Rowan Clare At Home (Marrying Men)

by Hollis Shiloh

  "It was the only way I knew to keep anything of you in my life. Things you'd made. Things you'd touched, and...loved. Like you loved me once." Hugh sighed, head hanging low, ashamed to be saying these words aloud, even though the feelings had been eating at him for so long. He wished it didn't open such a pit of despair in him to feel this way and expose it to the air, and to Rowan.

  Rowan, who had loved him once, and then left him.

  He could feel Rowan staring at him, but he couldn't lift his gaze to meet those clear gray eyes. "I miss you, Rowan. I try to stop, but it's always there. That void in my life. I try to fill it with other things. But you were the guy. I tried to give you everything. I loved you the only way I knew how, and it wasn't enough, and then you hated me after a while. I've never been able to fix it. But it eats me up sometimes. I'd have done anything to keep you, because I loved you so damned much. And somehow, it just wasn't enough."

  "Did you really?"

  Rowan was there, then, grasping Hugh's chin with those thin, strong fingers, nudging up so he could search Hugh's gaze. His red-rimmed eyes looked desperate, a little wild. "Did you, though? I wasn't just something to collect?"

  "No!" Hugh took hold of Rowan's arms, speaking with enough force to startle them both. "I love you, Rowan! I think I fell in love with you that first day, when you tripped on the library's steps. It was so hard to take my eyes off you, even from the beginning. I wanted to give you everything—not to trap you. Just because I loved you."

  "You left me all alone in that big empty house. I begged you to stay, and you wouldn't. I left all the lights on at night and wandered the empty halls. I felt like I would go mad there. But you wouldn't stay and make it ours, instead of mine, and I didn't know any other way to leave except to leave you, too. You were always so sure of how things should be. But you never really seemed to love me. I was just—"

  Rowan swallowed, plainly unable to give voice to the hurtful things he'd felt. Like a kept man, probably. Hugh winced at the thought—at the hurt in those beautiful gray eyes, still so familiar, even after all these years.

  "I swear I never meant to hurt you." Hugh grasped Rowan's shoulders. "I wanted to give you everything. That was the only way I knew to show love in those days. It seems like the older I get, the less I know for sure. But I think I could do better now. I could try."

  There were tears in Rowan's eyes, which were still searching Hugh's gaze. His arms went around Hugh's neck, and he moved in for a kiss. It was more tender than scorching this time—it had been so long since their last kiss—but all the same, Rowan fit in Hugh's arms just right, as if he'd been made for them.

  ROWAN STARED DOWN AT Hugh in his bed, naked and relaxed, breathtakingly handsome and perfectly sculpted. He was somehow better-looking than he'd been when he was younger, and his new humility and ability to say how he felt made him a thousand more times attractive on top of the improvement in his looks.

  Rowan's head whirled, and he felt like he was in a daydream, a dream come true. He'd missed Hugh for years. He'd married the guy over sensible objections—his and other people's—and had divorced him for good reasons. But he'd never really stopped caring.

  Everyone he'd dated in the years since had been a pale imitation, at best. There was only one Hugh Logan, for all his sometimes-infuriating arrogance.

  He'd been born rich, so he hadn't had to learn all the skills other people did, the same sort of understanding of how the world worked. He'd acted like he could buy whatever he wanted. When Rowan realized he was in that category too, he'd had to leave.

  It had been a daunting task, and painful for everyone, and he'd felt battered and bruised in the self-respect department. He'd never meant to marry for money, whatever people thought, and Hugh had been difficult about the divorce, wanting him to keep the house, or a settlement, or something.

  As if he had felt Rowan's eyes on him, Hugh opened his eyes and looked up at Rowan, half-asleep still but already worried, those soft blue eyes pleading and a little hurt. "You're looking at me like a stranger. Don't leave me again."

  "I wasn't going to." Rowan sat down on the bed, abandoning his decision to get dressed and try to look and act normal.

  After having made such passionate love to him, with whispered promises and tender words, Hugh seemed unbearably raw and vulnerable. Rowan stroked his bare side, like he was soothing a skittish animal.

  Rowan took a breath. He felt frightened, a little dizzy. He knew it could be a mistake rushing into this after a morning of passion and a few sweet words, but he'd never forgotten Hugh. And maybe, now, he could stop trying.

  "If you mean it—if you want to try again, and for real, all of it, then I want to, too."

  Hugh half-rose from the bed, a look of such wonder and relief crossing his face that Rowan knew the decision had been the right one.

  Hugh caught hold of him and pulled him in for a quick, triumphant kiss. "I do." Hugh laughed. "I mean—yes, yes, all of that."

  Rowan smiled and slithered from his grasp. "We should clean up. Have something to eat."

  "We don't need to eat, we can just—" Hugh stopped himself suddenly. "You mean you'll cook me something, don't you? With your own hands, in your own kitchen, that you decorated and—and love?" He was starting to sound choked up.

  Rowan laughed self-consciously. "Yes, of course. I'd love to make you something."

  And not long after, he was doing so—cooking with a feeling of heady disconnection, like being in a dream. Everything seemed so bright and perfect. How could this be real?

  "I've always liked your pancakes," Hugh said, watching him, sitting at the small kitchen table, chin in hands. His hair still stuck up damply from his shower, but he looked perfectly content with the world—as, indeed, Rowan himself felt too.

  "I should have picked something quicker, I suppose." He felt self-conscious under Hugh's admiring gaze—and deliciously, wonderfully seen. With a little flourish, he flipped a pancake. It was fine to say he should have made something simple, but if giving gifts was the easiest way for Hugh to show love, or receive it, then this was one of the ways that came most naturally to Rowan: cooking a meal for someone he loved, that he knew they'd enjoy a lot.

  Hugh had always liked pancakes. And, apparently, Rowan, after all.

  Words With Rowan Clare

  THE DESIGNER STILL looks like he could be in his twenties, though his driver's license would put the lie to that. In the perfectly decorated cottage, he seems completely at ease and just as comfortable answering personal questions as ones related to design and business.

  Seated near Mr. Clare is his husband, the immaculately dressed, calmly authoritative Hugh Logan. Mr. Logan defers graciously to his husband and listens to him talk as if he's the most fascinating man in the world. Once in a while, he reaches over and holds his husband's hand.

  Two French bulldogs gambol around their feet, happiness personified. At one point, Mr. Logan picks one up and rubs its belly.

  The two men are clearly very in love. Mr. Clare, rarely ostentatious, takes more than one opportunity to flash his gaudy wedding band in clear view. The two men seem immensely proud of one another and deeply in love.

  Finally, I can't help but ask. "How did you get back together?" The fact that their very public divorce and years of estrangement had ended like this—in another very public marriage—was something of a shock, and not just to me.

  They look at one another, communicating silently as they try to decide what to share with me. In that moment, they seem to be in a world of their own, where no one else exists. They're still holding hands, and for a moment I feel like an intruder witnessing this.

  They turn back to me, and Mr. Logan replies. "Hard work, better communication, and lots of luck. I'm the luckiest man in the world that he gave me another chance."

  "No," Mr. Clare says softly, leaning against his husband's shoulder. "That's me."

  fin

  Find me on Patreon:

  www.patreon.com/hollisshiloh

>   Sign up to get news about my upcoming stories:

  https://www.subscribepage.com/d8j3l8