Chapter 8

Neither of us mention what happened the night before. Gavin's alarm goes off in the morning and I get up to start the coffee. We each have our first cups in silence then head down to the gym for a workout. I keep my towel around my waist as much as possible and pointedly avoid looking in Gavin's direction. He leaves for the office straight from the gym and I go back upstairs to figure out what to do with the empty hours that stretch out before me.

I jerked off in the bathroom after Gavin's little freakout. I have a feeling he jerked off in the bedroom. I don't know what that means.

We've never done anything like this before. Not when we were kids and first figuring out that dicks could do more than pee. Not when we were in high school, pumped full of raging hormones. I've never looked at Gavin as anything more than a friend.

I mean, yeah, he's my best friend, the person I want to talk to when shit goes down, the first person I want to share good news with. He's always there for me and I would do absolutely anything for him. He knows me better than anyone else on earth and I can finish every single one of his sentences. But we're. Just. Friends.

Despite the inhospitable New York weather, I venture out of the apartment and wander the streets with no particular destination in mind. Somehow I end up all the way down in the Financial District where Gavin's office is. I don't know why I came here. He won't be able to step away from work. I don't even know which building he's in. But I'm drawn to him, like there's a tether between us that gets uncomfortably tight when we're too far apart. It's why I came to New York in the first place. I needed to be near him.

I find an empty bench in Battery Park. The wind is brutal as it whips off the water at the tip of the island. I turn my face into it, letting it leech away the warmth of my body until my ears and nose hurt from the cold.

It was supposed to be simple. Get a job I like and that I'm good at. Find a nice girl and get married. Buy a house and have kids. Everyone I know has followed that same blueprint for generations and it works. It even worked for me—until it didn't.

I was good at my job, but I didn't like it. Lucy's a nice girl, but I felt like I was drowning in the marriage. We bought a house and we were trying for kids, but you couldn't imagine my relief when she got her period each month.

Now I'm divorced before the age of thirty—no job, no girl, no house, no kids. I should be devastated and yet, I'm not. At least, not nearly as much as I should be. I feel like I've been stumbling around inside a fun house for the past five years and I've finally found the exit. But where do I go now that I'm not single-mindedly focused on escape?

"Beau?"

My eyes snap open to find Gavin standing there, bundled up in his winter coat, a bewildered expression on his face. My heart leaps in my chest and everything inside me lurches in his direction.

"What are you doing here?"

He scoffs. "I work here. What are you doing here?"

"I thought you didn't take lunch breaks."

He sighs and sits down next to me. There's an inch of space between us that I immediately loathe with my whole being. There shouldn't be any space between us.

"I don't take lunch breaks. But I needed some air."

I know the feeling. Perhaps too well.

"About last night—" I cut myself off when Gavin stiffens and his expression goes stony.

"You don't have to worry about last night," he says, standing to his feet. "It was just… an accident. It didn't mean anything. It won't happen again."

I stand too, not liking how he's turned away from me, how his gaze darts around to avoid looking at me. "Gavin, I don't think?—"

"No, really, Beau, it's fine, really. Have you eaten yet?" He starts toward the edge of the park. "There's a food truck with good Korean burritos."

I guess we're not talking about it then, and I have to admit that a part of me is relieved. Maybe last night was nothing more than an accident. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. I've got enough shit to deal with in my head, anyway, I don't need a crisis of sexuality to deal with too.