his feet, arms waving wildly through the air. “How do you know that won’t happen – look at you! He’s already beaten you to a pulp once. What’s to stop him from doing it again?!”
“I have two months now to make the money back. I have a full two months to—”
“No! I have two months now.” Kirk’s temperature was up. Rarely did Kirk get angry. But this one he felt was justified. “This is on me! If you fail, he keeps the vase and you keep your business. Congrats, good for you. If you fail though, I lose my job and my career! My life will be over, Lance. Do you realize that – did you even stop to think! Or did you only think about yourself.”
“Of course I thought of that.”
“And you still did it anyway!” Kirk was panting. He was glaring. If he had something in his hands, anything, it probably would have flown through the window. “You didn’t care how it might affect me. You only thought of yourself!”
“No!” Lance begged. “That’s not—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Kirk howled. “Not anymore! No more fucking lies, Lance. I’m done with them.” Even Kirk wasn’t sure what he was saying. Pure rage exploded from his lips, as if it had a mind of its own.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you... you were never meant to...” Lance spoke into his stomach.
“Yet here we are.”
There was a moment of silence after that, a few seconds to let what had just happened and its significance marinate through the room. Lance looked down at his feet, and Kirk just glared; heat literally seared off him.
He loved Lance, he truly did. But right now, that didn’t seem to matter. Right now, Lance was the last person Kirk wanted to see. Right now, he hated the man.
“I think you should go,” Kirk finally said.
“Go?” Lance blinked. “You want me to—”
“Leave,” Kirk said more forcibly. “Right now. Go.”
For a moment, Lance looked as if he were about to argue. And for a moment, Kirk wished that he had. But then he decided against it, kept his mouth shut and simply nodded his agreement. And then, without so much as another word, he skulked across the room and slipped out the front door, closing it gently behind him.
Kirk didn’t make to stop him. He didn’t pick up his phone and text Lance that he wanted him to come back. He didn’t even go to the door and look out the hall to see if he was gone. Rather, he collapsed in a heap on the hard-wooden floor. And there he stayed.
With his knees tucked up to his chest, Kirk rocked back and forth as he resisted the urge to break down and weep. But this only lasted a moment. Soon he wept openly and freely, letting the tears come. Why the fuck not?
Kirk cried long into the night. He was angry. He was upset. He was mad. But worst of all, he was in love. He still loved Lance with all his heart and more. But the fact that this man he cared for so deeply was able to hurt him like this... it seemed impossible. That was where the pain came from.
Never before had Kirk hurt so much.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lance spent the entire day staring at his phone. From the moment he woke, right on up to when he could just see the sun setting through the tiny window in his even smaller bathroom, he stared at that phone. He didn’t dare walk away from it, turn it off, or even step into a part of the house where he knew reception to be poor. He kept it on, open and within his eyesight at all times... just in case.
Not that it made any difference. The phone remained blank the entire day; not so much as a text message, let alone a phone call came through. Even Lance’s other friends and associates left the line blank, as if they had a sense of irony about them and figured today was a good day to leave him be.
Honestly, Lance was hard pressed to remember a time he had felt like such a big pile of crap. If ever! Worse than that, he deserved it.
What a sad turn of events. Truly, it was amazing to think that just one day ago, Lance had been confessing his love for Kirk – and having it returned in kind! Less than a day ago, in fact. Less than a day previously, Lance’s life