“Like what?”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Like a lot of things.”
“Okay,” he said, shifting around until he was sitting up against the headboard. “Tell me what you wish he’d do differently.”
God, where would I even begin?
“Why are we talking about this?” I asked instead.
“Because you seem super frustrated by him, like he’s letting you down. I’m curious why you have such high expectations of him.”
I sat up too so I could flap my hands around in frustration. Apparently. “I don’t think it’s high expectation to want Gordon Banks not to be alone at the hospital right after a heart attack. I don’t think it’s high expectations for Chris to show up for an international fucking flight he promised to show up for. I don’t think it’s high expectation to follow through on promises to be there when a man says he’s going to be there for you. He’s a fucking promise-breaker is what he is.”
Jack’s eyes widened as I ranted.
“Woah. Okay. I can see why you’re upset.”
“Yeah,” I said, petering out.
“What’s the biggest promise he’s ever broken to you?” he asked gently.
“He…” I wondered why I felt compelled to tell Jack the truth. “He…” But would it be rude of me to talk about another love interest with the man I was currently naked in bed with?
Jack reached out and took my hand. “I’m a dead end, Teo. Hell, after we get back home, you may never even see me again. Chicago is a big place.”
I didn’t like the idea of never seeing him again, but at least his words confirmed what I already knew to be true. He didn’t have plans to ask me out when we returned to Chicago. Of course he didn’t. And that was fine. It wasn’t like I was looking for a boyfriend when all I’d ever wanted was Chris Banks.
“He promised me we’d be together,” I admitted in a small voice. I sounded pathetic. There was finally an appropriate way to use that word accurately in describing me.
Jack looked taken aback. “He’s gay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Bi maybe. He’s only ever really dated women, thank god.”
“What do you mean? He’s only ever dated women, but he promised to be with you?”
It sounded weird when he put it that way. “We’ve been each other’s everything for twenty years,” I explained. “In high school we finally kissed and it was…” I thought back to how perfect and magical it had felt. “It was like everything falling perfectly into place, you know?”
“So what happened?”
I pulled my knees up and rested my arms on them, not looking over at Jack. I didn’t want to see his reaction to my stupid story.
“He wanted to have sex, of course. What teenage boy doesn’t? I did too. Badly. But he was dating a girl named Demi Woodley, and I’d already felt like an ass for kissing the girl’s boyfriend. Even though I’d had him longer, so to speak.” I groaned. “And believe me when I tell you I’m well aware of how ridiculous this all sounds. But in my defense, it was actually high school.”
“So you asked him to break up with Demi first.”
“No! Well, I mean, kind of. I didn’t set out to make it an ultimatum, but I also wasn’t going to be the guy who breaks the poor girl’s heart. She loved him. They’d been together for like a year already.” I sighed. “So I didn’t ask him to dump her, but I said I wasn’t going to sleep with him while he was dating her.”
“And did they break up?”
I shook my head. “His parents adored Demi. They were good friends with Demi’s parents and had already built Demi and Chris up as some kind of power couple who was going to go off to college together, then get married and give them all perfect little babies.”
“Ouch. That’s a lot of expectations on a high schooler.”
“Tell me about it. He felt a ton of pressure. And I was around his parents plenty to see it firsthand, so I couldn’t exactly blame him. Plus, I think he really liked her. He’s… he’s kind of the type of person who wants to have his cake and eat it too.”
“Ah. I see.”
“But the real reason, at least the one he told me at the time, was his inability to come out to his family. He’s an only child, and he feels the expectations of the entire family on his shoulders, not to mention the family business.”
“Mm.”
I glanced over at Jack, who seemed to be making an attempt to be a good listener. It was clear from the tension around his lips he wasn’t all that thrilled with the story.
“But then…” I thought about what I’d learned from Gordon about Uncle Rod and Oliver Poole. “And so…” I swallowed. How could I admit this out loud to anyone without having to face the truth? “Never mind,” I finally said.