“Ronan…” His next words tumbled out in a rush. “You can’t come to Harrisburg with me.”
What? “But that was our plan, to spend the summer together, no matter where you got a position.”
“I know...” He sounded like what he had to say next would be torture.
No. Whatever it was had to be bad. I braced.
“Ronan...”
No.
“There’s more.”
More? He was leaving me, what more bad news could there be?
“My parents came to Pittsburgh early to surprise me.”
Shit. His parents were expected to arrive tomorrow to attend his graduation, not today. He had planned on sitting them down and telling them about us. About him being gay, too. Finally laying everything out on the table since he was graduating and moving on to the next chapter in his life.
With me.
We had even gone over several times what he would say and how he would say it. He even practiced because he’d been nervous.
I’d been crawling out of my skin because he wasn’t sure they’d be accepting. Of him being gay or of me being in his life.
My guess was, if he wasn’t sure, then they probably wouldn’t be.
I wasn’t liking where this was going. Not one bit.
Especially when he had to take a huge inhale to tell me what spilled from him next. “When I got out of my meeting at KDKA, they were already waiting for me outside. They wanted to take me to lunch. I figured I’d just tell them today what I had planned on telling them tomorrow, but...”
“But?” I echoed. My own voice sounding like I was standing at the bottom of a deep well. I swore I was going to throw up. My stomach was cramping and my head was spinning. I just needed him to get it all out. And soon.
“On the way to the restaurant they told me they had a surprise for me.”
I wasn’t liking this at all.
“It wasn’t a surprise, Roe. It was an ambush.”
“What do you mean, an ambush?”
“When we got there, Dahlia and her parents were already at the table waiting.”
What?
“That was the surprise.”
“Okay... So you ate with—”
He shook his head and, “Dahlia’s pregnant. We’re getting married,” tumbled out.
I blinked, not understanding.
Then those words hit me like a ton of bricks.
No. No. No.
Those were two things I never wanted to hear. Never expected to hear.
My throat began to close. My eyes started to burn. My heart stopped beating.
What he said couldn’t be possible. They had broken up two years ago. We’d been together ever since.
Unless…
They had never broken up and Tate had lied to me?
Or Tate had lied to Dahlia?
Or he lied to both of us?
No. Dahlia confronted me the same day he broke up with her, so I know he went through with it. Tate and I even talked about it afterward and he told me everything.
He told me the details of that whole conversation with her.
So…
None of this made any sense. Even worse, he wasn’t explaining any of it.
Why the hell was he so damn quiet?
Maybe he was just pranking me. “This is a joke, right? You’re messing with me.” When he still didn’t say anything, I stared at him, willing him to start laughing. “Tate, you’re messing with me, right? Tell me this is all a sick joke.”
His Adam’s apple worked its way up his throat, then dropped like a rock. “I wish it was.”
I pinched the skin on my arm because this had to be a nightmare. I was going to wake up and everything would be the way it was supposed to be. Not what was currently happening.
“I don’t understand. How could this happen? You broke up with her. That’s what you told me. You broke up with her, Tate!”
“I… I did.”
“Then how the hell did this happen? And in the last few months?” None of this was making any sense. “We’ve been together for the last two years. I thought we were only fucking each other. You lied to me.”
“I didn’t. We were. It was a mistake—”
“I just can’t wrap my head around what you’re saying. Or why you would even sleep with Dahlia again. I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you, Roe. More than anything.” He blew out a breath. “What happened had nothing to do with love.”
“Apparently,” I ground out. I slapped a hand to my forehead and spun on my heels, taking long strides to put much-needed space between us. When I got to the end of our living room, I spun back around to face him. The dread I originally swallowed down now rushed back up as rage. “I knew it! I knew if you could do it to Dahlia, you could just as easily do it to me.”
His brow furrowed. “Do what?”
“Cheat!”
“It wasn’t like that, Roe. I didn’t… It wasn’t… She asked me… She was trying to… Fuck!” he screamed. “Fuck, Roe. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t even want it. I was… confused and it just happened.”