Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79870 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
As much as I’d have loved to give in to my anger and hang all of the guilt on Jamie for betraying me at the first hint of opposition, I couldn’t do it. The truth is, I deserved what I got. For the bad things I’d done in my short twenty-four years of life, I deserved that and a whole lot worse. It was karma.
See, there’s a lot of heavy shit tied like an albatross around my neck, and while I’m plenty strong enough to drag it around for the rest of my life, it would be criminally selfish for me to expect someone else to do it. Yet that’s exactly what I did with Jamie. I tried to take an innocent boy who barely weighs more than my warm-up barbell and force him to carry me and my baggage.
Why did I ever think Jamie could handle something like that? He never gave me any indication that he was strong, or particularly understanding. But still, there was something in those warm brown eyes. Something in there that screamed, “Pick me! Pick me!” And I did. I picked him. I looked right dead in his face, knowing what I had to offer, and decided I was going to have him whether he liked it or not.
Now, hurtling down the interstate toward Hartsfield Airport, watching as the Atlanta skyline drew closer, I was engulfed in regret. Thick and stiff and suffocating like those old wool Army blankets my dad used to make us sleep under— the kind that stood away from your body and offered no comfort at all.
Part of me still wanted Jamie like I wanted my next breath, but I’d come to realize I’d overestimated him in a lot of ways. I’d played up the fantasy that we could actually be something to each other, and that was ultimately my downfall. I had begged fate, providence, God, and all of the powers that be to make him what I wanted— what I needed. But in the end, he was just an average guy who was going to graduate college next year and make something decent of himself. He’d probably sign on with a local firm and represent hip-hop artists or pro ballers who got DUI’s or beat up their girlfriends. He’d fight traffic on the afternoon commute out of Atlanta, come home to a meatloaf dinner in the suburbs, tuck his kids into bed, and fuck his wife. That was the kind of life Jamie Atwood was made for, and that was the kind of life I hoped he’d get.
I couldn’t offer that. Not to anyone. What I offered was a one-way trip to Prozac city.
Jamie deserved a normal life. What he did to me at his parents’ house… that was nothing. Sure, he’d nuked my ego, and at the moment I hated him for it. But I couldn’t really hold it against him. All it meant was that he recognized that I wasn’t worthy of being in his life. I’d given him a good ride, and now it was over. He’d go on to have that vanilla life that so many people seemed to want, with the picket fences and flower beds, and the fucking gazebo in the backyard with the Christmas lights strung all over it. Meanwhile, I’d have the Grotto with its near-representation of life— not the real thing, but that was okay. I didn’t deserve the real thing. My albatross was only going to get heavier as time passed, and I certainly didn’t need to burden anyone else with it.
Still, it was an amazing fantasy while it lasted. Images flitted through my mind— fantasies of things that would probably never happen. Holding Jamie’s hand while we walked down the street in broad daylight, whispering jokes into his ear during one of those silly Vegas variety shows, running my hand up his thigh under the table in a fancy restaurant. I had never actually done any of those things, and I was pretty sure I’d never get the chance to do them now. But fuck it.
Fuck Jamie Atwood. Fuck him and his wide brown eyes. Fuck his addictive lips, his perfect cock, his sweet ass…
Yeah, fuck his sweet ass. I could do that until the end of time.
Just that one simple thought had me getting hard, a little twisting ache climbing the inside of my belly and wrapping itself around my heart. I reached down and squeezed my traitorous dick until it hurt, reminding myself that I couldn’t think of him that way anymore, dammit. It’s not like he was anything special or unusual, anyway. I could find a guy just like him on any decent hookup app and have him on his knees in front of me within a couple of hours. No strings attached, no broken hearts.