by Beth Bolden
But Ren was grinning unrepentantly. “When did you become such a prude?”
“Tony is going to kill us,” Gabriel said.
“Hey, it’s accurate, isn’t it?” Ren said, with a sly smile. “We’ve got meatballs, and we’re still going to have some in buns. The traditional style, of course, and then that banh mi you were just talking about. And the stroganoff. Those are all balls in buns.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to convince Tony to like the idea,” Gabriel said. But at the same time, he knew Tony would secretly—or maybe not so secretly—laugh his ass off about it.
“It’s a good thing we’re not really considered a ‘family destination,’” Ren said.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You might think you’re the prince of dirty talk, but before Tony settled down, he would’ve given you a real run for your money. He hooked up with everyone.”
“Hey, if a guy that looked as good as Lucas was interested, I’d think about it, too,” Ren pointed out.
“Liar,” Gabriel teased.
Ren flashed a smile. “I said I’d think about it, not that I’d actually go for it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sean had been holding out hope that by the time he made it to the overlook, the special one, the spot where a short hike from the road, you’d get the best view of Cannon Beach, he would know.
But the problem was, he hadn’t really believed it before, and he still didn’t believe it now. Milo was dead and gone. Just because Sean and Lacy had scattered his ashes here didn’t make him any less gone. It didn’t matter that Sean had been standing here when Milo had proposed. Or that they’d gotten married only a half a mile away, at the family’s beach house.
Milo wasn’t here. He couldn’t tell Sean how he felt or what Sean should be feeling.
Sean hugged his arms around his chest, the outside of his windbreaker damp with morning fog combined with the spray from the water hitting the rocks below.
He’d spent the last few days in Cannon Beach avoiding this place, sure that he would feel either wretched or enlightened when he came here. But truthfully, all he felt was very silly.
Collapsing down onto a fallen log, he ignored the cold that seeped through his jeans as he stared out at the sea, still feeling ridiculous.
Of course Milo was not here.
But now that he had come to that inescapable conclusion, there was nothing else to do but face it.
He’d moved on, even if he hadn’t wanted to—and he’d done it the whole time while pretending that it was nothing but sex.
But Sean had known. Why else had his body and his heart and his brain been so adamant that it had to be Gabriel? Why had he been so sure that it could only be him, and nobody else?
If he’d just wanted to get off, all he’d have needed was a guy he had even the barest sexual interest in, and there had been a handful of those over the years. He’d always brushed them off, giving himself the excuse that he wasn’t ready, that he wasn’t looking for something so transient that it’d end in a few hours or a few days.
But that was the very offer he’d made to Gabriel. They’d get naked, and nothing else—even though there had already been so much between them that was fully clothed.
Maybe they’d spent two years bickering, but they’d also spent those two years becoming friends. Even as they both had claimed otherwise.
But looking back? Trying to see things clearly?
Sean scrubbed a hand over his face, his skin numb from the cold and from the epiphanies that kept revealing themselves.
They’d been friends.
The antipathy between them had faded almost immediately into a snarky, sweet, almost flirtatious banter. They’d revolved around each other, even before that inevitable day when Tony had forced them to actually confront the thing between them.
The only thing that had ever truly kept them apart.
And, Sean realized now, the only thing that kept them together, too.
He’d been so upset, Sean thought, as he stood, shaking off the cold and the damp from the log, about everything else, that he hadn’t really thought about why Gabriel would have a new name for his truck and hold on to it and not use it—when it was the one thing standing in their way.
But he’d done it because it was the one thing that held them together, when otherwise they might have drifted apart.
It was impossible to forget what Gabriel had said. He’d told Sean that he’d loved him, and he’d said I think I might have loved you for a long time. Long before I even knew what this was.
Maybe Gabriel wasn’t alone.
Maybe he’d had these . . . Sean guessed they were feelings, because why else would he feel like his heart was beating out of his chest when they even looked at each other? Why else would he feel like he’d die if he didn’t get his hands on him right away? And it was the only explanation for why he’d stood there, pained and shocked, when Gabriel had told him he loved him.
If they weren’t feelings, there was no fucking way he’d still feel that same sick feeling days later. A week later.
He’d come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t going to go away.
But he hadn’t come to terms with the fact that he could have fallen in love again.
Five minutes later, he was still staring into the ocean, wishing that his brain, so cooperative only a few minutes earlier, would allow him to accept this.
Except, he realized, watching the crash of the waves, it wasn’t his brain at all, was it? It was his heart.
That was when he heard it—the sound of steps, the crush of the moss and the twigs breaking under their weight.
He knew he wasn’t the only person who came here. Later, long after he’d said yes to Milo’s proposal, he’d joked about how he’d been terrified not that Sean would reject him—but that someone would interrupt them.
Turning, Sean saw the last person he’d expected to find.
Not Milo, but another pair of kind dark eyes that were intensely familiar.
“Sean!” Lacy exclaimed with surprise. “I’d heard you were in town—Tara stopped and told me the other day, but I hadn’t realized you’d . . .” She took a deep breath as she walked closer to him, her hands shoved deep in her bright pink parka’s pockets. “I hadn’t realized you’d come here. But of course you would.”
Maybe Milo wasn’t looking over this place, but someone else was. Someone who was still living and breathing and was more than capable of offering any judgment that Sean deserved.
The very first thing he had to do was apologize.
He hadn’t known she was here, at the beach house, but of course he could’ve called her and let her know. She’d have come for him, to see him again. After all, it was the first time he’d been back in Oregon since he’d left.
They emailed sometimes. The occasional text message or phone call. He kept in touch, because the man he’d loved had loved her, and because, over time, he’d discovered that he loved her too.
That particular realization had not hit until the aftermath of Milo’s death.
It seemed he was doomed to make these mistakes over and over again. Clueless until confronted, like a two-by-four to the side of the head, about what was actually true.
“I’m so sorry,” he said in a rush, walking up to meet her, to wrap her up in a long hug. “I should’ve told you I was coming.”
She tugged him down towards the log.
“It’s fine, Sean,” she said reassuringly. “Please don’t worry about it. Though, honestly, hearing you were around, it made me think about Milo. And every time I do, I come here.”
He was fairly certain that she couldn’t know that this was the log he and Milo had been sitting on when he proposed. But he sat down anyway, because it wasn’t like he hadn’t already tried sitting on it, desperately trying to bring her son back to life.
And worst of all, not even because he still mourned him as desperately as he had after his death, but because he wanted Milo’s permission
to love someone else.
“I’m surprised you took the time away from your truck during such a busy season,” Lacy said, still gripping his hand. It was cold, and hers was warm, but it was more than that.
“I . . .” It should have been harder to decide to confess everything he’d been hiding. But the truth was, he’d come here looking for answers, and maybe Milo hadn’t magically appeared, and there hadn’t been any signs, but maybe this was what he’d been waiting for. “I came because I needed to,” he admitted.
Lacy’s eyes softened further. He could see more lines around them, and on her forehead, than she’d had at their wedding, than she’d had when they’d first met, so many years earlier. Losing your only son would probably cause more than a few extra wrinkles.
“I’m sorry you aren’t doing better,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I thought you were . . .”
“I was,” Sean said with a resigned sigh. “I really was. But . . . I don’t know how else to tell you this, but I think I’m . . . I think I’m moving on.”
Tears appeared in the corner of Lacy’s eyes, her gaze still undeniably sympathetic. “Darling,” she said, “did you think that you wouldn’t?”
He’d known that he would, someday. He’d been a young man on the day Milo died. Nobody would ever fault him for eventually finding someone else to love, even himself. But he hadn’t expected that it would be so soon. Or that it would feel so effortless.
So different.
Because that was his issue, wasn’t it? He felt totally different about Gabriel than he’d felt about Milo.
Maybe, like Shaw said, love was different. But what if what he shared with Gabriel was stronger or sexier or better than it had been with Milo?
He wasn’t sure how he could ever forgive himself for that.
“I . . . I didn’t expect to now. I didn’t expect to with him,” Sean finally admitted.
Her hand squeezed his again. “Can you tell me about it? Because I want to hear about him.”
“Really?” Sean found he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Really,” she said firmly. “Sean, you deserve to find happiness. I know you had it with my son. And God knows, he was happier than he’d ever been in his entire life when he met you. A mother knows these things. But you’re still here. You’re still breathing. You deserve to have that again, don’t you think?”
“I want to believe it.” Sean looked out, all the way to the horizon, where sea and sky met. Where, if miracles were ever possible, he thought he might see Milo again, when he came here.
But maybe this was its own kind of miracle.
“Then you should believe it,” Lacy said firmly. “Milo would have wanted you to believe it.”
“I . . . I . . .” Sean swallowed hard, swallowed back his tears, thinking for the first time of Milo in ages, not as an abstract concept, but as the laughing, loving guy that he’d adored. The one who never wanted to hold him back. The one who was always supporting him and pushing him and encouraging him.
The very last thing Milo ever would have wanted was for Sean to spend the rest of his life alone.
“I think he would’ve really liked Gabriel, actually,” Sean said. “I think he would’ve. I think he would’ve hated him, too, a little. The way I did, at first.”
Lacy was smiling, even as he saw the tears drip down her cheek. “You didn’t like Gabriel at first?”
“He owns a food truck, too,” Sean said. Resigned, because while the specter of Milo wasn’t around to ask, his mother was. And that was somehow even better. “We actually have the same name on our trucks,” he added, and found he was smiling, too. Impossibly. “He didn’t like it when I showed up in LA, and of course I wasn’t going to change it, because it was always what Milo wanted, right?”
“Right.” Lacy chuckled. “And so you argued with him about it.”
“Oh my god, so many times,” Sean said. Thinking of all those times when he’d kept the argument going because he hadn’t wanted Gabe to turn and walk away.
How had he never realized that he hadn’t wanted him to go because he liked him, not because he disliked him?
“You still haven’t changed the name, have you?” Lacy asked.
Sean shook his head. “But I’m thinking . . . I’ve thought that maybe I should.”
“Really?” For the first time since she’d appeared out of the mist, Lacy looked surprised.
“I fucked things up,” Sean said succinctly. “I let him think that I didn’t care about him. And then I left. There’s no excuse for it, I was confused, yeah, but I wasn’t so confused that I couldn’t see that things were changing between us, that I was feeling. But I denied it, and I pretended, and I dragged him along.” Sean shoved a hand through his hair, feeling the cold, damp moisture in the air. It felt totally different here than it did at the beach in California. And even though it was warm and sunny there, and usually the opposite here, at Cannon Beach, Sean thought he preferred this. It felt right.
“You need to go easy on yourself,” Lacy said. “He was the first . . . since Milo?”
Sean nodded. “I didn’t even realize we were in the middle of something, and then we were, and I couldn’t handle it. It was easier to keep acting like it was nothing. Just sex.” He blushed, realizing that he’d said sex to his husband’s mother. But she just laughed, completely unconcerned.
“You’re not even thirty,” Lacy said conspiratorially. “You’re allowed to want things. Even men. Especially men.”
“Well, I wanted him,” Sean admitted. “And I took him, and god, I shouldn’t have. Not because of Milo, but totally because of Milo.” Sean stood and began to pace again. “He deserves someone better. Someone who doesn’t have to lie to themselves.”
Lacy’s words were kind, but they were firm. “I think the only person who gets to say what they deserve is Gabriel, and I think if you love him, then he’s probably a very forgiving person. A kind person. A generous person. And he wouldn’t want to hold this against you.”
Sean remembered how Gabriel had tried to convince him. How his face had fallen when Sean had said that he needed space.
“He wouldn’t,” Sean agreed. “He’s . . .” Sean grinned then, because a thousand different Gabriels paraded through his mind. Gabriels throwing meatballs. Gabriels teasing him. Gabriels laughing. Gabriels cooking, his confident capable hands constructing something delicious. Gabriels kissing him. Gabriels smiling, soft and sweet, when he thought Sean wasn’t looking. “He’s that and more,” he finally finished.
Lacy was crying again, and impossibly still smiling, and she stood, joining him, looking out over the bluff where they’d scattered Milo’s ashes. “He’d be so happy for you,” she said softly. “Someone to love you when he couldn’t anymore.”
“You think so?” Sean looked out over the ocean, and for the first time, felt like he could believe it.
Lacy put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tightly. “I believe it,” she said. “And I want you to come up here, during the slow season, and I want you to bring this new guy of yours. I told you this, on the worst day, and I want you to know it on the best too: you’re family. You’ll always be family.”
Sean didn’t have any more words. Just put his arms around her and hugged her tight and hard, wondering how he’d gotten so lucky to have a wonderful husband and a family who’d loved him, through thick and thin.
And then to get lucky enough to find someone else he could love. Who loved him back.
Sean knew in that moment that he wouldn't be waiting four more days to go back to Los Angeles. He needed to see Gabe, and he needed to tell him something.
Something important.
Something life-changing.
Something so wonderful that Sean didn’t know how he hadn’t done it before now.
———
Gabriel hadn’t been able to bear going to the truck lot during the break week.
It was bad enough that it felt empty and barren without the people that
usually frequented it, but without Sean? It felt even worse.
He felt even worse.
What were they going to do when he came back?
It was hard to keep hope alive when it had been over a week and the last thing Sean had said to him was maybe we should take a break from each other, at least for a little while.
Maybe Sean would come back to LA, and he’d have moved on. He’d greet Gabriel with regret in his eyes and reluctance to touch written all over his face. He’d say something like, “Space was good, and I think we might need more of it. Permanently.”
“Are you . . .” Trailing off in a muttered curse underneath his breath, Ren snapped his fingers in front of Gabe’s face. “Are you standing there, envisioning the worst again?”
“Again?” Gabe tried for an innocent tone but that ship had sailed, at least a few days ago. Probably after the tenth recitation of what he thought might happen when Sean came back.
“Again,” Ren said firmly. “Why is it that it’s always the worst-case scenarios you’re fantasizing about? Who are you and what have you done with my relentlessly optimistic cousin?”
Gabriel leaned against the counter in the kitchen in their loft, where ingredients were strewn from one side to the other. Recipe testing was never a pretty business.
“He fell in love,” Gabriel muttered. Then held up his hand. “And I really don’t want to hear it, Ren, okay? It was a terrible idea. I never should have touched him. I know it.”
He wasn’t sure if Ren was right and he’d been relentlessly optimistic, but he’d generally taken on a positive view of things. Not much fazed him for long.
Before, Gabe had been so sure that Sean loved him too and was just scared, but a week later, after the feel of his touch had faded from his skin? Well, he wanted to still be that certain, but all that certainty was currently being crowded out by reality.
Gabriel did not like reality very much.
“Hey,” Ren said, snapping again in front of his face, “come back to LA, and help me with this.” He had a pan of meatballs on the stove, glazed with a variation of the mixture they’d used for the Thai wrap, that was meant for the banh mi sandwich. Strips of cucumber and carrot and radish were quick pickling in a bowl and Ren had just finished mixing up the spicy mayonnaise mixture that they were going to smear across the toasted bun.
