.”

“How could I know that?” I asked. “Look at us. It’s more than twelve years since we made that pact and now we are friends again and it has been agony. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“Did you ever think that you were the reason that I was happy? I didn’t care whether or not we were together. Your friendship meant more to me than being in a relationship with you, no matter how crazy I was about you.”

“Was? So, you’re no longer crazy about me?”

“That’s beside the point, Lyle…”

I looked up at him as the first tear fell down my cheek. It was warm and salty as it landed on my lip. “Humor me, Row.”

“Maybe I’m still crazy about you, but I’m not about to chase someone who doesn’t feel the same way about me. I did that for years and look where it got me. I was sitting in his spot beneath an old tree in an abandoned park until it got too dark and too cold and I had to admit that it was time to go home.”

“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I’m not sorry about kissing you. I’m sorry for kissing you when you are already seeing someone else.”

“What are you talking about?”

I shrugged then, looking down at my legs. They were clad in jeans because suits were not necessary where I worked before I joined this business. They felt tackier than the well-dressed people that I was surrounded by every time I entered that office building. I had said all that I needed to say. There was nothing more to get into. That was the simple truth of it. Regardless of how crazy we were about one another, he already had someone. I wasn’t about to step in the way of that. I wouldn’t hurt anyone else for my own personal gain.

Roland had walked around the table. He turned the empty armchair slightly so that it was facing me and then took a seat in front of me. “Lyle, what are you talking about?”

“Please don’t make me get into this, Row. I don’t want to. It hurts.”

“Lyle, look at me.”

I did. I raised my face, breaking my eyes away from the oh-so-interesting jeans I wore and looked up at Roland. His eyes were full of concern, concern I knew really was reserved for me. His cheeks were pink and I wondered why. Was it the heat of emotion? Did he want to cry, too? Was he blushing for some unknown reason?

“What, Row?” I asked.

“I’m not seeing anyone. I told you that at the party. Things never worked out.”

“You told me that with you moving here things were not going to work out, but I guess that must have been before he decided to follow you here.”

Roland’s brow furrowed. He looked beyond bewildered. “What do you mean he decided to follow me? Did he contact you or something?”

“He hasn’t contacted me outside of work, no. Is that not enough?”

All of a sudden understanding dawned on Roland’s face. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Oh. Lyle. You complete and utter idiot, you.”

“Okay, I think that would be my cue to leave now. No thanks to that.”

I had started to stand up but Roland placed his hands on my shoulders, stopping me from going anywhere. “Lyle, listen to me, okay? Just give me a minute to explain. You have completely misunderstood the situation.”

“How have I misunderstood anything? You told me that it was over because you moved here. Well, he’s here now. That means you guys can work things out and be all happy and lovey dovey together. All I’m asking is that you leave me out of it.”

“Nathan is not my boyfriend, Lyle,” Roland said.

“Uhm… What?”

Roland was grinning at me when I looked up at him. There was moisture beneath his eyes. That answered the question of why his face had been pinker than usual. His lashes were wet, making them appear even longer. “There are two different Nathans. There is the Nathan who I left behind who it would never have worked out with anyway and there is the Nathan who is very much a straight man who is my business associate.”

“Wait…” I said. I was having trouble processing this new information. There were two different Nathans. All this time, Nathan had actually been straight? “You and Nathan are not together?”

“I’m not seeing anyone, Nathan or otherwise. I’m a mostly single man.”

“Mostly single?”

“Well, yeah, I kind of happen to be into this one guy but he’s a complete idiot, so I really don’t know if that’s ever going to work out.” Roland rolled his eyes mockingly. There was a small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

I found myself unable to stop from smiling back at him. He had a way of pulling me out of dark places that no one else had ever managed to pull off, including Alyssa. Although she tried very hard and there was generally a fair amount of alcohol involved. “You really are not seeing anyone? Nathan is really straight?”

“Do you want me to call him in here and ask him if we are dating? He would probably be repulsed by that very idea, just so you know.”

“How could anyone be repulsed by that idea? Even straight men know when another man is gorgeous, you know.”

Roland had been pacing back and forth near the coffee station and stopped dead in his tracks at that. He stared at me, raising his eyebrows. I blushed under the intensity of his gaze, shrugging my shoulders gently.

Suddenly there was no need for words. Roland came over to me and pressed his lips to mine before I had the chance to fully comprehend what was happening. I had been about to push him away from me, out of reflex, but I stopped myself. I dropped my arms and gave into the feeling of his lips against mine. I closed my eyes as we kissed. Roland’s hands were cupping my cheeks, holding me close to him. He tasted minty, as if he had just recently brushed his teeth.

I don’t know how long we were kissing. All I know is that by the time Roland broke away from my mouth, I was breathless and I wanted more. My entire body felt like it was on fire with desire. I pulled him back to me but he shook his head.

“Not here,” he murmured. He reached out for me, a fingertip gently stroking my cheek. “Come home with me tonight?”

“Okay,” I whispered.