Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

JAREK

”Stay calm. Nothing’s changed. You haven’t seen each other in fifteen months. The only difference is the paperwork.” My pep talk wasn’t exactly working. I’d deluded myself into thinking divorcing Gio would be easy. That it would be simple.

That I wouldn’t feel anything because it was a long time coming and we’d been split for a damn long while, so what did it matter? No one warned me I would feel like a big, fat failure walking out of the courthouse, officially single, with the document I needed to reclaim my last name.

It didn’t matter that Gio had only agreed to marry me because he wanted a wedding. Or that he’d been cheating on me for the last three years of our marriage, usually in our bed when I was working late.

It didn’t matter that a month before I filed, he’d sent a guy to our house to seduce me in hopes I’d give in to his request to re-open our marriage and alleviate his guilt for all the affairs.That plan backfired spectacularly, and it had been the catalyst for him moving out and me realizing it was over for good.

Gio and I had never wanted the same things.

He wanted the safety, security, and tax break of a marriage. I wanted someone to love who loved me back and wanted to spend the rest of their life with me. I was old—well, not old , but older. My midlife crisis was wanting a picket fence and a cat. His was fucking the attendant on his boss’s yacht and promising to buy him a Ferrari on their Roman getaway.

He didn’t buy the Ferrari, of course. Instead, he spent the money on a retainer and served me with divorce papers after securing a little flat in Manhattan. He’d put a whole country between us—that was how badly he wanted this to be over.

So now I had the West Coast to myself, and I was utterly alone.

I was grateful to be done with him but crushed that it happened the way it did. It was more than feeling like a failure. I felt unworthy. A few of my friends had laughed at me, said marriage was made for the straights, but as much as I’d been out as gay for as long as I could remember—out and proud in the early nineties, fresh off the heels of the AIDS crisis—I’d always wanted the life Gio had promised me.

And then he’d taken it away and hadn’t even bothered to show his face when the judge signed the papers. Twenty years together, and suddenly, it was done. Just like that.Like we’d never been married at all.

My throat felt tight. I stared across the parking garage at the building entrance and sighed. I was tired. I wanted…something, I just didn’t know what. A heavy lump in my chest made me feel like one wrong breath would make me crack and fall apart. One wrong word, one wrong movement, and it would all be over.

I pulled my rearview mirror down and stared at my dark circles. God, I needed some eye cream. “Get your shit together, Soroka. You have a mortgage to pay.”

A smaller mortgage than before, yes, but a mortgage all the same.Not to mention all the renovation bills for the new place. I’d sold our house and bought a shitty little fixer-upper on Great Highway, a block from La Playa. It was an old attached foreclosure that had been sitting abandoned for years.The junk company I’d hired had just finished gutting the place, and now my brother’s company was getting ready to make the place like new again.

It was the start of my new life.Right?I mean, it had to be.Otherwise, what was the point of burning it all to the ground?

Leaving the divorce papers on the seat, I climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut. Glancing down, I noticed a very visible scuff on my shoe and, just above that, a stain on the shin of my trousers.

Jesus, I was a mess .But I had no time to worry about it.I needed to get back to my desk.At the very least, work might be able to distract me from the hurricane of frustration and sadness swirling in my chest.

My short, thick heels clicked loudly on the concrete as I made my way inside, staring at the title on the door: Hemmings and Browne Finance . The door was halfway open from the blowing A/C, so I didn’t need to swipe in, but as I passed by the front desk and tapped my badge against the black box that would unlock the elevators, it turned red.

“Uh.” I turned to face the guy at the desk. He looked young—like a USFCA student intern—and he was giving me an odd look. “Can you swipe me in?”

He swallowed thickly as he stared at his computer. “Sorry, Mr. Conti?—”

“It’s Soroka now,” I corrected swiftly. I couldn’t stand to hear Gio’s last name attached to me anymore, even if I hadn’t been down to the social security office to change it yet.

“Sorry, Mr. Soroka,” he said with a frown, glancing at the computer like he was double-checking whether or not he missed something. “Can you hang on a moment? Someone’s coming down.”

Part of me wanted to argue with him to just let me up. Another part of me didn’t care. The idea of sitting at my desk and pretending everything was hunky-dory after what I’d been through that morning made me feel like I was trying to swallow a boulder.

I should have just taken the damn day off. I could have called Ivy and had her meet me at the Wharf. We could eat bread bowls of clam chowder and watch street performers. I think the old sports shop was still there too, the place I’d gotten my first and only basketball poster.

Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen. My dad had been thrilled. He’d thought I was getting into sports. He had no idea how many hours I’d spent under my sheets rubbing myself raw to those biceps. I never did tell him.

Okay, yeah, this was getting weird. Why was I thinking about my teenage fantasies right now? Maybe I needed to get laid. I was divorced now, after all. I’d been emotionally freed from Gio fifteen months ago, and one hour ago, I’d been freed by the law.

“Mr. Conti?”

I winced and turned, expecting to see one of the polo shirts from IT. Instead, it was two men from security. My face turned hot. I knew what this meant. I’d been working here far too long not to. Company policy when a person got fired was to have them escorted out.

“What did I do?” The words tumbled from my lips, trembling softly. “What did I do?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Conti,” the taller one said. “Please come quietly.”

I opened my mouth and a laugh escaped. It was high, tight, halfway to hysterical. He set a hand on my arm, and I jolted, pulling away from him. “Please don’t touch me.”

“I don’t have a choice.” He grabbed me again, and I felt something rising in me. Panic. Shock. Rage?

God, I was about to lose it.

“Jarek!”

My head whipped to the side, and I saw Tanya, my boss, hurrying toward me. Her heels clicked loudly on the tiles and she looked mortified. “What did I do?” I repeated.

She stared at the two men. “Let me take him.”

“Sorry, Ms. Browne, but we can’t.” His grip on me tightened, and suddenly, the world went blurry.

Oh fuck, were those tears ? I could not cry in front of these people. I could not lose it in front of these total strangers.

Tanya looked devastated. “Take my hand,” she whispered.

I did, almost like I didn’t have a choice. Her fingers were like ice, which oddly kept me grounded. She walked next to me, keeping close enough that I almost forgot I was being escorted out. The security officers let go the moment the door to the parking garage opened.

Why did it feel like I was just here? Oh, right, because I was. “There’s my car,” I said foolishly.

“I know.” Tanya didn’t let me go, even as the officer did. “I have Scott gathering your stuff from your desk, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong, Jarek. They told us about cuts today. They didn’t want us to warn any of you.”

I laughed, though it sounded suspiciously like a sob. I swiped at my face and was horrified to find my hands were shaking. “Listen, I’m fine, okay? I’ve got this. I’m just gonna go.” I pulled out my keys, and she put her hand on my wrist.

“You have to ah…to stay. Until they bring your things down. I’m so sorry, Jare.”

This was torture.I’d just been fired.I’d been escorted out of the place I’d worked for ten years.And now I wasn’t allowed to save my pride and just leave?It wasn’t like there was anything in my desk I even wanted.

I clicked the button on my key fob and slid into the driver’s seat. I looked to the right and saw the divorce papers on my seat, and another laugh scraped up my throat. Oh my god, I was divorced and now jobless? Did it get more pathetic than that?

I would have given anything not to be alone in that moment. I could call my best friend, but I didn’t want to pull Ivy from her job. Maybe my brother? Andrei was currently at my townhouse taking measurements for the kitchen renovations, and he would probably drop everything to be here.

But I wouldn’t do that to him either. Hell, I hadn’t even told him my divorce hearing was today because I didn’t want to put that burden on his shoulders. I wanted to prove I could handle this myself.

Something he probably would have punched me for, but he’d obviously find out about this later, so the decision was made. I would do this alone.

“I’m staying until I know you’re safe to drive,” Tanya said firmly, leaning against the open door. Right, I wasn’t actually alone. My boss—my former boss—had a front-row seat to my breakdown.

I probably looked like a hot mess. Hell, I was a hot mess. I was a middle-aged man heading toward fifty who now had no job, no husband, and no real house to live in until my townhouse renovations were finished. I was in a rental, but that was a far cry from being a home.

I laughed again, then sniffed loudly. “Fuck. This is not my day.”

Tanya sighed quietly. “Being fired isn’t fun, but?—”

My voice wobbled as I spoke my next words, “I just got back from divorce court.”

Her jaw snapped together with an audible click, then she cleared her throat. “You and Gio…?”

I hadn’t said anything to anyone at work because, frankly, it wasn’t their business. I liked Tanya, but she wasn’t a friend. Not really. She was a colleague. I worked in a sea of corporate assholes who were often quietly racist and homophobic in calls with me because I seemed straight enough, and I was rich enough that they assumed I was a bigoted safe space.

And half the time, when I attempted to explain I was not the right man for that kind of shit, they assumed I was joking. It was rarely worth the fight, but a small part of me wished I’d at least gotten a last day. I could have gone in there as No Fucks Jarek and told several people exactly what I thought of them.

Which was probably why they had their escorting-out policy.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked, cutting into my swirling thoughts.

I shrugged and sat back. My eyes were hot, and I was pretty sure the next words I said would make me cry. But fuck it. Who cared? It wasn’t like I had a reputation to maintain anymore. “It wasn’t worth it to talk about my drama.”

“Yeah, but if I’d known?—”

“What? You could have held them off for a few weeks?” I scoffed and swiped at a few stray tear tracks. My throat felt thick and hot, and I swallowed heavily. “I have a severance package. A good one.”

“You do,” she confirmed.

“I can take a little time off and wallow. I can, I don’t know, hit up that cute little bar near the pier—the one with the rainbow bear carving—and meet a hot, young twink.”

“Sounds nice,” she said. I had no idea if she meant it. I had no idea if she actually cared. She was here, which was something, but I had a feeling she was more concerned about company liability if she left a man in my state.

I heard footsteps off in the distance and knew it was Scott. Fuck, I did not want to see her assistant. He was such a smug little weasel. I can’t believe I was fired and he was still here.

“Hang tight. Let me grab your stuff.”

I could have kissed her. “Thanks.” I swallowed again, the lump in my throat even thicker as I watched her turn the corner. She was back a few moments later holding a file box, and I wondered where the hell Scott had gotten that because we didn’t use paper files.

“This should be everything. Want me to throw it in the back?”

“Go for it.” My voice cracked and she looked at me before opening the door and setting it down.

Part of me wished she had thrown it. I wanted to throw it. I wanted to smash everything in there. Was there anything worth keeping? A few photos of Gio I wanted to burn in an effigy—though I did like the frames—a few books that were easily replaceable, my laptop that I kept at work because that was the only thing I used it for.

“Jarek—”

“I’m gonna go,” I said.

She held the door when I tried to close it. “I’m not sure you should.”

I managed to get her hand off the edge of the door, and then I slammed it, hitting the locks before turning the car on and rolling the window down. I leaned out toward her. “I’m fine.”

She raised a perfectly sculpted brow at me. “You’re fine?”

“Okay, I’m not fine, but I’m holding it together and will until I get home. Then I’m going to get really fucking drunk, fall apart for a while, and then get a job so much better than this one, I’ll forget you even existed.”

She smiled softly. “I think that’s a good plan. But before you forget me, make sure you use me for a reference.”

I wouldn’t. Fuck this place. Fuck everything about this part of my life. I wanted to burn it down. I was so goddamn done. But for her sake—and how kind she’d been—I just smiled and nodded.

That would have to be enough.

“Purple or blue polish?”

“Is that all we have?”

I rummaged through the little plastic bin of supplies Ivy had brought over, but nestled in her sea of pedicure supplies were only four bottles of polish and all of them were either purple or blue. “Looks like.”

“Blame my bi phase,” she said.

I was pretty sure she was missing a color on that flag, but what did I know? I was definitely not hip enough to know what the hell I was talking about. I pulled her foot onto my lap and squinted with one eye. I was buzzed, not drunk, but my eyes always crossed from the first sip of wine.

“I’ll take purple, babes.” She settled against the cushions with her arms behind her head and looked down before bursting into laughter. “Look at my tits!”

“You have lovely tits, Ivy.” I kept my gaze on where I was trying to position her toes so I didn’t smudge the crap out of them.

“Jarek! You’re not even looking.”

“Tits aren’t my thing,” I told her, but I glanced at her for a quick second anyway. “But yours are lovely.”

She hummed happily. “I know.” She gripped them and shook her arms. “I always kind of thought that getting on HRT at my age, I’d miss out on this kind of stuff without breast implants. I mean, when you’ve been pumped full of testosterone for twenty-six years, you know?”

I looked up at her, and she smiled at me. “I get it. I mean, I don’t get it, but I get it.”

“You’re drunk.”

“A little. I’ve had a bad fucking week. Sue me.”

She pulled her foot off my lap just before I was about to put on the first swipe of polish and took the bottle, capping it and setting it on the table. “Have you spoken to your brother?”

I sighed. “Briefly. I told him about the court thing.”

“Let me guess…he was pissed?”

“Ten points to you. He tried to come over, but I couldn’t deal with his brand of comfort right now. He would have taken away my wine and made me talk about my feelings.”

“The horror,” she said sarcastically and sat up straight. The space between us disappeared, and she cupped my face between her hands. “I love you so much. You should talk about your feelings, but you should definitely also have wine.”

My chest ached. I’d known Ivy for years. Back when she was still using her deadname and working weekend drag shows while telling everyone it was just a part-time thing for fun. I was there for late-night breakdowns and, eventually, the quiet confession that it wasn’t just the clothes. It wasn’t the performances. It was who she was.

Nothing had changed between us and never would.She would always be my best friend.A platonic soulmate I couldn’t live without.

I supposed it was only fair that she let me cry in her lap now that my world was turning upside down. I closed my eyes as her thumbs brushed over my cheeks. “I feel like I did something really bad and now karma is kicking the shit out of me.”

“Or you did nothing out of the ordinary and we live in a universe built around chaos and cruelty.”

I looked at her. “Let me live in the delusion that I did something wrong because it means, at some point, I can either undo it or do something to fix it.”

She laughed softly and kissed my cheeks one after the other. “How about I offer you a job instead?”

She’d been trying to get me to come work for her for years. She ran an organization that worked with trans youth who’d been kicked out and were living on the streets. It focused on trans healthcare, vocational training, and job and housing placement.

It was a good idea, but I wasn’t sure I was entirely qualified.

“You really want some washed-up corporate reject on your payroll? I mean, I’m a finance manager.”

She sighed. “If you keep talking about my best friend like that, I’m going to have to kick your ass, and I won’t even break a nail when I do it.”

I laughed, which felt strange because it was so genuine, but it also felt very good. “What’s the job?”

“Finance manager. Sort of.” She bit her lip, then said, “I’m kind of winging it here, but we need funding for the kids, and you’re good with money.”

She was right. I had always been good with money. And I could easily figure out my role once I got my foot in the door. That wasn’t the problem. “The pay sucks, doesn’t it?”

“For now, it does, but things are starting to pick up, and our funding has been increasing every year, and with your help, it could be even better. It’ll be enough to pay your bills and let you do a few shopping sprees a year if that helps.”

The truth was, so long as it didn’t leave me broke, I’d be happy. I had my severance and enough savings to float me for at least five years. My family and I had never been close.Their love language had been to teach me how to balance a bank account and cook without burning my kitchen down before setting me free at the ripe age of eighteen and three months.

But the best lesson I learned from my dad was how to put money away.

Maybe I wouldn’t be taking any more trips to Rio, and I certainly wasn’t going to buy a yacht, but fuck that life. That was Gio’s dream, not mine. I just wanted to be happy, and I was pretty sure that being rich wasn’t my path to that goal.

“I know that look. Is that a yes?”

I sighed, but eventually, I nodded as my gaze caught the pile of papers on my coffee table.My divorce decree and the severance package information that had been in the box of shit from my desk. They were facedown and had a coffee stain on the back sheet from Ivy’s attempt at making me feel better with a hot drink.

“But I need at least a week, okay? To wallow.”

“And maybe meet someone?” she offered.

I grimaced. “There’s not a chance in hell I can date while in this condition. What good would I be to anyone?”

“First of all, you’re amazing even when you’re at your worst. Gio is a dipshit, and he’s eventually going to come crying to you because he’s not getting any younger, and that man doesn’t make enough to keep a supply of hot, young sugar babies.And we both know he’s too damn old and obnoxious to be one. Second of all, you don’t need to date right now. You just need a gorgeous human who isn’t your best friend that wants to play with your dick.A couple of orgasms will do you good, my love.”

She was right, and I’d been telling myself the same thing. The only problem was that I’d been planning to ignore that advice. But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing. A couple nights where I could feel important to someone without all the complicated strings of a relationship?

I just needed to meet the right someone who wouldn’t ask me for things I wasn’t ready or willing to give.

“Eddie’s?” It was the rainbow-painted bear bar right by her work, and plenty of our friends had met casual hookups there.

She smiled. “I’ll be your wingwoman. Let’s go on Thursday.”

A few days to wallow and look like shit with enough time left over to shower, shave, and make myself into something resembling a man who had his shit together. Not ideal, but not the worst place in life I’d ever been.

I sat back and made grabby hands. “Give me your foot. I’m going to get good at this if it kills me.”

“Whatever floats your boat, babe.”For the first time in quite a while, I felt…well, maybe not better, but like there was a light at the end of this tunnel.