On a Roll by Beth Bolden (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

Sean didn’t even need Shaw’s promise to believe it. He already knew it, which is why it had been so dumb to omit this detail about his life. Why, after so much time had gone by without him telling them, he wasn’t sure how to remedy the situation.

He slid off the stool and picking up his drink and his twenty, walked towards the outside patio. Pushing open the door, he immediately spotted Tony and Lucas and Tate and Chase, all clustered around one of the smaller fire pits.

“Hey,” Tony said, when he glanced up and saw Sean approaching. “I don’t think Gabriel’s here. I didn’t see him after we closed up.”

It occurred to Sean that Gabriel wasn’t the only one who’d assumed there was more going on in their relationship than just getting naked. Maybe everyone else had seen what Gabe had. Maybe the only one blind here was Sean.

But he had to be sure, and how could he possibly be sure?

“I’m not . . . we’re not together,” Sean said awkwardly. He sat down next to Tony, hating that somehow he’d begun to feel like his friends were strangers, all because he hadn’t been as honest as he should have been. “I think he’s actually kind of mad at me right now, actually.”

“Why?” Tony asked.

He’d been so determined when he’d marched out here, after Shaw had given him the push he needed. But now, with Tony and Lucas and Tate and Chase looking on eagerly, his words dried up.

“I . . . I . . .”

Tate shot him a sympathetic look and then squeezed his boyfriend’s hand. “Chase and I have actually got plans, so we’d better take off.”

It was clear from Chase’s confused expression that they didn’t have plans, but Tate was giving him an out, in case he didn’t want to share his confession with quite so many people.

“We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Lucas said.

After Tate and Chase had disappeared out the side door, Tony leaned in. “So, why is Gabe mad at you?”

“I think a better question is why isn’t he mad at me,” Sean said wryly. “But before we get into all that, there’s something you should know first. I was married, before, when I lived in Portland. Milo died two years before I came here, and that’s actually one of the big reasons I moved to LA.”

Sean knew lots of people judged Tony. They thought of him as stupid and callous and good for a laugh but nothing else. But his expression went solemn and he reached over and squeezed Sean’s hand. “God, man, I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

“That must have been so hard,” Lucas said.

“It was,” Sean agreed. “But it’s better. So much better. Coming here, it was the best decision I ever made. I met you guys, I wasn’t so alone anymore, I found a new calling. It was great for me.”

“And you met Gabe,” Tony said.

Sean wanted to take back everything nice he’d ever thought about Tony. But, he reminded himself, this is why you came out here, so you could talk to him. To figure out how to fix this fucking mess.

“I did.” Sean took a deep breath. “I told him, at the beginning, that we should only hook up, because I knew what love felt like and I thought what I was feeling wasn’t romantic.”

“Ouch,” Lucas said. “No wonder he was all worked up about it.”

“Yeah.” Sean regretted so much of what he’d done, knowing now that Gabriel had had feelings for him this whole time.

“But you meant to be kind about it,” Tony said, reaching out and squeezing his hand again. “You were trying to do the right thing. Trying to make sure that his expectations didn’t exceed your own.”

“Yeah, well, I think they did, whether he meant them to or not, and then I made a total hash of it.”

“How?” Lucas wanted to know.

“It was just supposed to be a hookup, but I guess, looking back, it never really was. I mean, we did hook up, but we did lots of other stuff too. We hung out, and did things together and he slept over, and well, I can see why he thought things were changing. Why my feelings were changing.”

“Is it impossible to believe they might have been?” Tony asked. His tone was kind, but Sean still shied away from the thought. He couldn’t have been wrong. Not about this. Love was something he knew something about. He was familiar with the first flush of it, and the comforting everyday middle of it, and also the end of it, when it felt like your world was going to fall apart because you’d lost it.

Also, though he’d tried to avoid this thought during the entire thing with Gabriel, he couldn’t avoid it any longer. Falling for Gabe, for anyone else, felt like an intrinsic betrayal of everything Sean had felt for Milo.

It wasn’t like he actually believed that Milo wouldn’t want him to move on. He’d been twenty-five when Milo died. Nobody should spend the rest of their life alone, and Milo would’ve been the first person to say that.

But that rationalization was hard to accept now.

It had only been four years. Surely that wasn’t enough time to mourn someone he’d loved as much as he loved Milo.

“Not impossible,” Sean said. “But . . . difficult to accept.”

“I believe it.” Lucas’ voice was kind and warm, full of empathy. “It’d be a hard thing, to move on.” He glanced over at Tony, and Sean could see the love in his eyes that he was intimately familiar with. “I don’t think I could do what you did.”

There’d been a time when Sean hadn’t thought he could do it either. But in the end, he hadn’t had a choice.

“Like I said, some unexpectedly good things came out of it. I moved here. I started my food truck, which was something I’d always wanted to do, but I couldn’t, not until