Brian let out an exasperated sigh as he glanced at the clock and realized he'd been reading his book for half an hour. He was still on the first page.
Brian put the book down. He couldn't focus. His attention was elsewhere; on the one and only Roger Meddows Taylor, to be exact.
Their conversation from the previous day was repeating in his head like a broken record. Most prominent were the words that had left him shocked to the core, words he had never expected to hear from his friend. 'I'm in love with you.' Brian was certain the words would be stuck in his mind forever.
Roger couldn't possibly have meant what he said. Why would he be in love with Brian?
Should he have known about Roger's feelings for him sooner? No – Roger had hidden it well. Brian believed himself to be quite observant.
Brian wished Roger wouldn't be in love with him. It made everything so complicated. It ruined their friendship. And Brian didn't love him back as anything more than a friend.
Hopefully Roger would get over him soon. Brian wanted him to be happy and that had to be with someone else. His feelings for Brian would get in the way of his future relationships if he didn't get rid of them. And Brian couldn't let that happen. Roger deserved happiness. He deserved to be with someone who loved him in the way Brian never could. And if staying away from Roger was the only way to ensure that, Brian would do it with good grace.
But why did thinking of Roger with someone else hurt so much? Jealousy filled Brian's stomach when he thought of Roger kissing some stranger, smiling that wonderful smile of his, being happy and completely in love...
Brian came to the conclusion that it was completely natural for him to be jealous. Roger was his friend – his best friend, after all. Brian didn't want to lose him.
Brian knew it was incredibly selfish to be jealous after he had rejected Roger. Actually, he hadn't just rejected him. If that were the case, Roger would have been able to overcome it. Instead, Brian had got angry with Roger; he had basically told him they couldn't be friends anymore. How could he have been so stupid?
He exhaled shakily when he thought about Roger. He'd looked fragile, broken... He'd seemed so hopeless with tears glistening in his beautiful eyes. Brian loathed himself for being the cause for those tears. All he wanted to do was find Roger, kiss him and tell him how sorry he was.
Kiss him? Brian mentally slapped himself. He had not just thought that. Sure, he found Roger attractive – you'd have to be crazy not to –, adored his personality and thought about him a lot more than was justifiable. But that didn't mean he had any romantic feelings for him. He definitely did not.
Or did he? Brian had had feelings for men before, so the idea wasn't far-fetched. Brian had realized he was bisexual years ago. He had been eighteen years old when he'd fallen in love with his best friend of that time. He had told his friend how he felt about him and the said friend had told him he felt the same way. Later Brian had found out his friend had been lying to him to make fun of him. He'd lost his only friend and spent the following couple of years completely alone. After that he had pretended he was only attracted to women. He'd almost started to believe his own lies.
Meeting Catherine had only made matters worse. She had brought his already slight faith in people to absolute zero.
Brian couldn't help thinking that maybe it was his own fault. Something about him made other people want to hurt him. And that was probably the reason he had rejected Roger. A part of him was expecting him to turn out exactly like the others.
