Chapter 6

 

Mason had a boyfriend. He was the exact person he claimed to hate. More than that…he was a liar and a hypocrite and a lot of other things I didn’t even want to put a name to right at that moment. Not that I was any better. I was in a place I shouldn’t be with a guy I shouldn’t be with, while I had a boyfriend at home. I’d said from the start nothing would happen with Mason. I loved Rufus, didn’t I? We’d been happy before Mason came along and stirred everything up, making me doubt myself and my relationship. What right did I have to be so angry and upset?

“Liam, what the fuck…?” Mason appeared in his bedroom hallway, still buttoning up his jeans.

I didn’t hang around long enough to hear the excuses he would come up with to placate his boyfriend. Glad that I hadn’t taken my jacket off when I got there, I pushed past Mason’s livid other half and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Mason thundered down the steps behind me, catching up with me as I fumbled to unlock the back door of the club. Tears burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall in front of Mason, the lying, cheating scumbag. They were tears born of anger, I told myself, not disappointment.

“Unlock the door. Let me out.”

“I will…but only if you calm down and listen to me. It’s not what you think, Eric.”

I laughed bitterly. “Aren’t you supposed to be saying that to your boyfriend?”

“Okay, I know that’s how it looks, but Liam isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Really? Does he know that?” I rattled the door handle in frustration. “Let me out, Mason. I want to go home.”

“I’ll take you,” Mason said. He reached around me and unlocked the door. I tried to rush past him, out into the open air, but he grabbed my arm, pinning me to the wall. “I need to go back upstairs and get my boots and my keys. Promise you’ll wait here for me.”

“I promise,” I muttered.

Mason gave me a long look as though he didn’t believe me and I rolled my eyes.

“Go! Hurry up before I change my mind.”

He turned and hurried back up the stairs to his apartment. As soon as he was out of sight, I slipped out of the door and ran. There was a bus just pulling into the stop across the road from the club and I got straight on it, not caring where it was going so long as it took me to a place far away from Mason.

Five minutes later, Mason’s big, silver bike roared by. I sank down in my seat, worried he might see me, but he didn’t seem to even notice the bus as he raced past. I wondered how the boyfriend felt about Mason leaving him behind to go chasing after me.

Two bus journeys and an hour later I got home to find Rufus sat, cross-legged, on the living room floor. The colours of whatever Xbox game he was playing flickered across his pretty face. A plastic bag lay on the floor beside him, bearing the name of the local Game store. That explained where my money had gone at least. I looked at him and felt nothing. No love. No affection. Neither like nor dislike – just nothing. I took a deep, shuddering breath. The time had come. I knew what I had to do.

“Did you bring food?” Rufus asked, without looking up from the screen. “I’m starving.”

“I think we should split up.”

At last, I got a reaction, although not until after he’d paused his game.

“Are you serious?” Rufus looked more surprised than upset. “You’re really dumping me just because I asked you to bring home something to eat?”

“No, it’s not because of that.” I walked across the room and perched on the edge of the sofa, clasping my hands in front of me so Rufus wouldn’t see them shaking. “It’s everything. We’re not happy together any more, Rufus. I don’t think we’ve been happy for ages, only we didn’t want to face up to it.”

“Is it the guy from the club?” Rufus said, shifting round on the floor to face me. “Fuck him if you want. Then we’ll be even for all the times I’ve cheated on you. We don’t have to break up over it though.”

All the times? Okay, that was one to file away for later, because there had only been twice that I actually knew about. When he put it like that, Rufus made it sound like there had been a tonne of times I hadn’t been aware of, just like Alex had suggested. Christ, was I really so blind? Had I ever really known the man I lived with?

“There’s no one else,” I said tiredly. “I’m sorry, Rufus. I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight and look for somewhere else to stay tomorrow.”

“Right.” Rufus got to his feet, angry now that he could see I was serious. “And how am I supposed to afford this place without you? What am I supposed to live on?”

“You managed before…”

“I had a job before!”

“Get another one.”

“I’ve tried. There’s nothing out there.”

“Then try harder!” I was on my feet too now as we yelled at each other. “Wear normal clothes for once. Stop dying your hair pink. Stop telling employers to go fuck themselves before you even get into the interview!”

“Oh, so all of a sudden you don’t like the way I look? Well, fuck you, Eric. If you don’t want me, fine! There’s plenty of guys out there who’d kill for the chance to be with me.”

“Good,” I fired back. “Go sucker one of them into paying your bills.”

I couldn’t stay, not even for one more night. Going into the bedroom, I grabbed a holdall from the top of the wardrobe and began stuffing it with clothes. I’d have to come back for my belongings later on – and before Rufus sold everything of value – but for now I would only take what I needed to see me through the next couple of days.

“I thought you loved me,” Rufus sobbed from the doorway.

“I do…I did…” I said, unmoved. I’d guessed he would cry next. Tears had always been his go-to reaction when he couldn’t get his own way. “But you don’t love me, Rufus.”

“Of course, I do.” He didn’t say the words, I noticed. Nor did he sound convinced, as though even he doubted the truth of what he was saying.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Had I said that already? I couldn’t remember. “It’s over, Rufus.”

I picked up the bag, grabbed my car keys from the hook by the door and walked out, unaware that, as bad as things seemed at that moment, they were about to get worse.