Thomas kissed the back of each of Aiden’s hands. “And then you marry me.”
Aiden sucked in a startled breath. “Are you sure? You know the scandal it’s going to cause. We’re already going to be dealing with a shit storm if you do decide to tell the truth about your family’s deaths.”
“I don’t give a shit anymore,” Thomas said firmly. “I just don’t. I am not going to live my life without you. I don’t care what the press says, I don’t care what the papers say. I’m done putting my life on hold over something that happened when I was a child.”
“Okay.” Aiden chewed on his lower lip, unsure of what to say next.
Thomas sat up, turning in the tub so the water sloshed over the sides. He was on his knees before Aiden. At first, he thought maybe this was some kind of official proposal, with both of them naked in the bathtub.
Until he grabbed Aiden’s face, holding him so he met his gaze. “Can you forgive me?”
Aiden frowned, trying to force his brain to keep up with the shifting conversation. “What?”
“Can you forgive me?” Thomas said again, tearing up.
“For what?” Aiden asked, suddenly lost.
Thomas shook his head. “For everything. For driving you away. For pulling you back in. For using you every time I had a crisis. For calling you every time I was drunk and alone?”
“I—” Aiden started, only for Thomas to cut him off.
“There’s no excuse. None. I had no right to hold your life hostage like that, but I need you to believe me when I say that you’ve had this hold over me for so long, I don’t work without you. When things go wrong, you’re the first person I think to call. And I know it wasn’t fair to you. It’s probably not fair now, after wasting most of your life to ask you to marry me, but I’m asking anyway. Please forgive me. Please marry me. Please let me spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for all the shit I put you through.”
Aiden couldn’t breathe. How many times had he imagined this conversation? He blinked back tears of his own. “You’re right. You did hold me hostage.” Thomas’s shoulders sagged. Aiden grabbed his face and forced him to look at him. “But not because you called me in the middle of the night or because you were lonely. I told you the other night. I fell in love with you the day I saw you and nobody but you would ever do for me. Even if you hadn’t called. Even if you’d banished me and cut me off from the family. I would have still loved you. I would have still waited for you. I’ll never stop waiting for you.”
Thomas slammed their mouths together in a sloppy kiss, holding Aiden’s head with both his hands. They were both crying, both a mess, both clinging to each other while snot ran down their faces. It was hardly romantic. They must have looked ridiculous.
When they finally released each other, Thomas said, “I need to hear you say you forgive me. If you do, that is.”
Aiden sighed, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. “I forgave you the day you told me to come home for good. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here.” He cupped his face. “But if you ever try to leave me, Thomas Mulvaney, Iwillkill you. Slowly. Painfully.” He punctuated each word with a kiss on his lips. “Do you copy?”
Thomas smiled, capturing his mouth in a much longer, much filthier kiss, before saying, “Yes, sir.”
Thomas was still in bed when he heard Aiden enter the room. He wouldn’t normally have slept quite so late, but today was his birthday and Aiden had insisted. He stretched, listening to his bones crackle and pop as he watched him approach, hands behind his back and a mischievous look on his face.
Thomas pulled himself up until he reclined on the pillows but made no effort to sit up. “Whacha got there?”
Aiden presented him with a pink bear with hearts stitched onto its stomach and the pads of its feet. Another Care Bear. Thomas laughed, catching it when Aiden tossed it to him, before falling on the bed, laying his head on Thomas’s belly.
“Another Care Bear? He’s not even born yet and you’re already spoiling him,” Thomas teased.
“Not a second too soon,” Aiden said. “I heard Calliope swearing a blue streak because her laptop doesn’t sit right on her belly and she can’t wrestle her chair close enough to the desk. He’s going to come out with an extensive vocabulary of swear words,” Aiden said.
He took the bear from Thomas then pushed it into his face playfully. “Besides, it’s not for him, it’s for you. From me. For your birthday.”
Thomas laughed softly, then leaned down, cupping Aiden’s head to lift him for a kiss. “You spoil me.”
“Isn’t that my job?” Aiden asked.
“Your job is a private investigator,” Thomas reminded him.
“It’spro bono,” Aiden countered. “Is it even a job if you don’t get paid?”
When Aiden had come home, he’d brought Lola with him. He’d been unwilling to give up his friend and she was happy to skip town and start a new life, though Thomas suspected that had more to do with Calliope than it did Aiden. The two had been living together since she’d arrived.
It had taken Aiden a couple of months to settle their affairs in Washington and close down the PI practice there. Two long months of Thomas talking to Aiden on FaceTime as he did his best to get his own shit together so they were ready for the inevitable scandal that would be Thomas’s and Aiden’s official nuptials.
“It’s our job to spoil each other,” Aiden said. “It was in the vows—”
