Page 1 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)

Logan

The day my best friend tried to kiss me, my world imploded for four reasons.

One: my best friend was a guy.

Two: I almost kissed him back.

Three: I wanted to kiss him back. Fuck, how I’d wanted to kiss him back. Temptation had never been an issue for me in my life— not until then.

Oh, and reason number four: I was a married man.

My wife was my everything. My rock, my inspiration, my best friend. She was the reason I was the man I was. She didn’t deserve a husband who was desperately wracked with regret— regret because I hadn’t given in to him. I wanted his lips on mine. I wanted to share his breath. I wanted… a lot.

Way more than I’d ever imagined wanting from a man.

All of that was exactly why I ended up scouring the internet for some kind of answer as to what was wrong with me. Google wasn’t fucking helpful. Not at first.

What the hell was I even Googling?

Why did I want to kiss my best friend?

Why did I want to kiss my best friend, who was a guy?

Why did I—a man—want to kiss my best friend—also a man?

Restaurant reservations for Piccolo Amore.

That last one was because I’d realized it was my turn to make dinner reservations for Eva and me and had forgotten. Because my head was all sorts of fucked up .

The almost-kiss in question had taken place on Elliot’s birthday—his birthday was a big deal for him, so we always did something big for it.

We’d gone drinking at his favorite bars, did horrible karaoke, and gone to dinner.

Twice. When I stopped drinking, he kept going.

By the time I took him home, he was unreasonably drunk, and at that moment, he tried to kiss me.

Elliot was openly gay. It’d never impacted our relationship in any way—why should it? But now…

If I closed my eyes, I could still feel his hands burning my cheeks as he cradled my face. I could smell the alcohol on his breath and hear the erratic pounding of my heart.

Needless to say, I hadn’t slept well either. I wanted to forget those things, not fall deeper into the building fantasy.

Try as I might, I couldn’t deny how messed up it was, but I also couldn’t deny the questions it left me with. About myself. About what I wanted.

What I wanted didn’t just extend to Elliot.

I’d always had a healthy appreciation for both men and women.

Why shouldn’t I? The uniqueness of people had always fascinated me and caught my attention.

But since that “almost kiss”, it was like a part of my brain had been obliterated.

And of course, that part was responsible for attraction.

It taunted me. Confused me. And only made it worse.

I noticed things I’d never noticed before—things that sometimes evoked very visceral reactions from my dick.

It felt like puberty all over again. I wasn’t a fan.

In reality, being a part of the community to support Elliot gave me the answer.

I was just secretly hoping for a different answer like…

oh, the moon was in Mercury retrograde, and the stars did a corkscrew thing, making everyone a little bit gay for a night.

Astrology didn’t give me an answer, and the internet only confirmed what I already knew.

Bi-curious: a person interested in sex with people of the same sex.

Interested but not absolutely sure.

Everything pointed to me being bi-curious.

But was I? Pushing thirty-eight, shouldn’t I have had this shit figured out?

Who went through a sexual awakening in their late-thirties?

The internet told me it was more common than I thought—that I wasn’t some rare specimen with my growing fantasies.

But I’d also been told not to believe everything on the internet.

Fuck, my head was all over the goddamn place.

I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. I hated this. I hated the feelings and the worries and the final decision I’d made. It made the most sense for my situation, but I hated it.

“Mr. Ashwood.” Kyle Miller popped his ginger head in the doorway, and I sighed.

“How many times am I going to have to tell you to call me Logan?” I demanded.

“I do call you Logan,” he began as he shut the door behind him, “but only when you’re not my client. I address my clients formally.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I closed my laptop and leaned across my desk, watching him sit down.

Miller was young and ambitious. He was also the only one in the firm like me—he didn’t give a fuck about office gossip.

He worked hard and did his own thing. It made him a no-brainer pick for what I needed. “Did you do what I asked?”

“I did,” he said and handed me the stack of papers he was holding.

As I took them, he continued, “The agreement states all assets will go in her name minus your car. It puts all of your collected debt in your name. You agree to a healthy monthly stipend for fifteen years based on your income. Pretty much, you’re giving her everything, and you’ll be paying her a lot of money for a very long time. ”

I was giving Eva everything. It didn’t begin to encompass what she deserved because of my issues.

I couldn’t deny the fact that I wanted to understand this part of me.

I wanted to date men with everything that entailed.

I couldn’t go my whole life not knowing.

I’d go crazy. I already was. But I couldn’t cheat on Eva either.

So, I was giving her everything as if that somehow made up for her husband leaving her.

Or like it made up for what she’d have to deal with when it got out to her social circles that her ex-husband was dating men.

We may have been a progressive couple but the circles we ran in were uncomfortably judgmental.

I couldn’t protect her from what they’d say to her and about her behind her back, but I’d do my damnedest to take care of her.

Everything else would hopefully make her life comfortable.

“You know, as your divorce attorney, it would help if I knew why you were divorcing her in case this blows up,” Miller told me.

I paused to look at the kid—really looked at him.

I called him a kid because he was twelve years younger than me.

It showed in his baby face that looked even younger than he was.

He combated it by dressing in expensive clothes, wearing expensive watches, and paying extra attention to his appearance—keeping his ginger hair short and styled, chasing away stubble, and working out.

To someone somewhere, the kid was attractive. Whatever my type was, Miller wasn’t it.

“No,” I said. “I know Eva. She’ll be livid, she’ll yell and scream, she’ll eat her favorite childhood cereal while she processes it, but eventually, she’ll just accept it.”

And yes, I’d brought home six boxes of Fruit Loops when I’d gone to pack my bags. I wasn’t about to make my distraught wife buy her own comfort food.