Chapter 140: Kissed Another Man Infront Of Him!

Dave ruffled his hair, pacing back and forth as he struggled to process everything that had just happened.

"Dave, what’s going on?" Eli rose from the couch and approached him, unable to conceal the hurt in his voice. "I can’t believe you’ve actually kissed and confessed to another man right in front of me."

His eyes were blurred with tears, and he had to blink repeatedly to see Dave clearly. "And who’s Bryce? There’s another man in your life apart from Vincent?"

"It’s complicated, Eli. A lot has changed. It’s been almost ten years and l thought you were de..."

"Almost?" Eli interrupted, looking at him in disbelief. "It’s been nine years. Do you not even remember the last time our world was destroyed?"

His voice wavered with disappointment.

"I’m back, Dave. We can take back everything we lost over the past years. No matter where I’ve been, you’re the only person I’ve thought about. There were times when I wanted to end my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, simply because of you."

Dave stopped pacing and looked at him. "You haven’t even told me where you’ve been."

He remembered the phone call that had brought him here in the first place. When Eli had told him he was back and waiting at Dave’s residence, Dave had rushed over, desperate to confirm that the voice he had heard belonged to the man he had spent years believing was dead.

And when he had finally seen Eli with his own eyes, the first thing that had come to mind wasn’t to demand an explanation for his disappearance.

He embraced him and cried, and told him how much he had suffered, how close he had come to losing his mind, and how impossible it had been to move on from him.

He had been so overwhelmed by the fact that Eli was alive that he hadn’t thought to ask where he had been or what had happened to him.

Now, standing before him, Dave realized how much remained unanswered.

"You didn’t ask," Eli replied quietly. "Your father..."

"No." Dave stopped him immediately, his voice thick with denial. "Don’t you dare tell me my dad had something to do with it. Don’t tell me he knew you were alive all this time, even while he was comforting me and saying that if he’d known, he would never have touched you."

The thought was unbearable. For the past few days, ever since his father’s death, Dave had been struggling to come to terms with the fact that his father had never told him about his real mother and had, for reasons Dave still didn’t fully understand, ended her life.

Even so, he had tried to hold on to the belief that his father must have cared about him enough to protect him fiercely, take him into his home, make him his favourite child, and leave him most of his property.

That fragile understanding had become one of the few things Dave could cling to while trying to make peace with everything he had learned.

"And now you want to tell me that all those years I suffered, nearly to the point of losing myself completely, he knew that you were alive?"

Dave demanded, his voice breaking under the strain.

"No. If you’re going to lie to me, use something else, because I really can’t take this one."

The words came pouring out nonstop.

Eli’s mention of his father had opened wounds Dave had barely begun to acknowledge, and the possibility that his father had known that Eli was alive while allowing him to endure all that pain was more than he could bear.

"I won’t say it, then," Eli murmured.

He wiped his tears away and walked back to the couch, lowering himself onto it.

"Because there’s no other explanation for what happened to me apart from that."

Dave watched him, and the anger that had driven his outburst began to give way to guilt. He had shut Eli down without even allowing him to finish explaining himself.

Eli was clearly hurting, and Dave couldn’t tell whether the pain in his eyes came from the years they had spent apart, the accusations Dave had thrown at him, or something else entirely.

He might have been able to sense if Eli was pretending, but how could he be certain after so many years apart?

Dave walked over slowly and sat beside him.

"I’m sorry for cutting you off like that. Tell me," he said quietly, forcing himself to hold together.

Eli remained silent for a long moment. Being shut down just as he had begun to explain himself seemed to have shaken him, leaving him struggling to gather his thoughts and find his footing again.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of memories.

"Your father had been pretending all along that he didn’t know about our relationship. It was only after he killed my parents right in front of me that I realized he’d known everything from the beginning.

After killing them, he told me he wouldn’t touch me because I hadn’t done anything wrong to him. But he said I would suffer terribly for daring to form a relationship with his son and pull him into the family he hated most."

Eli wiped at his tears, his expression growing more pained.

"Those words are still fresh in my mind, especially when he said my first punishment was having to watch my parents die in front of me. And not just die, but be killed by my boyfriend’s father."

His voice faltered, and he paused briefly before continuing.

"Then he said that now that I’d watched my boyfriend’s father kill my own parents, I must hate you for it."

He lowered his gaze, tears gathering in his eyes again.

"But that wasn’t even close to what I was feeling. It felt like my whole world had come to an end, and all I wanted was to be in your arms, to hear you tell me that I could survive it. I knew you weren’t the one who killed them. I knew that if you’d known something like that was going to happen, you would have warned me."

Dave’s fingers curled against his knees as he fought to keep himself composed.

Every word Eli spoke made it harder to reconcile the father he had spent the past few days trying to forgive with the man Eli was describing.

"He then told me that we’ll never see each other again because, to you, I’d always be dead. He said you’d rather suffer for a while and eventually heal, after which you could find another man, if that’s what you were into, but it wouldn’t be me."

Dave’s hands shook as he struggled to contain himself. Beside him, Eli wiped away his tears, but the words that followed seemed to catch in his throat, leaving him unable to continue immediately.