An Unexpected Kind of Love by Hayden Stone
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning is cool and rainy. Dark clouds hang low, practically scraping their bellies on the woods that surround us. In our waterproofs after breakfast, we head out early to take advantage of the beauty outside of our door before we have to return to the reality of London later tonight. We walk a track along a small, meandering creek.
“Are you going to tell me about that 3:00 a.m. call?” Blake asks after we’ve been walking for about twenty minutes. We’ve already gone through a lightning round of bean trivia: a bean named after an organ—kidney bean. Bean with an identity crisis—fava, faba, or broad bean, the Janus of beans.
I cringe and give Blake a sidelong glance. He’s in a black waterproof, hood up, wearing a wry expression. My heart’s in my throat or quite possibly caught in my mouth at this point.
“I was hoping you’d missed that,” I confess. “There’s not much to say. It’s not important. It was a round of stupidity, to be honest.”
“It sounded…heated.”
“I guess, by the end.” I pause and sigh, shifting my pack on my shoulder. I’m in everything blue: blue waterproof, blue bag, even blue thermals underneath it all. And, to be honest, I feel lost this morning in a bit of a blue place. Trust Eli to provoke me, to stir things up that I thought had been put to rest last year. “It was just my ex. Being stupid.”
“Oh?” Blake’s expression is hard to read. Remote.
“He had a fight with his boyfriend. Eli apparently decided calling me was the appropriate response.” I roll my eyes. “The man made his own bed and he should go lie in it. I told him to go deal.”
“Makes sense.” We resume walking, side by side. He glances at me again. “This is the same ex you told me about?”
My only ex.
“Um. Yeah.”
“The one you got the heart tattoo for?”
Double cringe. I give him a sharp look back. “Well…yes. To be honest. I was young and dumb. Dumber than I am now. I’d like to think I’ve wised up with age.”
More silence as we walk, the drum of rain on our waterproofs giving a staccato rhythm to the day. Before us, verdant fields give way to mountains. Our destination is a pub before we loop back on the higher trail.
“You were on the phone a long time.”
“Longer than I meant to be,” I concede. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I mean, obviously Eli called, and I answered. I should have cut to the chase immediately and told him to go fuck off.”
He’s looking at me. Still unreadable. And I’m definitely starting to feel like I’m failing at something important. “What was the fight about?”
“Hard to say, really. Him and Ryan were squabbling about things, from getting his wheelchair into a restaurant and taxi, to…well, me,” I admit sheepishly.
Blake nods, digesting all of this as we walk.
“And that’s it, really. I hope he went home after that to sort things out with Ryan.”
I glance over at Blake. His profile, like the rest of him, is striking. His lips twist.
“Aubrey?”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell him about me? That I was the reason you were out of town.”
And now I realize what that expression is: hurt.
I don’t know how to process that. “I didn’t realize we were at that stage of telling people about…things.” I wave a hand helplessly.
Shit.
We stop again as the rain comes down harder, and of course we’re having this conversation in a downpour, because why wouldn’t we?
He frowns at me. “Aren’t I important to you?”
“Of course you’re important to me. I mean, I’m here, right? With you.”
“But you didn’t tell him. Eli. The man who broke your heart.”
“Well—I know you’re private or, I guess, selectively public about things—” And true, he’s put a couple of scenic shots onto his Instagram, but certainly not of us out here.
“It’s a cop-out,” he counters, giving me a hard stare. “You need to figure out who you’re protecting in this situation. Him? Me? Or yourself?”
I open my mouth to protest. And it stings. “All of the above, I guess? I don’t know. I mean, what are we doing, exactly? Maybe we should figure that out.”
“Maybe you’ve already figured it out if you’re fielding intense calls from your ex in the middle of the night and giving space to that?”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of my daft ex—”
“Why wouldn’t I be jealous, or hurt, or whatever you want to call it, when you get a call like that and don’t think it important enough to tell me about it yourself? Like I don’t matter in your world, like I don’t even register,” Blake retorts, arms folded tight across his chest. He’s glorious but angry, and it’s hard to know if that’s just rain on his face or tears too. I could probably say the same for myself.
“Of course you matter!” I stare at him, pushing wet hair out of my eyes. “Blake. God. Listen. I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re hot, sexy, funny. And you see a lot more in me than I see in myself. I didn’t tell you about the call because Eli was just jerking me around. Not because there’s anything there.”
“Are you sure?” he asks gently. “Because I think you’re holding on to the past pretty tight.”
I open my mouth again to protest, but once more, he’s nailing truths into my heart that are altogether too true. “I’m sorry. I should have told Eli about you. That we were away for the weekend.”
“I think…” says Blake slowly, dragging a scuffed toe of his boot through the grass. He looks hurt. “You need to figure out why you didn’t.”
“Who have you told about me?” I counter, stung. As if I’m someone to talk about. As if Eli deserves to know what’s going on in my life anymore.
Blake’s eyes widen. His mouth opens and shuts. “I haven’t…yet,” he confesses.
With a sigh, I nod. Of course he hasn’t told anyone about me. Why would he? “To be honest, I’m having a hard time believing any of this is real. That someone like you would want someone like…well, me. Ordinary Aubrey. And yes, you’re right, I have too many ghosts, and I didn’t handle that call well, and I should have set some fucking limits, but I didn’t. And I’m scared to actually like you too much, because you’re going to go back to America next week, and where does that leave me? Alone yet again, that’s what.”
It all tumbles out, messy and hot, words that won’t stop, my mouth going faster than my brain. And it’s visceral, this pain. Like I’m already grieving a future loss. Steeling against the inevitable loss when Blake comes back to his senses and he sees me for who I am—just some guy running a shop that’s basically doomed, and like Eli pointed out, a guy who’s totally broke to boot. Yay, me. Winning hearts and minds.
We stare at each other.
His mouth twitches again. “Most of this is on you. I told you—I really like you. You need to sort your shit out, Aubrey.”
So we stand in an awkward silence for an excruciatingly long time, a stalemate where we’re both hurt, where everything’s all wrong.
“What’re we even doing?” I manage eventually, shaking my head. “You’re going to have to go home—when, exactly?”
He straightens, holding my gaze. “Actually, I got a text from my agent that I need to go to L.A. for an audition.”
“L.A.?” A cold shock hits my stomach hard. “As in, Los Angeles?”
He nods once. “Yeah, L.A. Tonight.”
“What?” My face burns as we stare at each other. “Tonight? You—you weren’t going to tell me?”
Blake deflates. Runs a hand over his wet face. “I don’t know. I was trying to forget. Trying to extend things if I could, checking to see if I could go next week instead.” He hesitates. “But it could be a chance at a breakout role. My agent said I shouldn’t wait.”
“It’s what you’ve always wanted,” I say, flat.
Blake looks defeated. “I guess. I mean, of course. I’ve worked so hard for it. And my family…”
“Then you should go,” I manage. “And live your life like you’ve been doing before we met. We can…we can meet up when you’re back?”
“Yeah.”
We stand and stare at each other. How did something so brilliant fall apart like this so quickly? My stomach twists. If only I hadn’t answered that phone. If only I’d told Eli where I am, who I’m with. If only I had told Blake right away about the call.
Once back at the cottage, we pack up early.
“Would you take me to the station?” I ask softly in the car after we drop off our keys.
Blake looks at me, startled. “I can drive you back to London. I don’t mind.”
“I think it’s better we went our own ways, don’t you?” Listless, I gaze at him. “It’s a long drive. Spare us a whole lot of awkward. I can give you some money for the petrol. It only seems fair.”
How can it be two days ago that I felt light and free on the car ride up, like we were embarking together on some grand adventure, the two of us? Like maybe we were characters in the film he was shooting, like some fairy-tale rom-com where someone gets swept off their feet in a whirlwind romance? Except Blake’s not a prince and I’m not a princess. There’re not a lot of queer romances out there to model after, though I’ve always been one to forge my own way. But right now? Disaster.
“I don’t know,” Blake says unhappily. “I mean, I don’t care about the petrol. But you can ride back with me. I don’t mind.”
“Please,” I whisper, barely keeping it together. There are too many crashing thoughts in my skull, overwhelming me. The promise of Blake and the history of Eli that’s always getting in the way of everything. And the obligations of my life, one that I haven’t had a chance to live on my own terms, not really. “I think…I need to be alone for a while.”
And at last he takes me to the station and I can’t bear to kiss or hug him goodbye. It’s going to be a long ride setting out back south to London, left alone with tears and two images on his Instagram and nowhere near enough on my camera to prove the whole thing ever happened outside of my own imagination.