The Anti-Boyfriend(44)
“There was no way I would’ve let him near her.”
Closing my eyes, I let out a breath and fell back onto the couch. “Charles was the second man I ever trusted. And both of them let me down.”
“Your father was the first.” He guessed correctly.
I nodded.
As Deacon took a seat across the sofa, it hit me how much I’d missed talking to him. I needed to repair our friendship, so I opened up a little. “You wanna know the weird part? My mother had gotten involved with an older guy, too, when she was around my age. That was my dad. He also left Mom to go back to his wife. How freaky is that?”
“No shit?”
“Yup. Talk about history repeating itself. Except unlike my situation with Charles, my father was still with his wife when he started dating my mother. He had three kids. It’s a very similar scenario, though Charles has two kids and not three.”
“Have you ever met your father’s other kids?”
“No.”
He’d touched upon a sore subject. My dad had come around a tiny bit when I was little, but by the time I was old enough to remember anything, he was gone. He lived in Delaware, and his children were in the same area. No one ever reached out to me, though I did find out through a mutual friend that my father ended up telling his kids about me. It is what it is. But I wanted better for Sunny. I just didn’t know what that was as it related to Charles.
“You said you have a brother,” Deacon said. “Different fathers?”
I nodded. “My mother married my stepfather a few years after I was born. He’s my brother Aaron’s biological dad. Then they got divorced, and I never saw him much after, either. Nice family life, huh?”
“Everybody’s got their shit, Carys.” He placed his arm over the top of the couch and settled into his seat. “My parents have a pretty good relationship on the surface, but my father’s focus was always his football-coaching career and not their marriage. I know he and my mom have had their share of troubles over the years. Pretty sure there was some infidelity on his part that he never owned up to. No family is perfect. But I do realize how lucky I was to grow up with two parents when so many people don’t.”
“Yeah, and neither will Sunny.”
His eyes softened. “Sunny has an amazing mom. I know you’ll make sure she doesn’t want for anything, least of all love and security.” He looked down at his shoes for a moment. Then his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry I’ve acted like an ass.”
Shaking my head, I said, “It’s okay, Deacon.”
“No, it’s not. I took the cowardly way out when I stopped coming around instead of addressing things with you. Sunny called me a dick tonight, and she’s right.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “What?”
He shrugged. “I was trying to teach her to say Deacon. It came out ‘Deek’. Sounded like ‘Dick’.” He sighed. “Anyway...she’s right. I have been an absolute dick, Carys, and I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Maybe a little,” I agreed. “But deep down, I understand, Deacon. I take responsibility for what happened between us that night, too. I was…horny. We’d both had a little too much to drink and got carried away. And now you don’t know how to handle the tension. Because you don’t think we can be anything more than friends. You can’t ever…go there with me. I get it.”
He looked torn. “I feel like you think I’ve shied away because I don’t want you enough to accept your situation. That’s not it. I’ve been struggling with my feelings when it comes to you for a while—long before that night. This has nothing to do with not wanting you. It has everything to do with not being good for you long term, certainly not good enough for Sunny. I haven’t held onto a normal relationship since God knows when, and I’ve hurt people I cared about in the past. I don’t want to end up hurting you or Sunny down the line—especially Sunny.”
As much as I admired his honesty, it still hurt to hear him confirm what I already knew. There was no chance for us.
“I get it.” I sighed. Who was I to convince him to trust himself? I didn’t trust anyone.
Then he continued. “I pretended to make what happened on your birthday night mostly about you, but I wanted it more than you could ever know. And I wanted more than that, too. I just wouldn’t let myself take it. I don’t want to hurt you, Carys. You’re one of the best people I know and a good friend, and I crossed the line. But it’s too late. I can’t take it back. I know I ruined our friendship in the process, regardless of what you say.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “You did kind of ruin our friendship as we knew it. Not because I’m mad at you or respect you less, but because I can’t stop thinking about what that night felt like or how jealous I was when I saw you with Kendra. I can’t control my feelings. As much as I don’t want things to be awkward between us, they are now.”
“Yeah. Don’t I know it.” He exhaled. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend. And I don’t want to hurt you. So tell me what I should do.”
There was only one way to handle it, short of one of us moving.
“I think we have to be adults about it. We need to accept that things might be a little awkward between us and let them be awkward. It’s either that or never see each other again. I’d personally rather know that I can go to you if I need you. If that means dealing with a bit of uncomfortable sexual tension, so be it. I want to have coffee with you and be able to talk about my day. I don’t want to lose you, Deacon. So I think that means we only have one choice. And that’s to suck it up.”