“Are youokay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he spits out, then pulls my fingers back. “But I think that might be good fortonight.”
He closes his eyes, and as he works to soothe himself, I remind myself that he’s come such a long way and that recovery doesn’t take him nearly as long these days. Sure enough, moments later, he smiles and says, “A kiss would be nice.” I can tell he’s trying to lighten the moodagain.
He submits to my kiss, and the sensation of his lips, of those passions he stirs within me, renew me, and I hope it does the same forhim.
He snickers, which totally throws me, considering I was just worried about him having a panicattack.
“What?” I ask, pullingaway.
“You still have some glue on yourface.”
I reach up and feel the sticky spot on mycheek.
“Oh, damn. I better clean itoff.”
I start to roll off him, but his arms are wrapped tightly around me, keeping meclose.
“Oh, Mr. Westright, this is your octopus’sjob.”
“Mr. Westright is so inlove.”
We spend a moment just gazing into each other’s eyes. He still seems slightly on edge, but he’s not hiding it from me. He’s not beating up on himself. He’s just sharing this part of himself withme.
“That was really special—getting to share that with you,” Ericsays.
“It was special for metoo.”
“No, not just this. Even though I couldn’t take it further, it was actually nice to see we could come back into balance. Moments like that really help me. Milestones to encourage me in harder times. But I meant today—the event. That was special to be a part of. It’s nice getting to do that for those kids. It’s an amazing thing youdo.”
“I think it’s a little selfishactually.”
“Selfish?”
“Yes. Until I had Charlotte and Stan in my life, there were a lot of lonely Christmases, and they weren’t exactly fun times. It gets lonely in a foster home, and you watch these Christmas specials, and there was always something happening at the shelters and orphanages in those, and well, that wasn’t my experience. Everyone’s doing their jobs, but no one really cares. Like you’re a burden more than anything else. So it’s more for me, almost, than for thekids.”
“I understand. But Jesse, I saw how you handled that. Itwasfor them, and that’s more than most people are willing to do, so give yourself some credit now and then,huh?”
“Never feels like verymuch.”
“Would it have been a lot to you as akid?”
“Yes, it would have been nice to have something like this, at the very least, but you can never really do enough, canyou?”
He shakes his head. “No, you can’t, I guess. I understandthat.”
“Lots of understanding coming from youtonight?”
“Trust me, Jesse. I know what it’s like when no one cares. My dad certainly didn’t ever do any big deal over Christmas. I was glad I had Connie, but I couldn’t always see her during the holidays. It was nice when I did, but some years, we couldn’t make it, and that wasthat.”
I see this shimmer in Eric’seyes.
“I love you,Jesse.”
“Where did that comefrom?”
“What do youmean?”
