Longing Hearts (Healing Hearts Book 2)

by Maxene Novak

  Not wanting to make too much of a scene at the dinner table, Blake ended the kiss faster than he wanted. When he pulled back, Heather licked her lips and he had to fight the urge to kiss her again. He could feel everyone’s eyes on them but the first person he needed to look to was Evan. He needed to make sure his husband was okay with what had just happened. When his eyes met his husband’s, Evan was smiling. “We okay?” he asked.

  Evan put an arm around Heather’s shoulders and gave him a wink. “Definitely. Besides, I can’t really get upset when I practically made out with her this afternoon.”

  Blake chuckled. He’d have to ask Evan for more details later. He knew that Evan had kissed Heather and ended up telling her about Blake’s feelings and that he also found himself attracted to her, but he hadn’t mentioned the kiss was makeout quality. Blake let his mind wander for a moment, imagining a heated kiss between the two people he loved. When he felt himself start to grow hard behind his slacks he turned away from the two of them and went back to eating, trying to clear his mind of all thoughts of Evan and Heather making out. When he looked across the table to their three hosts he knew that his reaction hadn’t been lost on them judging by the small smiles gracing their faces. Spencer was doing the best job of trying to hide it, but Lorie and Clay made no effort to hide their smirks as they stared at him. Blake sighed and went back to eating his meal. As much as he appreciated the invitation to dinner, he was ready to get home and hear more about whatever had transpired between Evan and Heather earlier that day. He had a feeling it was going to be a pretty interesting night for the three of them. At least that is what he hoped for.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Heather

  Dinner with Lorie, Clay, and Spencer had been every bit as eventful as Heather had imagined it would be. She hadn’t been surprised when Lorie grilled Blake like a protective lioness, but it didn’t mean it hadn’t annoyed her just the same. No matter how many times she had explained to Lorie over the years that Blake had had no say in his parents’ decision to send him away it hadn’t mattered to Lorie. In her mind, Blake had left Heather without so much as a proper goodbye and that was that. Of course it didn’t help that he never once reached out to her in all of the years since his parents shipped him off. Not a letter, or call, or anything. Heather hated to admit it, but those things bothered her as well. She understood he had no choice about leaving, but given Evan’s insistence that Blake never stopped loving her, she couldn’t understand why he never once tried to contact her in seventeen years. She had tried to find him for a while but hadn’t been successful. Back then Facebook and Twitter didn’t exist and she hadn’t had the first clue where to begin looking for him. He, on the other hand, knew exactly where she was and easily could have sent her letters through the mail if he didn’t have access to a phone, but he didn’t.

  As they walked into the living room after arriving back at Blake and Evan’s house Blake walked up to take her coat. When Heather turned to face him, her thoughts must have been written on her face because he stepped in closer and ran his hands gently up and down her arms as he asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

  “You could have stayed in touch,” she said. Blake’s brows drew together and a confused looked crossed his face. “You knew where I was. You could have called, or written, or something. You had options. You didn’t have to leave and act like I never existed. Like we never mattered.” Heather felt tears creating a trail down her face but she couldn’t stop them. She’d kept her feelings for Blake and the hurt over him leaving and never trying to contact her locked away for seventeen years. Now that she’d allowed herself to feel the pain his absence caused her she couldn’t just put it back in the box she’d kept it in.

  Blake moved his hands up to her face and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “Heather, please don’t cry. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  She reached up and pulled his hands away from her face. “I’m talking about you never once trying to reach out to me! You didn’t even try to keep in touch with me after you left. I tried to find you, but I couldn’t. But you, you knew exactly where I was. Where was your love for me then? Evan says you’ve never stopped loving me but I’d say the evidence would disagree.” Blake glanced over to Evan and it looked like they were having some kind of private conversation. “Don’t look to him for answers, Blake. Evan had nothing to do with your decision to forget about me when you moved away.”

  Evan looked back to Heather then, and she could see genuine sadness and a little anger in his eyes. “Heather, I did write to you. I wrote to you the entire time I was stuck in that boarding school. Every day that year I sent you a letter, but when I didn’t hear back from you I figured you were trying to tell me that you had moved on.”

  Heather was stunned into silence. He’d written her? Every day? How could that be true? Sure, mail got lost sometimes, but not every day for an entire year. “Your fucking parents,” Evan swore between clenched teeth, and Heather and Blake both shifted their gazes in his direction. “I’d bet anything that they instructed the administrators at that school to discard any letters to or from Heather.”

  Heather did a double take between Blake and Evan. She certainly hadn’t lost any love for Blake’s parents, but she hadn’t expected the disgust Evan’s outburst showed he felt for his in-laws. The way his jaw was clenched she could tell he was fighting hard to hold back a few more remarks when it came to his mother- and father-in-law. She wondered what they had done to warrant such disdain from a man as kind and good as Evan.

  Blake looked down at his feet and mumbled, but Heather still heard every word. “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “You damn well know they would, Blake!” Evan was getting pissed.

  Heather took the few steps that separated them and brought her hands up to cup his face. She might have been upset with Blake, but Evan hadn’t done anything to her and she didn’t want to upset him or cause any bad feelings between him and Blake. “Evan, it’s okay. It was a long time ago. I just needed to get my feelings out and put everything on the table. I’ve held all of that in for seventeen years and I just had to say it or it would have crept up between me and Blake later. Please, don’t be mad at him.”

  Evan placed one of her hands over hers and turned his face to press a soft kiss to the palm of her hand, then he brought their hands down together and laced his fingers with hers. “I’m not mad at Blake. I’m just frustrated. His parents…” Evan paused and took a deep breath. Heather could see that he was trying to calm himself down. Clearly Blake’s parents were a sore spot. “His parents don’t deserve his compassion.” He looked behind her and she turned to see Blake’s eyes locked on his husband’s and they were shimmering with unshed tears. “They don’t deserve him,” Evan added.

  Blake blinked and the tears finally made their way down his cheeks. Heather felt the urge to go to him, but something told her he needed more than just her. She walked back to Blake, but kept Evan’s hand secure in hers to make sure he came with her. When they were both standing in front of Blake, she released Evan’s hand so she could wrap her arms around Blake and hug him close. When Evan wrapped his arms around the two of them from the side she felt some of the tension being released from her body and she relaxed into the moment. After a couple minutes passed, she looked up to the two men whose arms held her and each other close. “Now, do the two of you want to talk about it?”

  “We don’t have to,” Evan said.

  Blake ran the back of his hand lovingly over Evan’s cheek. “Yes, we do. If we want Heather to be a part of our life together, then she should know why you hate my parents. Why they won’t be a part of our lives.”

  Evan nodded, then both men took one of her hands and led her to the couch. They sat down and pulled her between the two of them. “You know my parents sent me away because they didn’t approve of our relationship,” Blake said. Heather nodded, and he continued. “Well, after I introduced them to Evan they really lost it. They insisted something was wron
g with me, and they even tried to force me into gay conversion therapy. Of course, I wasn’t having any part of that. Long story short, they have completely disowned me. They blocked my calls, and if I tried to go see them all of their staff had been instructed not to let me inside their home.”

  “Don’t forget they tried to have me arrested,” Evan added. Even though his voice was calmer than it had been when he first brought up Blake’s parents, Heather could still hear the disdain for Blake’s parents in his tone.

  “Arrested?” It was a question. Evan was far too kind to do anything anyone could have him arrested for. She might not have known him long, but she knew that much for sure.

  Blake ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh. “They called the police and told them that Evan had drugged and raped me.”

  “Oh my god!” Heather threw her hands over her mouth, shocked by her own outburst. “I knew they could be mean, but that is just…there aren’t words.”

  “I know,” Blake agreed. “They said that the only way their son could ever be with another man was if I was high and didn’t really understand what was happening to me.”

  Heather looked at Evan. “You weren’t actually arrested, were you?”

  Evan shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. One of the officers that came when they called 911 behind our backs was gay. He figured out what was going on right away and threatened to arrest his parents for filing a false police report.”

  “That was the last time we saw them,” Blake said. “They cut me off from the family and the money that came along with it that day. I didn’t care about the money, but it hurt to know that my parents didn’t love me. Not the real me. I think they loved the idea of me, of a son, but I didn’t turn out to be the idea they were in love with. If I’d been honest with myself, I would have known it way before then, but knowing something deep down inside of you and accepting that your parents don’t love you are two different things.”

  Heather understood what Blake meant more than she’d like. Her parents hadn’t loved her either, or they at least hadn’t loved her more than they’d loved their drugs. She couldn’t remember a time when they chose her over getting high, and in the end they gave their lives to their beloved drugs and left her an orphan. She thanked God on a regular basis for Lorie and her parents. If it hadn’t been for them Heather didn’t know where she’d be today.

  Hearing how Blake’s parents had treated him and Evan made Heather feel a bit childish for crying over not receiving letters from her teenage boyfriend. She didn’t doubt that Evan was right about Blake’s parents blocking any communication between the two of them. She should have known without him having to point it out. Hell, they’d sent their son away just to get him away from her; of course they would make sure they couldn’t get in touch with each other after that.

  Heather wanted to take their minds off of Blake’s parents. She’d led them all into a sad funk and they needed to break out of it. She didn’t want the three of them to go to bed sad or upset. She stood up and turned around to face them, holding a hand out to each of them. They both took her hand without hesitation. “Come on,” she said. “Enough with the sad and depressing. It’s not good to go to bed in a bad mood.”

  She turned and started walking towards Blake and Evan’s bedroom. Evan had shown her around it when he first brought her here from the hospital trying to make her feel at home. “What are we doing?” Evan asked. Heather smiled to herself when she heard the slight uptick in his voice that let her know he was nervous, but he didn’t have reason to be. It was too soon for what he thought she wanted. There was no way Heather wanted the first time the three of them went to bed together to be right after the painful emotions they had all just relived.

  “You’ll see,” she told him with a wink.

  She walked them down the hall to their master bedroom, and let go of their hands as soon as they entered. She headed for their TV stand and looked for something she’d spotted when Evan brought her in earlier. She grabbed the DVD and turned to look at Evan and Blake. “Both of you go ahead and get comfortable.” They both glanced at each other, then looked back at her without moving. “Now.” She gestured to their bed.

  Heather turned back to the TV and put the movie in, then she crawled up the bed between Evan and Blake. When the intro to Tommy Boy lit up the screen Blake laughed. “Do you still have the whole movie memorized?”

  Evan looked at them. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” Blake said with laughter. “She was obsessed with this movie when we were teenagers. If a door was shut she had to knock and say housekeeping, me fluff your pillow, and trying to get me to put on little kids’ jackets to do fat guy in a little coat. She ruined the first copy of the movie I got her in no time watching it every day.”

  Evan just stared at Heather for a moment, then he jumped up and ran into the walk-in closet. When he came out he had to be wearing one of Blake’s suit jackets because it was way too tight across his muscular back and thick arms. When he starting twisting around like Tommy in the movie, Heather and Blake both burst out laughing. Heather smiled inwardly, knowing her mission had been accomplished. She had successfully pulled them out of the sad funk they’d put themselves in earlier and came out laughing. She also felt her heart swell as she watched Evan’s impersonation of one of her favorite comedic characters. She already loved Blake, had never stopped, but she knew she was quickly falling for his husband too. It was scary and exciting at the same time. She just hoped Evan was feeling the same thing she was. She knew in that moment that she wanted this thing that was quickly developing between the three of them to work.

  When Evan finished his Tommy show, he pulled off Blake’s jacket and tossed it on a chair in the corner of the room, then he climbed back into the bed with Heather sandwiched between him and Blake. He reached behind her and caressed Blake’s hair, and Blake looked over and blew his husband a kiss. It was beautiful to watch the two of them together. Evan pulled his hand back and settled it around her, caressing her shoulder and upper arm, then Blake reached down and took her hand in his. She turned to smile at him and he pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it softly before resting it in his lap, keeping their fingers laced together. Heather felt at home with them. It was like she had finally found something she had never dared to hope for; something she didn’t know she wanted or needed until that moment. She rested her head on Evan’s shoulder and finished her favorite movie with what had quickly become her two favorite men.

  Evan

  Evan barely noticed the movie after Heather put her head on his shoulder. Instead, he watched her watching her favorite movie, and he smiled every time something happened to make her laugh…which was often. He felt a warmth fill his chest as she stayed there in his embrace and he knew he was falling for her, hard and fast. It had been the same with Blake. It was like his heart just knew Blake was meant to be his, and it was happening all over again with Heather. When her breathing evened out, he knew she’d fallen asleep. Honestly he was surprised she’d made it so long. She’d had a very busy day. He would have to make sure she got more rest from now on until her head was completely healed from surgery. It wouldn’t be easy to get her to slow down but he was supposed to be taking care of her; he hadn’t done such a great job today, but he was going to do better. He bent his head and kissed the top of her head gently so he wouldn’t mess with her stitches, then he laid back, bringing her with him.

  Blake watched him and laid back too, turning his body so he could wrap his arm around her waist in a spoon position. When their gazes met he whispered, “I love you,” to Evan.

  “I love you too,” Evan whispered back to him.

  Blake brought his mouth to Heather’s ear and quietly said, “Love you,” then he kissed her cheek making sure not to wake her. The smile that slowly appeared on her face made Evan think she might not have been as deep in sleep as they’d thought, but it didn’t matter. He hoped she had heard Blake’s words. He wanted her to feel welcomed a
nd loved with them, and he was sure he would be declaring his love for her himself in the very near future. He laid his head down on the pillow beside her and just watched her sleep until his eyelids grew heavy and he fell into his own peaceful sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Blake

  The next week seemed to fly by. Work was crazy busy and Blake wondered if it would always be that way or if he really was taking on a lot more while Heather was out. Not that she wasn’t working. Evan had a battle on his hands trying to get her to rest and not overwork herself so that her injury could heal without any complications. Blake wasn’t surprised. Heather had never been one to sit back and relax. He was pretty sure she didn’t know the meaning of the word. After all, there was a reason she’d climbed the ladder to become a senior editor at one of the most renowned publishing companies before she was even thirty years old.

  It was Friday and the work day was coming to an end. Blake was looking forward to spending the whole weekend with Heather and Evan so he’d worked double time to get everything done and make sure he got out of work on time. He didn’t care if all the three of them did the entire weekend was sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix as long as they were all together. He thought back on the morning after they had dinner with Lorie and her boyfriends. Waking up with Evan and Heather had been a dream, and it had been incredibly difficult to force himself out of the bed to get ready for work. He had come damn close to being late.

  Heather had not slept in their bed anymore since that night, and that was something he hoped to change in the very near future. She belonged there, and Evan agreed. It had only been Heather who had opposed sleeping with them again. She didn’t want to invade their privacy or personal time together or some ridiculous shit. Blake wasn’t fooled. He knew she was just nervous about what might happen if the three of them shared a bed every night. Blake wouldn’t pretend he wasn’t aching to make love with both Evan and Heather, but he wouldn’t push either of them to do something they weren’t ready for. He’d wait until they were ready, even if he was secretly hoping the wait wouldn’t be a long one.