by Anders Grey
As the shock passed, I realized Johnny was serious. I knew how complicated his feelings about that house were. Maybe this was the fate the estate was always destined for. I put my hand on his shoulder as an offer of silent support.
The disbelief gradually faded until it dawned on Johnny’s friends that he was being completely honest. Tears welled in both Amanda and Molly’s eyes.
“Johnny, I… You don’t know what this means to us,” Amanda murmured. She got up from her seat to hug him and was quickly joined by Molly. Johnny came out of the group hug with a flustered blush, but he was smiling.
“You both deserve it,” he said. “It might take you a while to settle in to Rosecreek, but it’s not that bad once you get used to it.” He added a wink that might have been directed more towards me.
The girls laughed, then cried, thanking Johnny profusely.
“Hey,” Mat said once they had calmed down. “So if you gave them your house, where do you intend on moving?”
Johnny turned to me, and in that moment I realized what his grand plan was.
“Oh,” I said, my eyes going wide. “Oh.”
He gave me a wry smile. “Well, I was hoping you’d say yes, but–”
“Yes!” I cried, my heart flipping. “Yes, of course you can move in with me!”
Johnny beamed, then before I knew it, he was kissing me. My heart felt full and warm, and was nearly bursting with excitement.
“Thank God you said yes,” Johnny began with a grin, “because my well-thought-out backup plan was to live in a tent in the yard.”
“Oh, come on, you know we would’ve at least given you the basement,” Molly teased.
As our lunch wrapped up and we milled around in front of the cafe, Johnny made plans with the girls to discuss all the important matters. Mat pulled me aside.
“Hey,” he said. “Uh. Thanks. For being there for Johnny.”
“You’re welcome.” I smiled. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is,” Mat agreed. “He seems… I dunno, brighter around you. Like there’s a big weight off his shoulders. There used to be this sharp edge about him that’s softened up.”
I recalled Johnny’s behavior during his confrontation with Nash and how easily he’d backed off once I spoke my mind, and how mild his reaction to his parents’ letter had been compared to the first time he got news from the lawyer. Maybe I hadn’t realized since the gradual shift happened right in front of me, but Johnny really had changed.
“Anyway.” Mat clapped me on the shoulder. “Take care of him, all right?”
“I will,” I promised.
As the goodbyes wrapped up, Johnny hopped into the car with me, practically radiating cheer. His aura was pleasantly buzzed and he hadn’t stopped smiling in half an hour.
“So,” I said, smirking, “what was your real plan if I’d said no, you cannot move in with me?”
He laughed. “I already knew you’d say yes.”
“How?”
“Call it boyfriend’s intuition.”
I snorted but leaned in to kiss him anyway. He was cute when he was cheeky.
“By the way, you never told me what you were going to do with the letter,” I said. It had been a burning question on my mind since Johnny told me he’d decided and then disappeared for a few days.
“Oh, right.” There was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Drive us home, and I’ll tell you.”
I raised a brow and put the car into drive. “Okay, but you better not distract me with sex this time.”
“No promises.”
35
Johnny
As I stepped across the threshold of the front door, I felt a deep sense of calm knowing this home was no longer mine. If there were any ghosts looking down and judging me for gifting the estate to someone else, I didn’t care.
Because Cain was my home now.
“So,” Cain began as he followed me upstairs. “All your furniture and stuff. Are you keeping it?”
“Dunno. The couches at your place are pretty nice,” I teased. “Honestly, though, I’ll talk it over with Amanda and Molly. They can keep what they want, and I’ll take the rest. Unless you think it’s junk.”
“I don’t think it’s junk,” Cain said, pursing his lips. “Okay, except that one industrial lamp. I hate that thing.”
“Fair. But I only bought it to manipulate the lawyer.”
“I know that’s what you did, but it still sounds evil when you say it like that.”
I laughed, making a mental note to dump the lamp.
“Wait here,” I told Cain outside the office, since I had a feeling the whole room made him nervous. As I picked up the envelopes, I wondered how Molly would turn this room into a bright, perky office for her own business.
I stopped before leaving the office. A tinge of nostalgia and sadness swirled in my chest.
Maybe I’d ask Cain if he wouldn’t mind holding on to a couple of things my parents left behind.
With the letter clutched in one hand and the money envelope in the other, I left the office. Cain watched me. Though his expression was solemn, he was trying to smile for my sake.
God, I loved him.
“So,” I said. “I’m guessing that since you agreed to let me move in with you, you know that I’m not going to run off chasing some poor woman and begging her to be my wife.”
Cain smirked. “I sure hope not.”
“And I’m guessing you know that I’ve decided not to leave Rosecreek.”
He nodded, and this time his smile reached his eyes.
“Now, the only thing left to deal with is this letter.”
“And your inheritance,” Cain murmured a bit sadly. He sighed. “I’m sorry, Johnny, but we can make it work. You won’t have to worry about money like you did before.”
I chuckled and Cain shot me a confused glance.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
I held out the smaller envelope to him–the one that contained the check.
It was opened. It was also empty.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
A slow smile spread over my lips. “I claimed the inheritance money. It was what my parents left for me, and me alone. It was my right.”
Cain’s eyes widened. “But… what about the letter? What about the part about you finding a wife?”
I lifted the letter in question. The venomous words that had twisted a knife in my guts and stung so badly no longer held that power over me anymore. Now they were just a reminder of the kind of people my parents had been. Bigoted, stuck in the past. Too obsessed with their own ideal of me to see the real me. We could have had a real relationship if they only reached out and tried to connect without any of the manipulation tactics.
But I knew now too that they weren’t completely awful. Despite all the gatekeeping, they still left the mansion to me. I know that must not have been easy for them. And maybe it was just a naive idea, but part of me thought that my parents knew I would disregard their letter and claim the inheritance in the end.
“It’s not a legal document,” I said. “It was more of a guilt trip suggestion. One last ditch effort at forcing me to live the life they wanted.”
I crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it in the recycling.
That letter wasn’t the way I wanted to remember my parents. There were less painful ways of doing that.
“Do you think I could bring some of my mom’s books over to your place?” I asked Cain.
He smiled gently. “Of course. Bring as many as you like.”
Before I could thank him, he closed the space between us and pulled me into a tight embrace. The rest of the tension melted from my body and I sighed, leaning into him. He was my pillar. My support.
“Come on,” Cain said. “Let’s go home.”
Roxy greeted us at the door yapping and wagging her tail so hard I was worried she would take flight. A while ago I never thought of myself as a dog person, but now I couldn’t imagine my life without t
his naked little dog.
“I’m gonna get so pissed if she starts choosing you over me when you move in,” Cain remarked, shooting me a fake glare as I kneeled to scoop Roxy in my arms.
“Jealous?” I asked. Roxy took advantage of my guard being down to lick my chin, making me groan. Cain laughed and took her from me.
“Oh, by the way,” I said. “Not to get all philanthropic on you all of a sudden, but the inheritance was a huge amount of money. Like, more than I’m ever going to need in my life. And frankly, I don’t like the way sudden wealth changes people sometimes. So I was thinking…”
Cain tilted his head. “Yeah?”
I bit my lip. “I wanted to donate a portion of it to the rescue you got Roxy from. So other dogs like her get a chance to be adopted by a nice gay family like us.”
Tears sprang to Cain’s eyes and his lip trembled. Careful not to squish Roxy between us, he hugged me, wiping his tears on my shirt.
“Johnny, I…” He laughed. “You’re the sweetest. I’m so grateful for you.”
I tucked a strand of stray blond hair behind his ear. “I love you, Cain.”
He lifted his head to kiss me. I don’t know how long we stood there as our tender kiss devolved into a deeply passionate make-out session, but it was obviously long enough for Roxy to get bored. She grumbled and leapt down to the floor, then barked at us.
We broke apart with a groan. The kiss made my cock stir to life, and there was nothing stopping us from spending the whole evening in bed, except–
“She probably wants dinner,” Cain suggested.
“Well, then, I can’t keep my princess waiting.”
“Oh, so now she’s your princess?”
“Hell yeah, she is.”
I ignored my dick long enough to go pour Roxy her dinner, then spun around back to Cain.
“Bedroom?” he said, quirking a brow.
“Bedroom.”
As Cain and I rushed upstairs, laughing and shoving each other playfully, then spent the night tangled up in the warmth and safety of each other’s arms, I felt a great, cosmic sense of joy. Everything felt right. It felt good.
I had spent ten years of my life hating Cain.
Now I was ready to spend the rest of my life loving him.
About the Author
Anders Grey lives with his husband and two furry kids of the canine variety.
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