Page 68 of Deviant Need

Me:

I’m sorry, please come back.

I type it out and stare at it. Delete it.

Me:

It meant everything to me.

I type that too and stare at the words on the screen. Delete it.

None of it feels right. None of it is enough. And even if I could send it, even if I could make myself press that button, it wouldn’t fix what I broke. He deserves better than a text message after everything. He deserves someone who can tell him how they feel instead of panicking and pushing them away every time things get real.

The heat soaks through my clothes and the gravel cuts into my feet. All I can think about is the look on his face right before he left. Fuck, I’m the biggest idiot alive. I’ve hurt him more times than I can count, and this might be the one that breaks us.

Chapter 15

Daniil

Dropping my face onto my keyboard, the system beeps, and error messages pop up across the screen, destroying the spreadsheet I’ve been pretending to work on for the past hour. I don’t even care because my whole life is burning down anyway. Everything replays in my head on a loop. Every conversation at the cabin, the way he touched me, how he looked at me, what we did together.

Hearing him call it a mistake guts me, but I was the one who said it didn’t mean anything first. I pushed him there, and now he’s throwing my words back at me. I wish I could take it back, but telling him the truth now would only make things worse and push him further away than he already is.

I’m a guy. He’s spent his entire life hooking up with girls, and whatever we had doesn’t change that. This whole thing could just be him experimenting, scratching an itch, whatever bullshit straight guys tell themselves after they fuck their best friend and then regret it.

Women are easier for him, and they make sense in a way I never could. No one questions it when he brings a girl home.

What we did is completely different, and this thing between us is a ticking time bomb that we both know can’t last. One slip, one wrong look in front of the family, and everything blows up in our faces.

They see us as brothers and always will, and Roman would explode if he ever found out. He’s a homophobic piece of shit who can’t stand the idea of men being together, and the fact that it’s two of his sons would send him over the edge. If anyone ever found out, we’d be screwed. Dead if we’re lucky, something much worse if we’re not.

The whole situation is fucked, and there’s no clean way out of it, and I just made it worse. I panicked and said all the wrong things, shoved him away when I should’ve pulled him closer and been honest for once in my goddamn life.

Pulling my face off the keyboard, the ruined spreadsheet stares back at me. Error messages fill the screen, broken formulas scattered everywhere. Nothing works the way it should.

My phone sits on the desk beside me with the screen dark. I sent twelve texts and made six calls today, and I’ve gotten nothing back. Maybe this was the final straw, and he’s done with me for good. Nausea crawls up my throat at the thought.

I’m giving this a couple of days. If I see him with another girl now after everything that happened, that’ll be it for me.

Grabbing my phone, my thumb hovers over his contact. Sending another message won’t help, but I can’t stop myself from typing one out anyway.

Me:

I’m sorry.

“What are you doing?” Lev suddenly snaps at me.

Blinking at him, I rub out the keyboard marks on my face.

“Have you figured out who messed up the shipping?”

I shake my head.

“Jesus.” He drags a hand down his face. “I’m so stressed. You need to figure it out and then explain it to me. Something happened with that shipment, and I need answers. Today, Daniil. Not next week.”

Some port worker appears behind him with a clipboard in hand, and Lev spins around so fast the guy nearly drops it. He snaps something at him in Russian, and the worker practically runs away.

“I need a vacation from my fucking life.” Shaking his head, he pulls out his phone and scrolls through something with his jaw clenched tight.