Page 102 of Hamartia
“Listen to me, Jae, I don’t give a shit about that. Aboutany of that.” I settle my head on his shoulder and run my hands up and down his back which is still straight and stiff, tension leeching off him. “I want to be with you, whatever that means, whether it’s in an apartment in New York, or an apartment in Seoul, or on a boat in fucking Tokyo.”
Jae lifts his head to gaze down at me, eyes wary.
“They will try to control everything about us. Even though it will be a secret, they will still try to control it.”
“Who?” I frown. The media? The public?
“The label,” Jae says, miserably. “They wanted me to ask you to put a statement out about your engagement—before it was in the news. They wanted me to ask you to get a medical. Our lawyers will dig into things about your life, things you don’t want them to know—just in case they have to prepare a suit. In case this does not work…so I can come out of it looking well.”
Sweat is beading on his forehead and there’s a knot of tension in his back that I try to undo gently with my fingers. It’s automatic, touching him. I need it like I need to breathe.
I blink up at him. “They asked for the medical? Theyknowabout us?”
Hetold them?
He shakes his head. “I had to. It is…because you were coming here, and I cannot hide that. But the medical was me. I always ask about it. But perhaps I always ask about it because I know they will. Because my whole life has been like this…living to their rules and protocols. But for them to demand these things, from you, from anyone who is stupid enough to be with me…Sshi-bal,it is ridiculous. Why would anyone want this?” He pushes a hand through his hair and looks at me. “Why wouldyouwant this?”
It’s not even a hard question. “Because I wantyou.And if this is what it is, then this is what it is.” I stroke my finger under his jaw, over those full pink lips that haunt my dreams. “But is this…whatyouwant? With me, I mean. I know we were going to talk in Tokyo about what it was and what was possible. Is all this label stuff what you meant by that?”
He nods, looking small and a little lost and all I wanna do is wrap him up tight and hold him forever, protect him. So I do. Sort of. I tighten my arms around him and lower us down again to lie on the bed, him tucked against my chest, silver hair tickling my nose. I inhale the scent of him.
“I don’t care about any of it,” I say again. “If they wanna interview me and see if I’m good enough for you then I’ll do it. If they want to dig into my life to prepare a lawsuit they’re never going to need, then let them—there are no secrets that a dozen music magazines, websites and Reddit threads haven’t already talked about, at length. I’m not that interesting, Jae. In fact, you’re the most interesting thing I’ve ever done.”
He laughs at that, soft and musical, then turns his head to kiss the base of my throat. He throws a leg over me and hugs me tighter with it, warm cock pressed stickily against my thigh. It makes a contented rumble roll over my whole body.
“But I want to do this with you. Loud or quiet, whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me—not that part anyway.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Then: “I saw the article. It said that you and Camille have ended things. Mutually. Is it true?”
I’m not expecting the question. I never am. But him saying her name like that, tinged with a breathlessness that could be hope, here, with his naked skin pressed against me—it’s overwhelming.
“It is over,” I tell him. “But we haven’t spoken about it. She’s been in Australia and neither of us really wanted to do it over the phone. I’m not sure who leaked that story.” A lie because now I think I might know. Mason. I just don’t want to go there, right now. “It’s notnottrue. It’s just not entirely true either.”
I feel him nod against me.
“In New York, I told her there was someone else. She wasn’t angry. Not really. Just hurt, I guess.” Maybe some of it was guilt over what she’d hidden fromme. “I told her I needed time to think things through and that we’d talk after Thanksgiving. But we haven’t yet. I’m certain she knows it’s done.”
“She does not want it to end,” he says quietly.
“I…I don’t know what she wants.” I admit. “But it doesn’t matter. I know what I want.” I kiss his head to emphasize what that is.
There’s a pause and I know it’s because he wants to ask me something. I think I might know what it is too.
“Have you been with her since we have been…doing this? I have no right to ask that, not really, and I don’t suppose it matters. We were clear with each other before you came to New York…”
“No. I haven’t seen her since the day in New York, and nothing happened.”
I feel him soften against me.
“When I get back to LA, I will end it. It’s already over, baby, I promise.”
“But you haven’t ended it already because you were not sure you wanted to?”
I want to flat-out refute that, but there’s something in it. Something cowardly that had been holding me back. If I couldn’t have Jae then maybe I’d just keep trying with Camille, but that’s not how I feel anymore. It hasn’t been for a while now. And that was before the shitstorm with Mase.
“I knew that I didn’t want to get married. I knew that the way I felt about you, and thought about you, wasn’t the way a guy about to get married should feel either. I just didn’t quite know what it meant or what to do about it.” I debate internally about how much to reveal, but he’s already been so vulnerable with me tonight, just minutes ago, that I feel like I want to offer him something too. “I’ve fantasized more about you the last year than my fiancée—that should have told me something, right?”
He turns his face into my chest and smothers a soft laugh. “You have?”