Adam squeezed his hand, every formidable inch of him radiating sincerity. “Go on, then. I’m listening.”

  All his life, he’d been unlucky. In friendships, career, and love. But it turned out Justin deserved every ounce of bad luck that had come his way. He only now realized that he wasn’t unlucky. He was the bad luck that happened to others. This was a terrible mess, and there was no one to blame but himself. Adam deserved to know the truth.

  Taking one long, uneven breath, Justin broke his own stupid heart. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  Uneasy laughter caught in Adam’s throat as confusion warred with denial in his wide-open expression. “You’re not sweet little Justin from Beans N’ Things? Pretty sure I know who you are. I’ve been working up the nerve to ask you out for months now. I don’t care if Justin isn’t your given name. I’ll call you by whatever name you choose.”

  One last squeeze, and then Justin released Adam’s hands. His palm felt instantly cold, so he pressed it over his own chest. His heart was racing as if it might escape the situation. “No, I mean, yes, I’m Justin. I work at the coffeeshop, but I also deliver pizzas and I—” He took a halting breath and forced himself to hold Adam’s worried gaze. “And I work for Season’s Greetings, singing telegrams on demand.”

  Adam took an unsteady half step back, his face crumbling. “What?”

  It hurt. It physically hurt to continue in the wake of Adam’s dawning horror and pain. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you right off the bat. I never thought this would go further than my little crush on you. I didn’t expect this, any of this.”

  Anger washed away all traces of disbelief from Adam’s expression. This time, when he loomed, Justin felt every centimeter of height between them. It was as an impassable gulf. “So, what? This was all some kinda joke? The flirting and the talking and the dates—” He grabbed a fistful of his hair, the tendons in his forearm in sharp relief. “You let me kiss you! Have you been in on it the entire time?”

  This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. Deep down, Justin had known there was little chance of keeping Adam after his confession, but hope was without reason.

  There would be no coming back from this, no peaceful reconciliation, no way to move on and grow together. It was the end, and Justin had driven them here. He might as well have run them both headlong into a brick wall.

  Justin couldn’t stand for Adam to remain under one more misapprehension, especially one so hurtful. He reached for Adam’s sleeve, a lump forming in his throat when Adam jerked away. “No! It’s not a joke to me. I swear!”

  Pain sapped away the heat from Adam’s fury as he held himself tightly together, a few feet from Justin while also oceans away. “You want me to take your word for it? It’s obvious those telegrams were sent as a joke. Someone has it out for me, and they’ve been humiliating me for weeks, and you’re a part of it. You’ve always been part of it.” He shook his head, focusing everywhere but Justin. “Of course you were. A guy like you, going with a guy like me? How could I be so stupid?”

  His voice thickened with unshed tears, and Justin wanted crawl into a hole in the ground to live out the remainder of his miserable days with the rest of the rodents.

  “You’re not stupid. You’re wonderful. Anyone would be lucky to be with you.” Justin had been lucky, the luckiest he’d ever been. “And I don’t know who’s sending them, but I promise I thought it was a secret admirer. Not a very observant one, but that made the most sense to me. Because you’re worth admiring, Adam.”

  Adam eyed him as if he might start foaming at the mouth any second with fear and disgust in equal measure. Justin had never felt so low. “Don’t talk to me like that. Not now.”

  He didn’t deserve it, but he craved forgiveness. Justin longed for the connection they’d had only moments before. How long had they been together, not even a month? Yet it truly felt as if his heart was breaking. He’d never felt this way before. It was as if a terrible, yawning abyss had opened up inside him. He reached out a thoughtless, desperate hand. “Adam, please.”

  Brilliant, kind, beautiful Adam made the right decision and blocked Justin’s attempt to hold him back. He stood up tall as he backed away, and Justin finally saw the grim, forbidding man everyone else seemed to meet. “Don’t touch me. I thought you were something special. I’ve never felt— I thought it was real.” He gave one last, furious glance at Justin’s desolate face and then turned away. “I gotta go. Don’t call me. Whatever this was? It’s over.”

  *

  JUSTIN HAD TAKEN an afternoon shift, juggled his hours with the pizzeria to make it happen. He didn’t want to run the risk of having to face Adam at 7:15.

  Guilt and shame and selfish, heavy loss tumbled in his stomach like stones. They could’ve had something—something real, like Adam said—if Justin hadn’t screwed it up the way he always did.

  His friends said he was a magnet for trouble, but Justin knew the truth. Trouble found him because like attracts like. Justin fell into these situations because he created them. Especially this time. There was nobody to blame but himself. Adam was the best guy he’d ever had, and now Adam couldn’t stand to look at him.

  Afternoon customers were a whole new experience. They sauntered in with a smile on their face, a few at a time, and took their time ordering a little snack with their coffee. It was so calm and pleasant it put Justin on edge. As nice as it was to have a more relaxing shift, he really could’ve used the distraction of a busy, relentless stream of rushing customers.

  He’d suffered through a sleepless night after he finished his deliveries, curled up on the floor, afraid to close his eyes and dream of things that might have been. It was a struggle to keep from nodding off behind the counter.

  It had been ten minutes since anyone had come in when the bell rang above the door. Justin hurried to straighten his posture and lifted his head with a smile, only to meet Adam’s surprised eyes.

  He froze, midway through the door, the old-fashioned bell still gently jingling overhead. Justin forgot to breathe as they stared at each other in the empty shop. Adam shuffled back a step, and Justin practically sprang across the counter, scrabbling at the glass as if he might give chase.

  “Welcome to Beans N’ Things! Can I take your order, sir?”

  Adam stared him down as if he was a problem to be solved. Then he shook his head as if he was answering someone mid-argument and let the door shut behind him.

  He approached the counter with all the verve and enthusiasm of a man approaching the gallows. Adam looked tired, dark rings gathered beneath his eyes and lines carved around his mouth as if he hadn’t slept any better than Justin had. He looked sad, exhausted, and absolutely gut-wrenchingly beautiful. It took everything in Justin to resist falling to his knees to beg him to take him back.

  He couldn’t do that to Adam. He wished the best for him, and Justin was anything but the best.

  “‘Sir’? That’s what it’s come to now?” Adam stopped in front of the register, and Justin grew keenly aware of how alone they were in the shop. The only other worker had gone to the back to take inventory. There was no one else.

  He attempted a laugh, failed, and turned it into an unconvincing cough. “Sorry, Adam. I didn’t want to make it weird. Am I making it weird? I am, aren’t I?”

  Adam ignored his horrifying inability to keep his mouth shut, focused straight ahead at the chalkboard behind Justin. “I’ll take a large Americano with a double shot. Please.”

  Justin didn’t bother to ring it up, instead springing into action to gather his ingredients. “Yes, of course. I’ll have that ready for you in a jiffy, sir.” He winced and glanced back to find Adam wincing along with him. “Shit. Sorry, again.”

  The sound of making coffee filled the silence between them as Justin fumbled every step, spilling the beans and dripping milk all over himself, highly aware of his audience and slowly dying inside.

  He dropped the spoon with a clatter, and Adam made a low, frustrated sound much too close to a growl for Justin’s poor, grieving libido.

  “Are you doing this on purpose?” Adam said. “The bumbling, adorable act?”

  The furious tilt to Adam’s fierce expression was far more attractive than it had any right to be, especially when Justin was fighting for his life against his feelings. It wasn’t fair for Adam to be as gorgeous when he was angry as he was when he was being sweet.

  Justin held out his coffee with a lightly trembling hand, holding back tears by the skin of his teeth. “No, there’s no act. I’m just bumbling.”

  The halting, hesitant motion of Adam’s hand as he reached for the coffee hurt, but not as much as the terrified edge in his eyes when Justin chanced a look.

  Despite Adam’s best efforts to avoid it, their fingers touched, a brief whisper of skin on skin before he quickly took his cup away as if Justin had burned him. Justin rolled his fingers into a fist to preserve the sensation and stomped down on the insane urge to bring them to his lips.

  Adam walked away and then stopped midway to the door, his shoulders rigid beneath the heavy drape of his coat. Justin held his breath until he turned around, his expression obscured in shadow. “I waited to come in this afternoon so we wouldn’t have to do this, you pretending you didn’t break my heart and me pretending you don’t haunt my dreams.”

  It was selfish, the urge to shout that Justin had broken his own heart as well, and that Adam was just as guilty of haunting dreams as anyone. But Justin was done being selfish, so he simply nodded and gripped his apron so tightly it hurt. “I traded my shift. I didn’t want you to have to face me if you didn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to, if I were you.”

  The coffee wouldn’t be piping hot the way Adam liked it if he ignored it much longer. It remained full to the brim in his motionless hand, slowly going cold, as he stayed rooted to the floor. “What about you? You didn’t want to face me either, did you?”

  It might have been a rhetorical question, but Justin gave it some thought. Resolve unglued his tongue from the roof of his mouth, and he let those thoughts tumble free. “Honestly? I’m glad to see you. I’ve always been happy to see you, Adam, throughout this entire mess. There’s something about you that puts my world to rights. I don’t know what it is. I promised myself I’d tell the whole truth from now on, and there it is. That’s the truth.”

  Life would be simpler if Justin could stick to the truth. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t hurt anyone else the way he’d hurt the most important person in his life. He only wished Adam knew how important he’d been. How important he still was.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t play with me that way. I’m not built for it. I know I’m big, but I break just as easy as the next man. I can’t take any more of this teasing from you.” Adam finally moved, the curve of his cheek breaking past the shadows, and Justin was horrified to discover the glint of tear tracks all the way to the firm line of his jaw.

  Honesty left Justin raw and vulnerable, all his softest parts out on display, but it was the only path he was willing to take anymore. “I’m not teasing. I never was. I meant everything, every word and every action, from the very first moment we met.”

  Adam sniffed, from tears or disdain or both, and Justin wanted to wither away. “I’m finding a new coffee spot tomorrow, so we won’t have to do this again. Go tell your buddies it’s over. Whatever entertainment they’ve gotten out of torturing me with you is done.”

  It wasn’t fair for a man of such strong habits to lose his routine on top of everything else. Justin shook his head as he took off his visor and let it fall to the floor with a muffled thump. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll switch to afternoons, or I can get a new job somewhere else. I don’t want to cause you any more distress than I already have.”

  The bell jingled merrily as Adam paused in the doorway for one last, unreadable glance. “Goodbye, Justin.”

  It was just as well the shop was empty because when Justin bent to pick up his visor, the tears finally fell. He wedged himself between the supply shelf and the syrup cabinet and wept until his confused coworker returned and ordered him to go home early.

  He didn’t know how to tell her that home had just walked out the door.

  *

  THE MESSAGE SAT in his inbox for hours.

  Justin didn’t know whether he hoped someone else took the job or if he hoped they wouldn’t. Hoped he’d have no choice but to take it, just for one last chance.

  A chance at what, he wasn’t sure.

  Redemption and reconciliation both seemed impossibilities. It would be enough to get to see Adam’s face again, even if it was filled with righteous fury. It had been days since they’d crossed paths, and Justin had never stopped aching for him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever truly yearned before. He didn’t recommend it.

  When he opened the order form to read the particulars, his breath caught. He’d never done anything like this before, it was a very particular assignment, and the company only offered limited options. He stared down at the details as if they might change by sheer force of will. The minutes ticked away with no change until Justin hit Accept before he could talk himself out of it.

  Of course, they’d ordered the telegram for the evening before Valentine’s Day. Justin had already missed several opportunities to perform the day of. For the first time since he’d started working for Season’s Greetings, he’d been rejecting orders. The thought of singing love songs on the most romantic date of the year when his heart was breaking made him want to hide until summer.

  But, to spare Adam receiving this particular telegram from a total stranger, he’d do it.

  *

  THIS TIME, THE hallway laughter was interspersed with shocked gasps and whispers. He wasn’t surprised. The poor receptionist hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes. Justin wasn’t sure he’d ever look himself in the eyes after this.

  For a moment, he was sure he’d seen that creepy man again. He felt an ominous presence, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he only caught a blur of spiky bleached-blond hair and a navy suit, neither of which he recognized. He shrugged it off as unimportant. He needed to concentrate on getting through this with what was left of his heart intact.

  Adam’s office was exactly the same as he’d left it, desk to one side and pink glitter hearts irrevocably trodden into the drab green carpet. Adam worked away at his computer, his entire attention on his screen even when the door shut behind him.

  Justin placed the boombox on the floor and waited, surreptitiously rubbing the chill bumps from his bare arms. The coatless walk from the parking garage to the building had felt like penance in the biting frost.

  “Go away.” Adam’s voice was flat, his posture rigid, the hood of his jacket raised over his head so Justin couldn’t even glimpse his hair.

  This was a bad idea. Most of Justin’s ideas were bad ideas, but this one was the worst. “Yeah, okay. Sorry to bother you.”

  Sorry to break your heart and then come rub it in with unwanted love songs as if it didn’t matter. As if it’d been the joke Adam feared it was, instead of the best thing that had ever happened to Justin. Definitely his worst idea.

  He stubbed his toe on the boombox in his haste to pick it up, biting back a sharp, pained sound that finally got Adam’s attention.

  Once he turned around, there was no doubt where his focus went. His eyes went wide, and he shoved back his hood as if that might improve the view. “Whoa. This is, uh, different.”

  Different was one word for it. Sleazy was another. Justin had often felt cheap, but he’d never felt so very much for sale as when he’d donned this costume. He gave a futile tug at the abbreviated hem of his too-small gold shorts.

  “The client chose one of the options from our spicy line,” he said, “and I don’t usually do those assignments. But when I saw who it was for, I changed my mind.”

  The hard knot of Adam’s larynx bobbed with an audible swallow as he took in the entirety of the outfit, from the gold sandals laced to the knee to the slutty shorts and the white satin sash across Justin’s chest, festooned with red sequin hearts. His attention caught and held on Justin’s exposed chest and the lingering effects of the cold. “Why would you do that?”

  His voice was no longer flat and disinterested. It was deep, and dark, and a little bit rough, which Justin couldn’t dwell on, or his costume might become less sleazy and more downright pornographic.

  Justin adjusted the fake foam quiver on his back to give his hands something to do that wasn’t reaching for a man who didn’t want him anymore. “I know you’re going to hate this, and it’s embarrassing enough without having to face a new telegram performer. If I hadn’t taken it, someone else would have. This way, we’re both mortified.”

  Adam didn’t seem mortified. He was riveted, his attention still roaming between Justin’s face and costume. He gripped both arms of his chair as if it was the only thing holding him back. “I didn’t know anything could embarrass you after the things they’ve sent you out in. You were a duck last week.”

  For the first time since everything had fallen apart, anger surged in Justin’s gut, adding to the full body flush from the cold. Not anger at Adam, but anger with the never-ending series of bullshit in his life. He squatted beside the boombox and made a rash decision, changing out the selected song with one intended for an entirely different type of telegram.

  “Shockingly, dancing around in a sash and hot pants for a guy who hates my guts actually registers beyond my capacity for embarrassment.”

  “I don’t.” Adam went so quiet it was nearly a whisper, the sound barely traveling from where he remained glued to his chair.

  Justin held up a finger as he struggled to fit the song he was meant to be singing back into its holder with hands still numb from the cold. “Hold on. I’ve got to get this sorted out.” He was shaking, which he stubbornly attributed to the cold although Adam’s office was nice and warm, and he was thawing out, “I’m sorry; you were saying?”

 

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