by Riley Hart
Mom gasps, which surprises me. My leg is bouncing up and down, and I drum my thumbs on my knees.
“I talked a good game. Made myself believe I didn’t give a shit, that I didn’t need anyone…but I do. I think we all need someone and I found him. I found him in Gary whether you both like it or not, because for the first time in my life…I felt like me. I felt whole, when I hadn’t realized there was a part of me that was missing.”
I push to my feet. “And I realize for the first time…that there really isn’t anything wrong with who I am. The words I used to shove at everyone—that I didn’t care what you thought and that if you couldn’t accept me, it was your problem and not mine—I believe them now. They’re not just words, and that’s what I came here to tell you. That I’m in love. That I’m happy. That I have a career I love and that I’m good at what I do. That I’m a damn good man and…and if you can’t see that, then it really is your problem and not mine. I’m not going to keep trying to make you love me. I’m not going to stay away from events in Martin and Malcolm’s lives. I’m not going to sneak flowers on your porch on your birthday. I can’t help that I’m not Dad’s…I know you both wish I was.”
Dad looks down.
Mom covers her mouth with a shaky hand.
But neither of them speak.
“I was so scared of getting hurt, I pushed Gary away. I walked away from him and told myself it was him walking away from me. I’m going to fight to get him back. You were always a fighter, Mom. I think I got that from you.”
I walk to the door to the study, silently wishing one of them would speak.…But they won’t…and I know it. I have to be okay with it because that’s on them, not me. “You’d like him, Ma. He digs musicals. He doesn’t like attention on himself. He loves big. You both know where to find me if you need me.”
And then I walk out, feeling lighter than I have in years. Like I can breathe, when I didn’t know I’d been quietly and slowly suffocating for years.
Just one more thing to do. It’s time to go get my man back.
37
Gary
As I get out of the elevator on my floor, good as I feel about confronting my parents tonight, I’m sad that I don’t get to share this with Travis. Maybe I can wake Jacob up, and we can have a few drinks while I tell him about my new family drama.
I’ve already made up my mind to call Travis tomorrow. Maybe he’ll have calmed down, and we can actually have a discussion about what happened the other night. Although I just keep thinking about how mad he was…how hurt. I pull out my phone as I consider texting. I’ve been considering it ever since I left my parents’ place. Yeah, it’s scary to open my heart again—to know Travis could hurt me, but I’d rather that than spend the rest of my life like I did with my parents, living in fear.
I don’t want to live my life like that. Not anymore.
As I round the corner into the hallway, I see Travis sitting outside my door. With his arms around his legs and his head tucked low, he looks like he’s lost in thought.
“Trav?” I ask.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said his fucking nickname.
He turns to me and pushes to his feet.
“Gary.”
We stand there for a moment, looking at each other awkwardly.
“Is Jacob not home?” I ask.
“He is. I was in there for a bit talking to him and then I left because I was going to go back home and think about how to do this, but then I changed my mind and just started pacing out here to think…and then, well, I decided to sit down and think some more.”
“You’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I tease.
He chuckles. It feels nice. Breaks the horrible tension that still lingers between us.
“I came out to my parents tonight,” I say.
“Really?” His eyes light up, then dull just as quickly, as though he’s realized he can’t really share this moment with me considering all that’s happened between us.
I must be on a confident streak because I just go for it. “That wasn’t very fair to me. Peter shoved that in my face, and it wasn’t wrong for me to ask you if anything happened.”
I notice it’s one of the few times my gut instinct hasn’t been to blame myself for an issue between us.
“I know.”
He’s not fighting?
“And after what Peter did to you,” Travis says, “I know that played off all your fears and insecurities. I was just so thrown that you could think I would do something to hurt you. And it hurt me. It felt like you were accusing me and not even giving me a chance. Like how the fuck am I supposed to prove that I didn’t do anything with that guy…or any guy who might say something about us messing around?”
“I know you’re new to this whole relationship thing, but sometimes you have to trust that someone’s telling you the truth, even if there’s a possibility that they might not be. I know you, Travis. I know you’re not like Peter. Hell, if you wanted to fuck around with guys, you’d go do it. You’ve always been open and honest about what you wanted. It was a lot hitting me all at once, and I admit, I got a little scared, not about what you did, but about what you might do one day.”
“Gary—”
“But I realized, that’s not the person I want to be. Life can suck sometimes, but I don’t want to end up so afraid of getting hurt that I never really get to be me…or do the things I enjoy. I’ve spent too much of my life like that already. And I can’t live my life afraid one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be with the next Evan—some boy toy who’s so much hotter than me.”
“He’s not hotter, and you know it,” he says.
“You’ve made it easier for me to believe that.”
He smiles.
I like seeing him smile again.
I like seeing the relief in his eyes.
“But,” I continue, “you really hurt me walking off like that. I know I hurt you with what I said, but this is the kind of shit we have to get used to if we’re going to make this work. Sometimes we’ll fight things out. It’s not always easy. And we’re not going to be this in love every single day, but we’ve got to be able to talk about shit when it comes up.”
“I know.” He pushes his hands into his pockets and looks down, more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. “I went to see my parents too.”
I want to reach out for him but don’t know if I should. Travis went to see his parents? I can’t imagine what he would have said to them after what went down at the party.
“For years, I’ve been telling myself it didn’t matter how they felt. Fuck them if they couldn’t accept me, but…but I didn’t really feel it. I hardened myself, created my own armor where I didn’t let anyone in. And then you—this quiet, sexy man who doesn’t fucking know how gorgeous he is—happened, and I was feeling shit I wasn’t ready to feel. Things I didn’t know how to deal with because I was scared, Gary. That’s not easy for me to admit, but I was scared you would realize I wasn’t enough for you.”
This time, I can’t stop myself from reaching for him. I grab his hand, pull it out of his pocket, and interlock our fingers. “How could you possibly think you aren’t enough for me? You’re everything, Trav.”
“The same way you think you aren’t enough for me. Or that you weren’t enough for Peter. We have that in common, and we never realized it, and that’s why I walked away. I needed to leave before you could hurt me. I’m so fucking sorry for that.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “So fucking sorry. I love you, Gary. I meant that when I said it, but loving someone is scary as shit. I’ve never had this. And it’s freaking me the fuck out.”
“It’s freaking me out, too.”
We have this strange distance between us.
I don’t like how, after all we’ve shared—how many nights we’ve spent, our bodies pressed up against each other’s—we feel so far apart…even though it’s only a few feet.
“I love you too,” I say. “You know that, right? No one ha
s made me feel the way you do. You helped me realize it’s okay to be who I am.” It’s important to me that he knows that. I didn’t feel comfortable sexually before him, and I was insecure about my body and what people thought of me.
“Jesus, we’re like fucking twins or something. But yeah…that’s creepy, so no, but you did the same thing for me.”
And that’s the thing, we all react to the shit life throws at us in different ways. For Travis, it was becoming highly sexual and pretending he didn’t give a shit about anyone. For me it was burying the pieces of me that wanted to let loose. But inside? Inside, we were both killing ourselves.
He gives me a gentle tug, pulling me closer. “It’s fucking killing me not to have my mouth on yours right now.”
“Then I guess you better kiss me.” I step back to the wall and soon his lips are on mine.
There it is.
The explosion of our passion that I’ve gotten so used to. We’re like this bomb that’s always seconds away from detonating, and we revel in the burn.
Here I am, once again—tasting him, wanting him, needing him.
We wrap our arms around each other.
I don’t ever want to let go.
He pulls away from our kiss and gazes into my eyes. Then he moves close so that his nose rubs against my cheek. Raising his hand and gripping the back of my neck, he strokes his thumb across it. As his breath slams against my face, I feel so loved, so appreciated. “I missed you, Superass. Everything about you.”
I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face. “I missed you too. You wanna come inside?”
“Only if we’re talking about your ass.” His lips curl into a smirk against my cheek. I missed this, his joking playfulness.
We claw at each other’s clothes as we make our way into my condo. Our kisses are frenzied. My body aches with my need for Travis, and I’m eager to remind him of who his Superass is.
EPILOGUE
Travis
Three Months Later
I walk through the door to what will soon be the new and first home of Magic Touch. Gary is standing on a stepladder, applying a pale blue paint to the walls. “You were right. It looks incredible.” I hadn’t been sure about the color, but he’d insisted it would look good. Leave it to him to always be right.
“That’s why you should always just listen to me.” He tosses a grin over his shoulder before getting back to work.
“Shut up.”
“It’s okay. You’ll get used to it.”
I roll my eyes at him. He’s gotten awfully cocky the past few months, but really, I fucking love it. Love seeing him shine.
“How was lunch with Steven?” he asks, his back to me. Turns out Steven really did have shit going on a few months ago, a business emergency out of the country. When I thought he’d been blowing me off, he’d really been doing his job and getting shit done. As soon as he’d gotten back into the country, he’d invited me over to his place and made me an offer. It was everything I’d hoped it would be. Now, here we are, getting my place ready to open.
“Good. He and Raymond want us to go to a show with them next month, a musical or something. I don’t remember the name of it.”
Gary freezes, turns and looks at me like I just ran over a kitten. “How do you not know the name?”
“Um…because I forgot it?”
“Travis!”
“Gary!”
“I hate you,” he says, so I walk over, wrap my arms around his waist and pull him off the ladder.
“Well, I love you.” I have my moments of uncontrollable sap, which would be embarrassing if I didn’t love the bastard so goddamned much.
Gary’s arms knot around my neck and his lips come down on mine. I push my tongue into his mouth and wish like hell I could lay him on the floor right here and make love to him.
Before I can’t control myself, I pull away and set him down. “It looks great, really. Thanks for helping.”
“Of course I’m helping. We’re a team now, remember?”
Yeah…yeah, I do. It feels good being a part of a team like this.
I grab the second paint roller and start helping him. We talk about the opening and Martin’s upcoming wedding. My parents will be there, of course. We haven’t spoken since that day at their house, but I didn’t expect anything different. They’re too set in their ways and that’s okay. It’s not the outcome I want of course, but that’s life, isn’t it? Everything doesn’t always turn out perfect, but when I look at Gary, I’m reminded some things do. I hadn’t gone there that day for them. I’d gone there for me…for Gary, and I’d done what I’d needed to do. Like I’d told Mom and Dad, they know where I am if they ever want to talk to me.
His family on the other hand, is a different story. It only took me about a week to meet his dad, who’d insisted. About two weeks later his mom had come around.
“My mom called to check on the progress,” he says. “She’s telling all her friends about her son’s boyfriend’s massage parlor. She fucking loves you.”
“Is that really any surprise? I mean, I am me, right?” I tease, making Gary laugh.
“You’re such a cocky bastard.”
“Good thing you like cock.” I wink at him, earning me a look that says I’m ridiculous.
We spend the next few hours working at the shop. Just as we’re about to leave, Gary’s phone rings. “It’s Hayden,” he says. “I need to get this.” And then into the phone, he says, “Hello?”
Gary listens for a few moments, then closes his eyes and gives a soft, “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
My stomach twists as I wait to hear what’s happened, hoping everything is okay. Hayden is a good guy. He and Derek have been great friends to Gary.
“Do you want to go out? Trav and I can take you out?” Gary asks him, but I can tell by the look on his face Hayden says no. Huh. Must not be too bad if he’s talking about going out.
He listens for another few moments and then says, “Yeah. We can hang out this week. I’ll keep my eye open and let you know if I hear of anything. I can ask Jacob if he’s looking for a roommate, but I’m not sure.”
Ask Jacob if he’s looking for a roommate? What the fuck?
Gary moved in with me. He’s renting his unit to Jacob, and apparently Hayden is looking for a place to stay.
“Lance broke up with Hayden,” he says to me when they get off the phone.
“Shit. I’m sorry for your friend.” Hayden was really there for Gary when I had my head in my ass, so I definitely just want what’s best for him.
“He’ll be better off without him,” he says. “I really believe that. It just sucks. He sounded really torn up about it. Asked if Derek and I wouldn’t mind having a guys’ night next week.”
“You have all the guys’ nights you need with them as long as you end up in bed with me.”
I give him a quick kiss, and then we head out, locking up behind us. We only make it a few steps before I grab Gary’s hand, turn back and look at the sign above what will be my place. My chest swells with pride. “I did it,” I say softly. “I can’t believe I did it.”
“I can,” Gary says from beside me. “We’re going to have a good life, aren’t we, Travis?” he asks me. Nothing went the way either of us thought it would. We each had a long road filled with way too many potholes, but when I look at him, all obstacles that brought me here were worth it. I know he feels the same.
“Yeah, we are, Superass.…We are.”
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Riley Hart
Riley Hart is the girl who wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s a hopeless romantic. A lover of sexy stories, passionate men, and writing about all the trouble they can get into together. If she’s not writing, you’ll probably find her reading.
Riley lives in California with her awesome family, who she is thankful for every day.
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Devon McCormack
A good ole Southern boy, Devon McCormack grew up in the Georgia suburbs with his two younger brothers and an older sister. At a very young age, he spun tales the old fashioned way, lying to anyone and everyone he encountered. He claimed he was an orphan. He claimed to be a king from another planet. He claimed to have supernatural powers. He has since harnessed this penchant for tall tales by crafting worlds and characters that allow him to live out whatever fantasy he chooses. Devon is an out and proud gay man living with his partner in Atlanta, Georgia.
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