The Spiral Down (The Fall Up #2)(74)

His shoulders fell as a loud exhale raced from his mouth, and if I could believe my eyes, he smiled. “What moment, Henry?”

I blinked. Then the strangest thing happened: I actually answered him…with another truth.

“This one…where you leave. And I’ll be left gutted because there will be no one to blame but myself. I won’t be able to delude myself that you’re walking away because you don’t like men. I’ll have to accept that you’re leaving because, just like everyone else in my life…you don’t want me.” I threw my hand up to cover my mouth, desperate to stop my secrets from escaping, but given the way Evan’s eyes became tender, they were already leaking from my every pore.

“Come here, Henry.”

I shook my head and rolled my bottom lip between my fingers. “Whether it’s now or years from now, you’ll leave.”

He dropped his jacket to the ground and curled his finger in the air. “Come. Here. Henry.”

“I have millions of fans. But it’s the people who get to know me who leave. It always happens. Trust me.”

“Not always.”

“Always!” I hissed.

“Henry,” he snapped, his eyes crinkling at the corners as they narrowed. “Come. Here.”

“Maybe you should go.”

He was terrible at following orders, because his long legs strode forward, not stopping until our bodies collided and I was in his arms.

His lips met my ear, and I swayed against him, desperately needing his comfort and reassurance more than ever.

Evan took a different approach.

“I dated a man for two years,” he whispered, and I went rock solid.

’Kay. Not exactly the reassurance I was expecting.

“Umm…”

“Shh… Listen.” He walked us backwards until the bed hit the back of my knees. Then he shifted me off-balance until I was flat, his weight heavy on top of me. “We met the first day at the Academy. I figured out in high school that I was attracted to men as well as women, but the moment I saw Shannon, I was done for. I wanted him more than any woman I’d ever been with. But what I never expected was for him to be interested in me too.”

I tried to wiggle up the bed and out of his grasp. After my semi breakdown and the confessions I’d never told anyone, his ex-boyfriend was the very last thing I wanted to be discussing.

“I don’t want to hear this.”

He inched up the bed with me, refusing to release me. “And I don’t want to be telling it. But I need you to listen.”

Just as I was about to object again, he lifted his fingers and pinched my lips shut.

I rolled my eyes then bulged them in a fine-f*cking-tell-me way.

“He was a year older than I was, which already made our relationship forbidden. But, also, ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ was in effect for the military back then. We did some serious sneaking around to keep our relationship a secret from not just our instructors and cadre, but also our friends. Until one day at the end of my second year, we got caught making out in the back of a tiny restaurant thirty miles from post. It was a classmate of mine, Dave Bass, and he gave us two options. Either we could go to our chain of command and admit that we were gay—thus getting us kicked out—or he’d do it for us.”

“Nosy *,” I mumbled around his fingers.

He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “Rules are rules. And we had an honor code. He could’ve been kicked out for not reporting it.”

I slapped his hand away from my mouth. “Christ, what the hell kind of bigots run this place?”

“They’re good men. Slightly misguided, but it was a decade ago and the country was just starting to catch up on homosexual equality.”

“That’s no excuse. You shouldn’t be punished for being with a man. It’s not like you get to choose who you’re attracted to.”

Pursing his lips, he fought back a smile all while leveling me with a pointed glare.

I sighed, pressing my head into the bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. “Shit. I’m such a f*cking hypocrite.”

His lips brushed mine. “A little. But we’ll figure it out.”

I folded my hands around him to return his embrace, hoping that we would do just that.

Shifting to the side, he propped himself up on an elbow, his head cradled in his hand, his other resting on my hip.

I mirrored his position. “So’d you get the boot?”

“Shannon and I thought about it for two days. We were in love.”

I winced and shifted my attention down between us, staring at nothing in particular in order to avoid his gaze. That was definitely not fun to hear. But he gave me a squeeze and then slid his hand up my side until he reached my chin, where he tipped my head, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“It was a long time ago. And, if you want the truth, over the last few weeks with you, I’ve started to feel like love isn’t even the right word for it.”

Oh yeah. He said that. To me.

I bit my lip, suddenly very interested in the rest of the story. Mainly because I wanted it to hurry up and end so he could get back to what he’d learned over the last few weeks with me.

Evan continued. “We’d talked about a future together and made plans for after we graduated. Separation from the Academy was definitely going to change things, but we had each other. I really wasn’t all that upset about it. I was a dumb kid with white picket fences and dreams of not having to hide clouding my vision.” He grinned, but it never met his eyes. “You have to understand something about me. I’ve never considered myself gay.”