“I’d hope so.”
They set to dressing, moving around each other with ease because they could expect and plan for the other person's movements. The comfort that existed between them wrapped around Jace like a warm blanket, and he treasured it more than Callahan would ever understand.
Jace knew he wasn’t easy. He knew the way he’d been brought up would always linger in his mind, and he knew it would be hard for him to trust in the words Callahan said to him. Thankfully, Callahan backed everything up with actions, and for Jace, that was enough.
“What are you thinking about?” Callahan asked, pulling the tie he liked off the rack and threading it around Jace’s neck.
“Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I was thinking about the first Christmas with Jill and Ted after they adopted me,” he answered.
As he built his home with Callahan, he found himself thinking about his adoptive parents a lot, and about the life they’d given him when so many others had walked away. For so long, he’d seen his life through a distinctly Jace-colored lens, and he’d never stopped to think about what it had to have been like for them to bring a brash and moody teenager into their home, the worries they must have had bringing in a kid older than two of their own biological children.
He didn’t give them enough credit, understanding that a home was people not a place, and while he’d never be as selfish to think they’d brought him in to make that home for themselves and their own kids, he appreciated his sisters’ love more than he had before. Home was meant to be a safe place. His space with Jill and Ted had been safe, even if he’d fought against it, and this life now with these walls he shared with Callahan…they were only as safe as he’d let them be.
He fought back the bitter memories of foster care and childhood bullies, and he made room for Callahan’s soft declarations of affection and promise, and found it was enough.
“What about it?” Callahan asked, making a knot at the base of Jace’s throat.
“How nice it was, but also how scary,” he admitted.
Callahan pressed the ends of the tie flat against Jace’s chest, then popped open the buttons on his shirt cuffs. He rolled them up, as Jace always did, his fingers tickling through Jace’s fine arm hairs.
“Like now?” Callahan asked, a knowing smirk on his face.
“Like now.”
“I thought you might think so.”
From the other end of the house, the door opened and closed, and Jace knew Remington had let himself, and everyone else in. The sounds of laughter and bottles landing against the marble counters in the kitchen filled the house.
“You know me so well.” Jace smiled, and swallowed back his trepidation. Everyone he loved was here, in the home he’d built for himself.
“I want to know you better,” Callahan said softly, reaching into his pocket. He pulled something out and tucked it into Jace’s palm, folding his hand closed around the object. “I’d like to know you forever.”
Jace unfolded his fingers, revealing a simple gold band.
“Callahan,” he croaked, but Callahan was swift and sure, more confident in himself than he’d ever been, and he was down on one knee with Jace’s hand clutched firmly in his own.
“Marry me,” Callahan said, a crooked smile on his face. He took the ring from Jace’s palm and slid it around Jace’s ring finger, not pushing it past the knuckle.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
“You told me once, there’s truth in you and me.” Callahan licked his lips. “There’s truth in this.”
Jace nodded, and Callahan pushed the ring down onto his finger and stood. He kissed the spot on Jace’s hand where the ring covered his skin and the cool metal, mixed with Callahan’s dangerously hot mouth, caused him to shiver.
An insistent fist pounded on their bedroom door.
“Your guests are waiting,” Sebastian shouted through the wood.
“We don’t like to wait,” Remington called out.
Jace knew they needed to go, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from Callahan, the way his lips pressed against Jace’s skin, the way the recessed lights in the closet bigger than his last bedroom reflected off the gold band that now adorned his finger.
This was his life now, and if it wasn’t…if it was all just a dream, then Jace never wanted to wake up.
