She didn’t listen to him. Chris wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t tell her what had happened and once again, even though Chris said Dag would be fine, Dag was always fine, even though Dag was a tough bad boy who apparently didn’t need anyone, she couldn’t bear the thought of him being hurt.
Her heart strained in her chest with hard, painful beats as she rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Room 1010. Easy to remember. She rubbed her lips together and pressed her hand to her stomach.
She stepped off the elevator, and as she stood in front of the door of room 1010, she knew her life was about to change. If she knocked on that door, she had to deal with whatever happened, and a feeling grew inside her, intuition, premonition, she didn’t know, but she did know this was going to rock her world forever. Since Dag had come back, their lives had taken a sharp turn into craziness, although as time went on, what they were doing felt more and more natural and comfortable and right. But the fear had been there all along, simmering underneath everything and now she knew why. Because their lives were going to blow up. It was happening now, right now, right this minute, and she didn’t know if they were all going to live through it, or if they did, if they’d ever be the same.
She knocked on the door, bowed her head as she waited for Dag to answer. He took so long, she was afraid he’d left after her call, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip and lifted her head just as the door opened.
Oh hell. She thought Chris had looked bad. Dag’s hair was all over the place, he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, which yesterday had looked sexy and stubbly, today looked…rough. Dangerous. But his eyes were the most dangerous of all, because for once he couldn’t hide the pain and vulnerability beneath that badass attitude.
“Kassidy. I was hoping you’d change your mind and not come.”
“Sorry.” She slipped past him and into the room, inhaling his scent as she brushed against his body.
It was only noon, but Dag had opened the mini bar and several small bottles of Scotch sat on the dark wood dresser. The room was bare otherwise, his bags tossed in the closet, nothing unpacked, an impersonal, anonymous hotel room. He wore the beige cargo shorts he’d worn yesterday with a white T-shirt, and he crossed the carpet on his big bare feet toward her where she stood by the window.
“Chris won’t tell me what happened,” she said without any preamble. “So I came to find out from you.”
“What makes you think I’ll tell you?”
“You will.”
His mouth tightened. “If Chris doesn’t want you to know, then I’m not going to tell you.”
“Yes, you are.”
He gave a bark of laughter and rubbed his hand over his forehead. “Kassidy. Go back to your boyfriend. This was all a fucking big mistake. Let’s just let it go before things get worse.”
“How can things get any worse?” Her heart ached and she took a step toward him. “You and Chris are both dying. And…so am I. I care about you, Dag. About both of you.”
It was daring, saying that. She hadn’t told him she loved him, but he had to know she cared, that’s why she was there. Something flickered in his eyes.
“I just want to understand,” she whispered. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Please. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe we can never go back…but I want to understand. I need to.”
“Shit.”
She sank into a chair because her legs went wobbly as if all the strength had drained out of them through her feet.
“I know Chris doesn’t always want to talk about things,” she continued. “But you’ve always talked to me.”
He shook his head and sat on the edge of the king-size bed. “Kassidy.” His somber eyes regarded her steadily. “I can talk to you about my own shit. But I can’t tell you what’s going on in Chris’s head.” He rubbed the back of his skull. “Hell, I don’t know what’s going on in Chris’s head.”
“I don’t think Chris knows what’s going on in Chris’s head,” she muttered.
Dag snorted. “Yeah.” He sighed. “I fucked up. Big time. You know it.”
She pressed her trembling lips together. “If you knew that, why did you do it?” She held up a hand. “Sorry. That sounded accusing. I didn’t mean it to. I just want to know.”
He gave a short nod, dropped his head and looked at the floor, his hands between his knees. She wanted to rush over and sit beside him, throw her arms around him. She tightened her leg muscles to keep her in the chair, gripped her fingers together.
Then he raised his head, and agony and longing blazed in his dark eyes. “I love Chris,” he said simply. “I’ve loved him forever.”
She stared back at him, breathing in tiny shallow breaths. “You mean…”
He nodded again but held her gaze. “Does that disgust you?”
“No. Of course not.” Disgust was nowhere on her emotional radar at that moment. “I just… Are you gay?”
He shrugged. “I guess you’d say I’m bi. I’ve always been attracted to both men and women. Chris is the only guy I’ve ever had feelings like that for, though.”
“He told me you were a man whore. That you slept your way through college. With girls.”
Dag choked on a laugh. “Yeah. That’d be true. I like sex, lots of sex, what can I say? And I wasn’t going to get any from Chris. He made that pretty damn clear.”
Her face scrunched up. “You told him…?”
“No. Christ, no. I just knew from conversations we had he was in no way open to that. And I mean, in no way.”
She nodded.
“It hurt,” Dag added, voice low and taut. “Hurt like hell. But I valued his friendship. Hell, he accepted me for who I was, busted-up family and poor-as-dirt, complete misfit. Not many people have ever done that.”
Her head was whirling with this information that shouldn’t have stunned her like it did. She’d just had no idea. But thinking back to the last few weeks, she felt as though she had known. With some kind of deep-down instinctive knowledge, it made sense to her.
But she was still confused. “Did you tell him–last night? Or this morning?” He’d been gone when she woke up so she didn’t know when the big showdown had occurred. “Is that why he made you leave?”
Dag’s mouth curled. “Why do you think he made me leave?”
Her mouth fell open. “Well… Oh shit. I don’t know. I assumed…”
“Chris doesn’t make me do anything. But no. I didn’t tell him that. He freaked out about what happened and told me to get out. I knew I had to leave.”
Her eyes prickled. Her heart cracked and ached. “Oh Dag.” The words came out in a rough whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m going back to San Francisco, Kassidy.”
Her bottom lip trembled and her heart stuttered. “When?”
“I booked a flight for Tuesday morning. I have a few business things to deal with tomorrow, the rest I’ll have to handle from there.”
“Oh.” She sucked on her bottom lip and looked down at her hands, a little blurry through her tears. How could he leave? What would they do without him? She felt as if someone were wrenching her heart out of her chest.
“I know I fucked up,” Dag said. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was just so hard…not to. Ya know? We’d all gotten really close and it…just happened.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and his eyes looked kind of red too.
She met his eyes. “But…the weird thing is—he liked it. I know he did.”
Dag was silent.
“He wouldn’t admit it to me,” she added. She laid her hands on her knees, bare beneath the hem of her skirt, and curled her fingers around them, her heart slowly splintering into painful shards. “He’s so damn stubborn. I-I accused him of having feelings for you. And that was before I even knew…”