Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,3
him and Avery riding off into the sunset, because he’s not a fool. He’s a walking curse that brings pain and death every time he allows himself to love and care for something.
It’s been a fear of his for so long, and losing his daughter made it feel like every vague delusion his therapist had walked him through were at risk for coming true. Fleeing England, taking over his father’s American offices and losing himself in work has only done so much. It’s helped him bury his grief deeper, withdraw from people further. It’s helped him become this vague shape of a man, who fell for a person standing outside in the winter chill trying to raise money for a trip to Crete.
If only he was able to offer Avery more than the mess he is.
He wants to blame his disorder for it sometimes, but he can barely do that because Connor had spotted him and looked past all of the things that made him unapproachable and awkward and loved him—maybe for it, maybe in spite of it. He never did get the chance to ask him though, and by the time they were signing divorce papers, he just stopped caring why Connor stuck for nearly two decades.
What little progress he’d gained being married to Connor for all those years had been obliterated by Gabrielle’s death. What little feelings he’d taught himself to express openly without fear that they were going to cause some global disaster had been frozen in ice and buried in the tundra the day she took her last breath.
And with eight long years of living without either of them, he’s sort of settled into whatever man he knows he’s going to be for the rest of his life. Of course, he hasn’t offered more to Avery, and that alone comforts him as he sits at the table waiting to see if he’s going to show up for this date. The day Avery showed up to sign the contract, Alejandro made it very clear what he expected.
“Dates,” he’d said, and Avery’s eyes—wide and watching—narrowed a little. “You’ll get a text with a few hours to change any plans you might have. I will send a car or you’re free to drive…”
Avery had laughed, his head shaking. “I don’t have a car.”
“We can remedy that,” he’d said, and made a mental note to have someone take this man car shopping. After a beat, he cleared his throat. “All I require is that you show up, we converse, and then you go home.”
“Okay…”
“And I have four rules,” Alejandro went on. He was already tired of talking, but he was desperate to get this over with. “The first, you don’t dig into my past. Not online, not through friends. The second, you show up for every date, no matter what the circumstances are. The third, do not touch me. Ever. The fourth, you are not to see other people for the duration of our contract.” Simple, straightforward, and he’d expected Avery to balk at every single one.
But he didn’t.
Avery seemed confused, like he had a thousand questions, but he asked none of them. He simply signed his name on the dotted line that held all of his personal information, which would transfer control of his school expenses and every one of his bills, then he took the envelope of cash and didn’t offer to hug Alejandro or shake his hand before leaving the room.
Louis found him sometime after that, sitting in his office staring at the blank computer screen wondering what the hell he was doing. His brother does that sometimes though, and Alejandro thinks he’s trying to catch him mooning over old photos of his lost family. Louis thinks that Alejandro just needs to break—that something has to give and he’ll be able to conjure something like a real, human emotion.
Of course, Louis only ever watches from the outside in. He’s not a man who ever engages in long-term relationships, and he’s never had his heart broken. He can only see what life has done to Alejandro, and he wants to believe that something exists out there that will ease and eventually erase the pain of his loss.
Alejandro lets Louis think whatever he wants, because nothing’s going to change. Life is what it is, his choices are what they are. It’s not coping, of course. Signing a contract and shoving money at a man he has no intention of pulling closer isn’t going to make life easy. But it