A Beautiful Disaster

by Marguerite Labbe

Dakota was certain he was safe. He didn’t think Trask would go for an all-night party unless he was alone and naked with Felipe. “Sure, Felipe.”

  Felipe’s eyes narrowed. Sadly, he knew every single of one Dakota’s fuck-off responses, which meant he needed new ones. “Brenden pulling you away for Chessie Con stuff?” he asked with a roll of his eyes.

  It irritated Dakota that Felipe always assumed Brenden was the bad guy, even if they had a history of snarking at each other. “No, Mr. I-Have-To-Know-It-All, I’m dragging him away. Brenden put Chessie Con on hold for your wedding, but I expect he’ll be back at it at dawn.” If not before.

  “Can’t keep your hormones in check?” Felipe smirked and poked his shoulder.

  Now Dakota was going from irritated to seriously annoyed, but he tried to rein it in because he knew the real trigger. “Nope, going to have a conversation with Brenden about our future.” Saying it aloud didn’t ease his nerves like he thought it would. It made them worse.

  Felipe burst out laughing, and Dakota stared at him in disgust. He should’ve known better than to admit that to him, of all people. Then Felipe glanced at his expression and sobered up. “Holy shit, you’re serious.”

  His reaction did not help Dakota’s mind-set. He already had issues trusting his own ability to commit. And he had to remind himself that just because he hadn’t met anyone other than Brenden he wanted to spend a year with, much less a lifetime, didn’t mean anything. “Thank you for your show of support, jackass,” he snapped.

  “Don’t be mad.” Felipe swatted his arm. “If there’s anyone I can picture you staying with, it’s Brenden. You’ll be together until you murder each other.” He paused and gave Dakota a considering look. “Scratch that. I can’t actually see you murdering each other either. The idea of you two has grown on me, like some star-crossed love affair thing. I guess I had to see the reality and not the illusion.”

  Dakota could not follow Felipe’s thought processes, and he definitely did not want to be lumped in with any star-crossed loving nonsense. He seemed to remember that ended badly for everyone. “Are you done?”

  Felipe threw up his hands. “You’re hopeless.”

  “Him or me?” Brenden asked from behind him, and Dakota shot Felipe a warning frown.

  “Hey, Brenden. If you want to stay and party some more, we can always stuff Dakota in the trunk of the getaway car. Morris rented the Impala for my wedding. I guess he couldn’t get enough of it. If it’s big enough to hold the ammo for every supernatural need you could ever encounter, it’s big enough to hold one cranky Dakota,” Felipe said with a snicker.

  “That’s okay.” Brenden looped his arm through Dakota’s. “I’ve tormented him enough tonight with romance. No need to add forcible false imprisonment to his sentence. Best of luck, Felipe. I really am happy for you and Trask.”

  Dakota took that as tacit permission to leave before Felipe chose to tease Brenden as well. “Tell Trask we said night” was all the goodbye he gave as he tugged Brenden toward the entrance. He paused and looked back again. “And congrats and all that stuff. See you at the convention.”

  Brenden muttered something under his breath as Dakota dragged him off, but since he didn’t lecture, Dakota didn’t give him any grief over it. He had other plans in mind.

  He’d get Brenden alone in the car, and he’d have the whole drive from Southern Maryland to Bowie to convince Brenden that talking to their family before the convention was a good thing. Maybe it was selfish of him to make Brenden face his fears first, but he couldn’t figure out a way to admit that he was giving serious consideration to hauling Brenden before a justice of the peace to make this thing official.

  That he wanted it enough to even have the thought blew his mind enough. Call him crazy, but he wanted that promise of forever from Brenden’s lips.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  BRENDEN ENDURED Dakota’s brooding silence as they walked to the car and didn’t comment on it as it continued all the way toward the sleepy highway. He got it. Dakota didn’t like weddings. And he even understood the deep-seated reasons for his attitude. Which was why Brenden didn’t drag him out for most of the invites he received. But Felipe and Trask were a part of Dakota’s crew, even more so than Brenden’s. There were times when you had to suck it up and support a friend. Maybe witnessing more examples of happy marriages would take the teeth out of his demons.

  He kept his observations to himself, though. On a night like tonight, Dakota would be spoiling for an argument, so Brenden had toned down his response. Besides, he had to give it to Dakota. He might have bitched, but he stayed. And that last song was a memory Brenden would keep with him for a long time. Sometimes Dakota could be incredibly sweet. Another observation Brenden thought he should keep to himself. Dakota would equate it to being soft.

  After twenty minutes of zero conversation and music, Brenden felt he was entitled to check his phone. It had buzzed more than once since he’d last checked it, and he was itching to take a peek so he could relegate the messages to his important or unimportant lists.

  He reached into his pocket, and Dakota cut him a glance. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “The silent treatment wasn’t what I had in mind when you asked me to come away with you,” Brenden responded tartly. “You let me brood when I need it, so I’m letting you brood right now. Unless you want to talk about how annoyed you are about me calling your bluff over the wedding. You didn’t expect me to stick it out with the dancing, did you?”

  “No,” Dakota admitted, “though I liked the way you moved.”

  Brenden raised his eyebrow. “You mean like an out-of-sync automaton?”

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Dakota reached across the space and took Brenden’s hand before he could argue that point. “I’m not brooding. I’m trying to come up with a way to broach something, and I’m not sure how to do it.”

  Brenden’s thoughts raced as he weighed that with Dakota’s tone. Dakota was not the kind of guy to consider his words. He was a lay-it-all-out man and patched up the scratches later if his words hurt. But he had been more careful lately, which meant he was worried how Brenden was going to take this. It all added up to one thing. “No.”

  “No what?” Dakota asked warily.

  “No, I’m not okay with telling Trev and Evelyn about us before the convention.” Brenden pulled his hand away as Dakota muttered a curse under his breath.

  “How do you always anticipate what I’m going to do or say?” he demanded.

  “There have been a few notable exceptions this year.” Brenden had no clue Dakota would decide to move back in with him. Or pester him into a kiss. Or romance him. Sometimes it was hard to believe how his life had taken such a critical turn. He wanted to stay on this road, though. Because he wanted that, he resisted his immediate defense to ice up and shut the conversation down.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t want the stress, because it’s making you crazy in the back of your mind. You don’t compartmentalize as well as you think you do. You haven’t been sleeping well. Part of it is the convention, but it’s not all.” Dakota paused to let that truth hit home. At times it was hard to argue with someone who knew you so well. “Once it’s out, the worst will be over, which is the damn anticipation.”

  Brenden crossed his arms and turned his gaze toward the window as Dakota laid out the rest of his argument. Not that he saw a damn thing outside. All he could picture was the fights and recriminations to come. Dakota was wrong. As bad as it was, the anticipation was not the worst part.

  “We tell them now, then we have an already built-in excuse to hole up afterward because we will have to concentrate on the con and the worst will be over. It will give the family time enough to process it before we have to face them again. By then it will have all blown over.”

  Brenden closed his eyes at the slight pleading in Dakota’s voice. He could handle the wheedling and the cajoling, but Dakota almost never had that damn tone, and it undid him every time.


  “Why does everything have to be on your timetable?” Brenden accused as panic clawed at him with sharp swipes. He could picture the look of betrayal on their faces, especially Evelyn’s, and it caught him by the throat every time.

  “Me? You’re the one with the schedules and checklists,” Dakota snapped right back. “I’m along for the ride.”

  “You’re the one who decided we had to kiss and it had to be right then in the hotel room.” Brenden turned toward him. “No discussion. No waiting for a more appropriate time.”

  “Because if I waited for you to kiss me first, we would be in our fucking graves before it happened. You never would’ve considered it an appropriate time.” Dakota thumped the steering wheel with his fist. “And as for discussion, who decided to shut it down the next morning without talking?”

  “I did try to talk to you!”

  “Once.” Dakota held up his finger. “And when it didn’t go immediately the way you wanted it to and your feelings were hurt, you left.”

  Brenden started to argue that point and stopped himself. Dakota was right, damn him. But it didn’t mean this particular event of his needed to happen now. “If you think I wanted to have a discussion like that in public, then you don’t know me as well as you believe you do.”

  Dakota let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “It wasn’t the best of locations, but I wasn’t expecting you to hide on me the morning after either. I could only go on the information I had, and you have to admit I was missing some important bits.”

  Brenden pressed his lips together, but Dakota’s words awoke that nagging little voice that twisted him with guilt over another secret. Only this time he wasn’t keeping it from Dakota, but he was expecting Dakota to help him keep it from their family.

  Before he could come up with another argument against the idea, Dakota continued. “Maybe I’m the one who initiated us getting together the second time too. But as I remember, you insisted on a conversation, and we talked about it like fucking adults and agreed we were on this damn journey together.” Dakota’s words picked up speed with the force of his emotions, and all Brenden could do was tumble along in their wake.

  Why couldn’t he fucking let it rest? Brenden leaned his head against the coolness of the window, but it didn’t help his throbbing temples.

  “And you were the one who initiated the sex the second time.” Dakota took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot Brenden a hard look. “So don’t talk to me about fucking timetables. It’s all been yours.”

  All Brenden could do was shake his head. He knew it was delaying the inevitable. Eventually they would have to face them. They’d have to tell them the truth because to keep it a secret would be living a lie.

  But it would break his heart if he broke theirs.

  “Don’t shake your head. Do you want the all or not?” Dakota demanded. “You always have something to say. Why the fuck are you quiet now?”

  Because what the hell could he say when everything Dakota said was the truth and Brenden didn’t want to face it. “I do want the all. It’s….” Brenden trailed off, trying to put his feelings into words, and they failed him.

  “Tell me, Bren, because I have to know what you’re thinking of when you talk about that all. Is it us together doing our thing the way we always have but as a couple, or is there something more? Are you going to have another excuse to keep silent after the con? The same damn way you kept secrets from me for years.”

  “Why are you pushing so fucking hard? Why now? Why can’t it wait?” Brenden said with a sharp edge to his words that cut into him. “You say I’m not talking when I always do, and now you’re looking into the future instead of focusing on the now? Is it not enough for you?”

  Dakota shot Brenden another hard glare. “No, you jackass, for some dumb-ass reason I want to marry you. Even saying that is freaking me the fuck out, so you need to get off your fucking high horse and listen to me.”

  Brenden’s mouth dropped open. “What?” He could not comprehend those words coming out of Dakota’s mouth. Dakota, the same man who had mocked the idea of marriage every time it came up. The same man who had insisted he would never fall into that trap. “Are you crazy?”

  “I thought you said you believed I was committed to us,” Dakota ground out in a dangerous voice. “But it seems to me that deep down you don’t.”

  “I’m trying to figure out how you can come to that asinine conclusion. If you’re asking me because you think it’s something I want or because you think you need to prove your commitment to me, then fucking stop. I don’t need it, seriously.” Brenden turned to face him.

  “I don’t have the best examples of wedded bliss to pull from either. My dad abandoned both me and Mom. Great marriage there. You know the promoters for the Tyson’s Corner con? Lou and Gretchen. They’ve been together for forty years. They have three kids and a house. Never got married, but I don’t doubt their commitment to each other and I don’t doubt yours to me. I can believe in it, in you, without a ring on my finger.”

  For once Dakota was silent and stopped his pushing, or maybe he was stewing. “You always have an answer, an argument,” Dakota finally said in a tired, sad voice as they neared their house. “You talk circles around me and I can’t win. I know you, Bren. I’ve seen your face all those times I’ve mocked couples. Maybe a part of it was because you loved me and I didn’t know it, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think you’re hedging your damn bets, holding off on telling them because why get them riled up over something that won’t last. Better to keep it secret, keep the peace.”

  The tone of Dakota’s voice shut down every icy retort that Brenden came up with. At first he’d assumed Dakota was pushing this because going to the wedding had worked him all up. Now he wasn’t so sure. Dakota pulled into their driveway and left the car idling. “Go on,” Dakota said with a nudge of his chin toward the door. “I know you have things to do.”

  Brenden stared at Dakota as alarm spiked, making his heart leap. “You’re not coming in?”

  “I’ll be back. I need to drive around, think some.” Dakota wouldn’t look at him, and the alarm grew. Numbly, Brenden got out of the car, not sure what else to do. Dakota stayed in the car as he walked in the headlights to the door. He paused with the keys in hand and turned to go back, but Dakota was already backing the car up.

  He stood there until the headlights disappeared as the ball of ice in his stomach grew. This was a real fight…. They hadn’t had a real fight in so long that Brenden had a difficult time remembering the exact details of the last one. They’d sniped, snarled, and snapped at each other numerous times. They’d gone off to stew in separate corners until their irritation passed enough for them to take a look at the situation from the other one’s point of view. And they’d always known when to drop something and pick it up again later.

  Brenden tried telling himself that’s all Dakota was doing. Dropping it for now and going off to cool down before returning. He didn’t like the idea of him driving around upset. Brenden unlocked the door and went through the routine of hanging up his suit coat and tie, sticking his shirt and pants into the bag for the dry cleaner’s. But the habit of setting things to right did not soothe this time.

  He put on his pajamas and searched for something to clean, which pretty much left the chaos from Dakota’s wake as he got ready for the wedding earlier. Undershirts were strewn around as he’d tried to find one that didn’t itch. Brenden suspected half the irritation had come from his dread of the night to come. He collected them over his arm and stood at the dresser folding them and sticking them in the appropriate drawer as he analyzed every word they’d said, every argument.

  He hated fighting with Dakota. They thrived on arguing and throwing zingers at each other, but this was different. Dakota was hurt. He was hurt. And instead of them nursing each other’s wounds, they were the cause. That wasn’t a natural state for them, and this time, no amount of Tron or doctored-up brownies were going to fix it. The cracked bedroom door
opened wider as Toothless and Minime slinked in. Though kittens were always a plus.

  Brenden sank down on the end of the bed and buried his head in his hands. They were both right and both so fucking wrong. He did not doubt Dakota. Even while watching him drive away, he knew Dakota would be back and they’d finish this damn discussion and they would work it out no matter how much it hurt. And dammit, maybe it took this fight for Brenden to really believe deep down Dakota would stick with him. But that still didn’t mean he wanted Dakota proposing to him to prove a point.

  Even if marriage was a secret dream, he only wanted it if Dakota was all the way in with him. He didn’t want him to look back at a ceremony and resent it or feel trapped. Brenden would be completely happy living with Dakota for the rest of their lives knowing where they stood with each other.

  A furry head batted against his hand, and Brenden scratched the purring kitten’s ears. He glanced down at the black ball of fluff and recognized Toothless by his underbite. Minime contemplated the jump from the floor onto the bed and clambered up with his claws instead. He hadn’t worked up the courage to make that leap. Neither had Brenden. How could he get Dakota to see it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Brenden’s own life?

  Brenden knew he had to apologize. He also knew where it was heading when he did. He had to face telling Trev and Evelyn, and he had to do it sooner rather than later. Keeping the secret would make it worse. It was one thing to keep it a secret while Brenden and Dakota were figuring out their new relationship. It was a whole other deal to keep it beyond that.

  His eyes stung, and he rubbed them to take the ache away. They’d fix this. Then they’d face the family and they would move forward from there.

  The front door slammed and Brenden closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself in case Dakota was in the mood to argue more. He gave the kittens one more scratch each to settle himself and went into the hallway. Dakota’s back was to him, his hand resting against Brenden’s office door as if he couldn’t decide whether to knock, barge in, or walk away. Brenden ached to go to him.