Page 240 of Once in a Lifetime, Part 2

The memory hit him like a blade. “You were just a hookup that lasted a little longer than the others.”

His stomach twisted. No. He couldn’t keep him here. He couldn’t ask that of him.

Ody swallowed, his gaze dropping to the floor. The words he’d come to say died in his throat. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

Everything in Mano went still. The noise of the terminal faded into something distant, muffled. “What?” The word slipped out flat, mechanical.

Ody looked at him. “I didn’t want you to leave like that. We didn’t deserve that kind of ending.”

For a moment, Mano just stared at him. That fragile hope in his heart tightened painfully. His fingers curled around the handle of his bag, knuckles whitening.

Then it sank in. He wasn’t asking him to stay. He was saying goodbye.

“That’s what you came to tell me?” His voice was low. Barely there.

Ody didn’t answer. His eyes dropped before lifting again, glassy.

Mano let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh. There was nothing amused about it.

Ody blinked, swallowing. “After everything we’ve been through… I didn’t want it to end like that. I didn’t want you to leave while we were still angry.”

Stop. Don’t talk. Please. Mano closed his eyes and turned his head away.

“I hope you get everything you want,” Ody said, fighting back tears. “Your music, all of it. I hope it’s everything you dreamed of. You deserve that.”

Mano opened his eyes again and looked at him, steady now.

“I just want you to be happy,” Ody said, a faint, sad smile on his lips.

What is he doing? I’d rather he just walk away right now than do this.

Ody just needed one confession from Mano. A few words like the ones he’d heard in Patra, when Mano had admitted how much he needed him.

Mano’s gaze hardened. Whatever had been there before, hope, shock, something softer, disappeared behind the wall he’d built over the years. “You shouldn’t have come.”

The words hit Ody, knocking the air from his lungs.

“You said goodbye at your place. That’s enough.”

No… please, baby. Say something.

“You didn’t have to come all the way here just to end things politely.” His voice turned flat. “Let it end the way it began.”

And for a moment, both of them were pulled back to the beginning.

“What kind of shitty clasp is this?”

“It was broken. That’s probably why it fell off. Didn’t you notice?”

“You got a problem with it?”

“No. I just asked. We’re playing basketball with some friends. If you want to—”

“I don’t.”

“We’re one short. I thought maybe—”

“I said no.”