Some Like It Hopeless (A Temporary Engagement) by Megan Bryce Page B

“Creative.”
    “Users are.”
    She looked at him and he said, “I still want it. Every once in a while, it’ll just hit me. I’ll visit a place, or see an old friend. I’ll watch an old movie that reminds me of college, and I’ll remember how good it felt. And I’ll want it, want it so bad that want just doesn’t describe it, and the only reason I don’t is because I tell myself I can still feel her blood. I can still hear his screams.
    “I can’t forgive myself. If I forgive myself, I will go back to that.” He closed his eyes. “I will do it again. To someone else’s child, someone else’s wife. I can’t forget; I can’t forgive.”
    He waited. Waited for her arms to slide around him again. To tell him that he wouldn’t. That she believed in him. That she loved him.
    That’s what his wife had always told him. And he’d believed her.
    But when he opened his eyes, Cassandra was still by the desk, watching him.
    And Brady knew why he could relax around her. Why he could sleep, why he didn’t need his nightmares when she was with him.
    Cassandra had already given her no-matter-what love away.
    She looked down at the false bottom still in her hand and Brady said, “You won’t forgive me, right? I come home a little drunk, a little high, and you won’t forgive me. There won’t be any second chances. You won’t love me no matter what, because you already love Shane like that.”
    Cassandra dropped the false bottom in the trash and came toward him. She stopped a foot away and said, “I won’t forgive you. No matter what.”
    He whispered, “My wife would have. She would have forgiven me even that.”
    Cassandra nodded. “You said she was an angel.”
    He nodded back to the woman in front of him. No angel, just a woman who knew how to do no matter what.
    Brady closed his eyes, relaxing into his peace. Finally sure he could remember the good memories; not afraid to lose the bad memories.
    He could find out what was next for him. He could sleep lying down in bed and not need his nightmares.
    He had Cassandra. She would never forgive him, no matter what.
    Her arms slid around him, her chin rested on his chest.
    He opened his eyes slowly, carefully.
    She said, “Your cleaning service is going to freak when they see those pens littering your desk.”
    And Brady laughed.

    Shane liked to think of himself as a glass half-full kind of guy.
    He liked to think he looked for the good in people. . .while making fun of the bad, because well, life was short.
    And when he’d looked into Christian’s eyes and decided that this was it, he’d known there would be bad with the good.
    He just hadn’t been prepared for a siege. Hadn’t been prepared for the bad to be NEVER ENDING.
    He said, “Please, God. Make it stop.”
    Christian turned, looking over his shoulder into the full-length mirror in the oh-so-cute boutique they’d passed and then turned right back around to enter.
    Because a man never had too many clothes. In his closet. On his body was a different matter.
    And that just wasn’t something he could say to Christian yet. Where was Cassandra when he needed her?
    Shane let Christian admire himself and went to find something wearable instead of the swill his beloved kept picking out.
    He grabbed a shirt– not plaid, not button-up– and brought it back. He held it up and said, “What color is this?”
    Christian cocked his head, taking a moment to get it right. “I’d call it eggplant.”
    “You are gay. Gay! Go put that blue-checkered shirt back right now. We have standards.”
    Christian glanced around the store guiltily, then glared at Shane and hissed, “Stop it.”
    Shane glared back. “No one cares. Half the men in here are gay. Another quarter are metro who wish they were gay. And the rest are pussy whipped.”
    Christian turned away, hiding the blush on his cheeks. He muttered, “And yet, this shirt is on sale here.”
    “That shirt is meant to be worn ironically.”
    “I like