Parker rolled his eyes and grinned. “I sent you ahead so I could get a glass of water. Which became extremely complicated when I had to go searching for both the glassandthe water.”
“How did either of us survive for the last eleven and a half boring years without this kind of excitement?” I wondered.
“Eleven years, seven months on Tuesday,” Parker corrected, moving toward the walk-in closet. Then he stopped and turned back to flash me a wide smile. “You know what? We can stop counting now.”
I grinned up at the ceiling as he rummaged in the closet and came out triumphantly brandishing his little red tin memento box.
I widened my eyes. “Thisis show-and-tell?”
“Disappointed?”
“Not even a little. Show me.”
I wanted to know everything about Parker’s life in Boston, about all the important things I’d missed. But more than that, I got that this was an expression of trust, another sign that there were no more walls between us, and that was something I craved.
“’Kay.” Parker hopped up on the bed and sat cross-legged with his back against my hip and the box in front of him. He paused with his hands on the lid and drummed his fingers impatiently. “I feel like there’s going to be a let-down here,” he admitted. “Like, if you think there’sactuallygonna be pictures of me with Mark Wahlberg, you’re gonna be—”
I leaned up and kissed him, hating that he felt vulnerable sharing this with me and loving that he was telling me anyway. “I love you,” I reminded him. “I have always loved you. Show me.”
Parker nodded and pried off the lid, then smiled softly down at what he saw.
He handed me a pasteboard coaster, bearing the green and gold Hoff’s bar logo.
“Okay, that’s not a surprise,” I said, smiling. “First coaster out of the pack?”
He nodded. “I helped design the logo too.” He pulled out the next item from the tin.
“Oh, look at you and Ethan,” I said, glancing over his shoulder at the framed picture in his hand. “College graduation? Ethan looks exactly the same.”
“He does,” Parker agreed. “But then, blonds get better looking with age.” He ran a hand through his own light hair and batted his eyelashes.
“I won’t argue with that,” I said softly, and he leaned down to brush an appreciative kiss over my lips… which turned into something else entirely when I grabbed him by the back of the neck and licked my way into his mouth. He dropped the picture somewhere on the bed and leaned over me, coasting his hand up my flank as he moaned.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Okay, maybe this was a bad idea. It’s been two days and we haven’t even had makeup sex yet. Show-and-tell can wait.” He bent to kiss me again.
“No,” I insisted, pushing at his shoulder even as my cock strained insistently against my jeans in protest. “No, this is good. Makeup sex can wait a few more minutes. Waiting’ll be fun. It’ll make it even better.”
Parker laughed. “You have a strange idea of fun, Jameson. You’re at least as weird as I am.”
“Which is why we’re perfect together,” I said serenely. “We get each other.”
Parker grinned. “And always have. See?” He took the next item out of the box and handed it to me.
“Oh, shit,” I said, sitting up straighter. “What the hell?”
It was a wooden block with the letters P-A-R-K-E-R carved out on each side, each one showcasing a different staining technique I’d learned in wood shop.
“You kept this thing?” I demanded, stroking a finger over the wood I’d spent what felt likedecades of my lifesanding to perfect smoothness.
“Uh, thisthingwas my fifteenth birthday present,” he scoffed. “And it’sbeautiful. And you made it for me. Of course I kept it.”
“Even after—” I began.
“Even after,” he said, nodding once. “Here.” He handed me a stack of pictures, and I leafed through them slowly.
One was from his homecoming dance senior year—our first “outing” as a couple,literally—where we posed with our arms around each other’s waists in matching dark blue suits and matching slicked-down hair.
Another was of me from that ridiculousHarry Potterrelease party the following summer, where I sported a “Muggle” t-shirt he’d bought me. One of my eyebrows was raised, like I recognized I was way too cool to be in this picture, but the grin on my face said I’d have done just about any un-cool thing Parker asked of me.
