Just a Bit Unhealthy (Straight Guys 3)

He opened the door and wasn’t surprised to see Gabriel.

“Why didn’t you wait for me? I told you I’d come after the training.” Gabriel sniffed and narrowed his eyes. “Were you drinking?”

“Yes,” Jared said.

Concern flashed through Gabriel’s face. “Why?” he asked, pushing past Jared into the house. “Something wrong?”

Jared laughed, shutting the door and leaning against it. It was a horrible sound, but he couldn’t stop. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed—at himself more than anything else. Yes, something was wrong: his life.

A fool. A lovesick fool.

“Jay?” Gabriel said, his voice unsure.

“I think congratulations are in order.”

“Congratulations?”

“Yes,” Jared said, meeting Gabriel’s eyes. “On impending fatherhood.”

Gabriel’s face lost all color. He opened his mouth but closed it without making a sound.

“Why?” Jared said, asking the question that had been bothering him for hours. “Why didn’t tell you tell me? I thought—I thought I’d be the first person you’d tell something that important.”

Gabriel’s throat convulsed as he swallowed. He just looked at Jared and didn’t say a word.

“How far along is she?”

Gabriel dropped his gaze. “Over five months.”

“Five months,” Jared repeated. “And all this time, you’ve been…Why?”

Gabriel chewed on his lip, his eyes still downcast.

Jared studied him.

And then he sucked a breath in.

It couldn’t be. Gabriel couldn’t know. He couldn’t.

“Tell me.” He was surprised by the calmness of his own voice. “Now.”

Gabriel looked anywhere but at him. “I…I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to make everything weird.”

“Weird?”

Gabriel ran his tongue over his lip. “I know about…your thing for me.”

Jared’s stomach turned into itself, creating a strange emptiness.

“My thing for you,” he said flatly. How? “How?”

Green eyes met his. “I know you.”

Three simple words, but they felt like a stab in the heart.

Gabriel gave him a tight smile. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? You look at me like—like…” Gabriel blushed, looking uncomfortable. “You’re pretty obvious.”

A hoarse sound left Jared’s throat. He didn’t know whether to laugh or go hide somewhere. All this time he’d thought he was being subtle, but apparently Gabriel had known all along.

Jared walked back to the couch, picked up his bottle and took a long gulp.

“Jay—”

“I’m returning to the States,” Jared said.

“What?”

Jared took another sip of vodka.

Gabriel grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. “You can’t be serious! It doesn’t matter. You have nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t care that you—that you have a thing for me—”

“Shut up,” Jared ground out. “Shut up.”

A look of uncertainty crossed Gabriel’s features. “Nothing has to change. I really don’t care—”

“I do,” Jared snapped. “I don’t have a ‘thing’ for you. I love you.”

Silence.

The expression on Gabriel’s face was strange: something between unease, bewilderment and…something else. “Jared—”

“Don’t,” Jared said. “I’ve made the decision. As soon as they find a replacement for me, I’ll leave.”

Gabriel grabbed his shirt. “You won’t! I forbid it.”

Jared smiled. “You can’t forbid me anything, Gabriel,” he said quietly, trying to unclench Gabriel’s fingers from his shirt. “We’re separate entities. You have your life. I have my own.”

Gabriel clenched Jared’s shirt tighter, his green eyes wide. “No.”

“Yes,” Jared said, somehow managing to keep his voice firm. “It’s for the best, really.”

Gabriel glared. “Best for whom?” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Why do you have to do it? Everything is fine! We’re fine!”

Jared looked at Gabriel’s panic-stricken face and had to stop himself from touching him. “No, we aren’t. This—this is never going to work. And you know it, or you wouldn’t be hiding Claire’s pregnancy from me. That was stupid, by the way. For how long were you hoping to do it? Sooner or later, I would have found out, anyway. Then what?”

Gabriel’s jaw worked. “I know. I didn’t mean to. I was going to tell you, but I couldn’t.” Gabriel looked down at his hand still clenching Jared’s shirt. “When Claire told me she was pregnant, I panicked a little. I mean, of course I’m happy about the baby, but—but I wasn’t ready. I thought she was on the pill. We’d agreed to wait.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Jared said flatly. “You’re going to have a family. It’s my cue to leave.”

“No.” Gabriel hugged him suddenly, something very desperate and painful about it. “Jay, don’t do this. Please. I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can,” Jared said.“It’s time to walk on your own. You already did it once. You can do it again. This…our relationship…it’s not healthy for you.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” Gabriel squeezed his arms tighter around him. “This is what I need. You.”

Jared fought the instinctive reaction of his body. Gabriel didn’t mean it that way. He never meant it that way. “It’s not enough for me. I thought it was—thought I could do it—but I was wrong. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

Gabriel’s body went rigid.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said. “This is it.” He kissed Gabriel on the temple, but Gabriel pushed him away, his jaw clenched tight, anger and something like betrayal in his eyes.