Chapter 36
Ellis spotted me first. Garrett was too occupied with kissing the bare skin below Ellis’s undone collar.
I stumbled backward, feet slipping in the wet sand. “Sorry, excuse me, I’ll—”
Garrett turned too.
“Shit,” he said. The first time I’d ever heard him swear.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“No.” Ellis pulled away, tucking in the tails of his shirt. “I’ll go. You two need to talk.” He shot Garrett a look. “Clearly.”
He strode back toward the hotel, leaving Garrett and me alone on the beach.
I had no idea what to say. Realizing Garrett was into guys wasn’t such a shock. It explained a lot, actually. Realizing what a good liar he was, though? That threw me.
“So.” I glanced after Ellis, now nothing but a gangly shadow against the distant glow of the party lights. “You and Ellis Dean.”
“Listen, Kat.” Garrett swallowed. “It’s not what it—”
“I’m not going to tell anyone. If that’s what you’re worried about.”
He sighed, shoulders slumping. “Thank you.”
“Iamcurious why you never told me, though. This whole time I thought I just wasn’t your type.”
I smiled, trying to make a joke of it. But Garrett took my hand and gazed into my eyes, deadly sincere.
“I wish you were my type, Kat. I can’t tell you how much.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” I told him. “I hope you know that.”
In some ways, it made things a hell of a lot easier. If only I’d known back when Heath and I were together; all of that jealousy over Garrett’s intentions toward me, when in reality there was nothing to worry about.
“Who else knows?” I asked.
“No one.”
“Not even—”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Bella wouldn’t have cared. Sheila, I wasn’t so sure about. She wasn’t homophobic. She and Kirk had remained close since their retirement, and she’d done plenty of fundraising for AIDS patients in the ’80s and ’90s. But she’d spent decades building the Lin family brand, packaging Garrett as a handsome prince for all the young female fans to fantasize over. Being gay wasn’t part of the business plan.
“At first I was scared,” he said. “I felt like I needed to figure it out on my own, before I shared it with anyone. But now…” He scrubbed a hand over his neck. “Maybe I like having a part of myself that’s not public.”
“Well, your secret’s safe with me. And if you want to let people think I’m your girlfriend, that’s fine.”
He smiled. “Are you seriously volunteering to be my beard?”
“I mean, I kind of am already?”
“The way we skated tonight isn’t going to hurt those rumors, is it?”
“Not at all.”
