CHAPTER 99

CHAPTER 99
POV: Dominic

The flight landed two hours earlier than expected. He should have been glad, fewer delays, and fewer meetings. But all Dominic felt was bone-deep exhaustion, the kind that settled in the hollow of his chest and refused to leave.

He hadn’t told Ethan he was coming home early. He’d wanted it to be a surprise, the good kind, for once. Maybe they could finally talk without all the tension and distance that had eaten away at them these past weeks. Maybe they could find a way back.

The city was quiet when he pulled into the garage, the rain starting to fall in thin, misty threads. His suitcase rolled softly behind him as he unlocked the apartment door and stepped into the dim living room.

The air was still, heavy with that familiar scent of rain and coffee and something else. The faint hum of music. Light from down the hall.

He set the suitcase by the door, listening. Ethan’s light, maybe. Or Tyler’s. Hard to tell anymore.

He exhaled, running a tired hand through his hair. He didn’t want another argument. Not tonight. He just wanted to see Ethan’s face, to touch him, to feel like they weren’t drifting apart piece by piece.

So he walked down the hall quietly, following the light. The door was half-closed. A line of gold spilled across the dark floor.

He hesitated, not because he was afraid — but because he’d missed that feeling. Coming home to find Ethan awake, light still on. It used to mean safety. Now it meant uncertainty.

He pushed the door gently. The sound came first not words, just breath. The faint rustle of movement. The kind of silence that was too careful.

Dominic froze. Two figures blurred in shadow, too close. It wasn’t rough. It wasn’t lustful. It was quiet. Quiet in the way guilt is quiet, too fragile to break. Ethan’s shirt half undone. Tyler’s hand on his shoulder.

And for a long, impossible second, Dominic didn’t feel anything at all. No shock. No rage. Just the kind of stillness that comes when the world folds in on itself.

He waited for one of them to see him, to turn, to explain. But they didn’t and he couldn’t move.

His fingers tightened around the doorknob, the metal biting cold into his skin. He should’ve said something shouted, slammed the door, something. But his throat wouldn’t obey. His body had already betrayed him by staying.

Every thought came slow, like wading through water. How long? When did it start? Why didn’t I see it?

Tyler’s voice was soft, almost tender cut through the air. Dominic couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter. He’d already heard too much.

He stepped back. The door clicked shut again, so quietly it almost didn’t sound real.

He walked through the apartment on autopilot, the sound of rain building behind the windows. The lights flickered as the storm deepened, thunder rolling low and heavy.

His suitcase still sat by the door where he’d left it. A reminder that, technically, he’d only just arrived but it already felt like he’d been gone for years. He picked up his coat and stepped outside.

The rain met him instantly cold, soaking through his shirt in seconds. He didn’t bother to cover his head. He didn’t care about anything except getting far enough away that the image in his mind might blur, might lose its edges.

It didn’t. He reached the street and stopped under a flickering streetlamp. Cars hissed by in the distance. The world looked washed out, almost colorless.

He pressed a hand to his chest not dramatically, just instinctively as if trying to hold himself together.

He wanted to feel anger. That would’ve been easier. Anger at Ethan for betraying him. At Tyler for manipulating everything in his path.

But what settled in instead was something colder. Quieter. Recognition. Because deep down, some part of him had known.

Every time Ethan flinched when he touched him. Every forced smile. Every unspoken thing that hung between them at night.

He’d chosen not to see it. Because love, when it wants to survive, makes you blind.

The rain came harder, running down his face, mingling with something else he refused to name. He laughed once low, bitter, broken. It startled even him.

He thought of the day he’d first met Ethan nervous, sharp, too earnest for his own good. How easy it had been to love him. How hard it had been to keep him.

And now… how impossible it would be to forget him.

He tilted his head back toward the sky, eyes closed. The rain hit his lashes, his mouth, and his collar. It didn’t cleanse anything. It just reminded him he was still here.

“I should’ve seen it coming,” he whispered.

The words barely carried over the storm, but they felt final. The kind of final that left no room for pretending.

He turned away from the apartment building from the light still glowing faintly behind the curtains, from the home that wasn’t one anymore.

Somewhere behind him, a door might have opened. Maybe Ethan’s voice called his name. Maybe not. He didn’t turn to find out. He kept walking.

Each step was heavier than the last, water pooling in his shoes, his pulse pounding in his ears. He didn’t know where he was going only that if he stopped, the silence might catch up to him.

And he couldn’t bear to hear it. Not tonight. Not when everything had already been said without a single word.