Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Laughing, I nodded. Sawyer clapped my back and we left the club. Unsurprisingly, Neil was waiting outside and he drove me home, where I stripped to the waist and flopped backwards onto my couch, cursing Alex, myself, and my mom for leaving me as I drifted to sleep.
I couldn’t have been out for more than an hour when I startled awake in a cold sweat, my mouth arid and my heart pounding as my subconscious abandoned the nightmare of Alex’s funeral. Gasping for air, I scrambled off the couch and walked in a daze to the kitchen, grabbing myself a bottle of water from the fridge and letting my face linger in the cool air for a moment before closing the door.
It was the first time it’d hit me – what a selfish cunt I’d been. Alex had told me he was HIV positive and the thing I’d focused on was my bruised ego. My nightmare was a realization. Alex, my best friend, was sick and I didn’t know a thing about it, least of which the answer to the question that tortured my soul from the second I woke up…
Is he going to die?
I had no option but to abandon my earlier stubbornness. I’d been behaving like a spoilt child and the worst part is I knew it all along but did it anyway. I’d never had to take life seriously before. Never needed to make decisions of any real importance. All my life I’d had people to do that for me; my mom, my manager, even Sawyer. I wasn’t sure I knew how to be a grown up. But I needed to learn because I missed our friendship. I missed him.
I loved him.
I stopped trying to convince myself I didn’t need him. I stopped trying to believe I could forget about him. Most importantly, I stopped trying to talk myself out of the fact I’d fallen in love with him. But before I talked to him again I needed to know what I was dealing with. I needed to know about his illness, how it affected him, and how it could potentially affect me. So after showering to rid myself of the smell of the club, alcohol, and women’s perfume, I went to my laptop and pulled up my favorite search engine.
I’ve been such a dick.
Chapter Seven
~Alex~
I PACED UP and down my hotel room for almost an hour after Matt left. Then after sitting on the bed, knotting my fingers together, I paced some more. I’d made such a royal fuck up of everything. I’d spent years making the effort to keep people at arms-length. I’d been attracted to Matt since pretty much the beginning, but most of the population was, too, so it was okay. I felt safe with him. He wasn’t just straight, he was the straightest guy I ever knew. Just thinking of the number of women he’d been with made me shudder, so of course my initial reaction to his kiss was that he was messing around.
Now I knew different I didn’t have a clue how I was supposed to feel. The only thing I was certain of is that I missed him. I felt hollow without him. For the past three weeks I hadn’t been living, just existing; eating to survive, talking to be polite…there was no joy in anything anymore. Everything became mechanical and mundane.
There was only one person I went to when I needed a kick up the ass - Alan, also known as Miss Martina. He was the only person I trusted to give it to me straight, and the only person, aside from my parents and Ryan, who knew about my HIV status. He knew my reasons for not allowing myself to get too close to anyone and although he didn’t agree with them, he supported me regardless. Alan was my oldest friend. I met him when I took the bartender’s job at a small club eight years ago and we clicked instantly. I was new to the city, and to bar work, and if it wasn’t for him saving my ass I would’ve been fired in my first week. After that we stuck together. If I took a job in a new bar, so did he, and vice versa. Apart from Alan, I’d never connected with anyone so effortlessly.
Until I met Matt.
Alan’s knock came just half an hour after I called him, despite the late hour, and when I opened the door he greeted me with a sympathetic smile and a large bottle of cloudy liquid.
“Hey, sugar,” Alan said, kissing both of my cheeks in turn before pushing the bottle he held into my hands.
“What’s this?” I asked, eyeing it up curiously.
“My homemade lemonade, of course. It fixes everything.”
Retreating back into the room, I set it down on the nightstand and sank down onto the bed. “I’d have preferred vodka.”