26. Alex

CHAPTER 26

ALEX

Dylan fell asleep shortly after I came inside of him, but sleep was the last thing on my mind. As much as it pained me to leave the warmth of his naked and decidedly non-argumentative body, I did it anyway. Pulling my pajama pants on, I closed the door quietly and shuffled barefoot down to the kitchen.

I’d been working on the same crossword for days, my brain not focused enough to understand the clues, let alone try to figure out the answers. I sat down at the table anyway, pen in hand, and the first clue I went to might as well have been a gunshot through my kitchen window.

One-sided romantic feelings. Ten letters.

“For fuck sake,” I muttered, shoving the crossword puzzle off the edge of the table and getting up for a drink.

Whiskey was the closest thing. Unfortunately, so was my cell phone. Forgotten on the counter beside the sink. Without thinking too much about it, I took both items back to the table. I poured a drink, swiped through my contacts, and pressed call before I could talk myself out of it.

“Good morning, Alex.” Beamer’s low baritone rumbled through the phone, vibrating the bones in my hand.

“Beamer.”

He hummed. “Been awhile since you used that name for me.”

“The other felt inappropriate,” I said, taking another swallow of whiskey. “All things considered.”

It was barely the afternoon, but Dylan had started to make a habit of sleeping through the late morning. It was my own fault, I knew. Getting him up before sunrise to balance an egg against the wall was one thing. Forcing him to confront his shortcomings by being unable to cook it properly, another. And spanking him until he was out of tears and strength… well, it was enough to send anyone back to bed before lunch.

“Probably so,” Beamer said.

I could hear the smile in his voice.

“I missed you at the farm. I’m sorry you had to leave early.”

I’d done everything I could to avoid him and Dalton when we’d all arrived at Ford’s place upstate, and Dylan’s hospital stay had only served to rush me out of there even sooner than I’d planned.

“I didn’t say goodbye on purpose,” I admitted, taking off my glasses so I could rub at the corners of my eyes.

“I assumed.”

“I’m sorry for that,” I said.

“It’s…it’s not okay, Alex, but it’s fine.”

I scoffed. “It can’t be both.”

“It can, and it is,” he pressed.

I imagined him sitting on a couch in a house I’d never seen, comfortable and barefoot, that fucking wedding ring on his finger. I hadn’t wanted to marry him. I didn’t want to marry anyone, but still the thought of it…

“How is…” he trailed off.

“Dylan,” I supplied, slumping back against my chair. “His name is Dylan, and he’s…getting better.”

“Was he hurt?”

“Yes, but not as badly as we thought.” Swallowing, I tipped my head back and stared at the recessed lights in my ceiling until all I saw was fireworks. “He’s better every day.”

“Is he there with you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad for that,” Beamer said gently. “You need that.”

“I—” I stopped myself, because for months my response would have been a correction. It was muscle memory at this point, but the words burned in my throat like a lie, and I glanced toward the stairs, worried somehow that Dylan might have heard them or that he could have known.

“You deserve that,” Beamer said.

I wanted to argue with him, but after the morning I’d just had, after the days and weeks I’d lived through since Beamer left, I’d finally started to believe it.

“He’s not experienced,” I said, chuckling under my breath. “Are we even allowed to talk like this?”

“That’s between you and him.” A short pause. “Dalton knows where my loyalties lie.”

I pressed my hand against my sternum, rubbing a soft circle over my heart even though the words didn’t hurt me as much as they would have half a year before.

“I feel out of my element with him sometimes,” I said.

“I can’t imagine you ever being out of your element.”

“You’ve been gone.” I snapped my mouth closed, clearing my throat to try and drown some of the aggression that had fallen out. Taking another drink of whiskey, I started over. “It’s…I…”

“It was hard on you,” he said sympathetically.

If I closed my eyes, I could feel the hot press of his body next to mine still, but my brain was quick to remind me I had a different body upstairs, a better body. Not in the physical sense, not meaning one of them was better than the other, though maybe…Maybe Dylan was a better match for me. But it wasn’t a fight between the two of them, and I’d long stopped weighing one against the other. It was more just the fact they each existed. Beamer had one piece of me, one part of my life, and Dylan…he had the rest of it.

The rest of me.

“I was fine,” I lied.

“That’s not what Ford said.”

“Fuck Ford.”

He gave another laugh, a full sound that once again vibrated through me. I put the phone on speaker and set it on the table. If I woke Dylan, that would be fine. I wasn’t trying to hide from him, and he’d already thrown his barbs about Beamer at me. There wasn’t anything more for him to say that he hadn’t already. But even if there were, I didn’t think he would.

Not anymore.

“I wasn’t fine,” I admitted, “but I am now.”

“Because of Dylan?”

“For Dylan,” I said simply.

Beamer stayed silent, and I worried my tongue across the front of my teeth, back and forth and back and forth, my hands nervously spinning my whiskey from one side of the table to the other.

“I’ve been trying, you know…” I laid my head down on the table and closed my eyes. “Trying to take back the parts of myself that I’d given you because he deserves something whole. I deserve to be whole.”

On the other end of the call, he breathed softly, steadily.

“I’m trying to find a place for him to exist here,” I said.

“Sounds like you already have.” Beamer exhaled. “Can I speak freely?”

“I think we’re past you asking me for permission to do anything.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t know it, not back when you and I got involved with each other, but I wasn’t whole then. I wasn’t myself. Not fully.”

“I’d disagree.”

“It’s not up for debate,” he said. “Dalton had stolen a piece of me long before you and I even fell into bed together. I think both of our lives, yours and mine, even his… it was just a whole lot of chasing when we knew the answers all along.”

“And what was your answer?” I asked, rolling my forehead onto the table and smashing my nose into the wood.

“For a moment, you.” Beamer paused, and I bit the inside of my cheek until it was ready to bleed. “But for always…him.”

“I’m happy for you,” I said, even though it sounded like a lie because of the tears in my voice.

“I know you are. And I want to be happy for you. Should I be? Can I be?”

I forced myself to sit up straight, wipe away the tears that I never had a chance of stopping. Beamer deserved an honest answer, and as he always had, he gave me the time to find it for him.

Through blurry and wet eyes, I looked toward the stairs, quietly counting how many steps it would take me to get to my bedroom. Counting how many breaths it would take me to get to Dylan, asleep and spent in my bed. I knew if I went up there and pulled back the sheets, spread his legs apart, I’d find my cum trickling out of his ass. Pride and heat flared up my spine at the thought of it, at how good I’d done. How well I’d taken care of him, but…I knew that wasn’t what Beamer meant with the question.

I closed my eyes and forced my brain to wipe all of that away.

Imagined a morning when I was alone in my house with my phone and my whiskey and my unfinished crossword, where my bed was empty and cold without me in it. Was I good enough, deserving enough, strong enough to truly be a better version of me than I’d been before taking Beamer into that bed?

It was hard, not impossible, but hard still to separate my opinion of myself on my own from my opinion of myself with Dylan. At first, he’d been a rebound, a quick fix. That was one of the reasons I’d been willing to play. I wanted to get Beamer and the things that reminded me of him out of my system. But what I’d learned was I reminded me of him. The things we did together were things I’d done with people before him, things I’d done recently with Dylan.

That didn’t have anything to do with them, so much as it had to do with me. Of course, anything I did with any partner ended up being mutually beneficial, but it was driven by my wants and my needs. I used to worry that was selfish, but maybe not as much anymore. Because if I was any different, if I was lesser, I wouldn’t be able to do the things I did. I wouldn’t have had the fortitude to let Beamer walk away, wouldn’t have been strong enough to fight my own brain when it came to Dylan.

I wanted Dylan more than I’d ever wanted Beamer, I realized, but Beamer had been convenient, he’d been understanding. Dylan always had been—and always would be—work. That didn’t scare me. If anything, it turned me on to watch him fight his own brain to break the cycles he was tired of repeating. So terrified of being beholden to his parents, he’d put his entire future in my hands before he even understood what he’d done.

“Yes,” I finally answered. “I think you can be.”

“And can you?” he asked. “Can you be happy for me?”

“I’ve never not been happy for you,” I promised, scrubbing a hand down my face. “I was hurt and I was jealous, but I’ve always been happy for you, Car. I’ve always wanted the best for you, even if it’s not me. Even before it was me.”

“Car,” he murmured. “That sounds better out of your mouth than Beamer.”

“I know you hate the nickname, but Carter…” I trailed off, swallowing thickly. “It wasn’t mine anymore.”

“Not in that way, no,” he said, “but I miss my friend, Alex. I want to be friends again, like we were before.”

“Is your husband okay with that?” I asked, a spear of jealousy lancing through me at the thought of what I would do if someone Dylan had fucked before wanted to be his friend.

“Like I said, he knows where my loyalties are.” He paused. “With him, and my friends. As they’ve always been.”

Another unwanted wave of tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, and I gave up trying to slow them down. Chin quivering, I screwed my eyes shut, nodding at the forgiveness I didn’t even realize I’d been waiting for.

“I’ve missed you,” I told one of my closest friends. “I’ve missed you so much.”

On the other end of the call, Beamer, Carter..Car…he sniffled, but I could hear the smile in it.

“I’m right here, Alex,” he assured me. “Right where I’ve always been and where I’ll always be.”

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, taking a quick swallow of whiskey and giving my face another wipe. My eyes were already feeling tender to the touch, and while I wouldn’t lie to Dylan about the conversation if it came up, I didn’t necessarily want to have to explain it to him either.

“You’re one of my closest friends, you know.”

“I know,” I whispered. “You’re one of mine too. You were like…the blueprint.”

“How so?” he asked.

“You were like… the promise of everything I wanted.”

He made a content noise that sounded like a soft hum through the phone. “And Dylan?”

“I think I’m in love with him,” I admitted out loud for the very first time. The words sounding foreign, but still so very right to say.

“I think you are too,” Car said gently. “And I’m so fucking happy for you.”