I rolled my eyes, even if his teasing was cute, and before they rolled back, I found my hand jerked, and I was sprawled on top of him.
I rearranged myself so I wasn’t sprawled, just laying, and looked down at him.
When I saw he wasn’t fully committed to a lighthearted, teasing vibe, I asked, “Is there something I’m not getting here?”
Put-it-all-out-there Gabe put it out there.
“I love them. They went through Denise with me. Having her and not. Losing her the way we did. They went through Ariana with me, and both of them instantly disliked her. Both of them talked to me about her. The whole, ‘are you sure about this one, son?’ shit. Or I thought it was shit at the time. I didn’t see what they were seeing. I thought they were being overprotective after Denise.”
“Did they like Denise?” I asked carefully.
“They liked her a lot. They didn’t like her with me. That wasn’t about her. Not sure this makes sense, but they saw how hard I was working with her, and they wanted easy for me.”
I got that, so I nodded.
I wasn’t sure I’d be easy, but I wouldn’t be Denise (or Ariana).
“I’m less pissed that they pulled what they pulled and more pissed at myself for how obvious it is I put them through shit I should not have put them through.”
Oh.
My sweet man.
“It’s always going to be something, baby,” I told him. “It’s part of parenthood. Mom went through what Christian did to me, and onward to Kevin. And as an aside, she was second mom to Jen, so she went through losing her too. Eventually, you have to give your kids the space to make their own decisions, which means make their own mistakes. But that isn’t going to stop you from being a parent and wanting to intervene if mistakes are being made.”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“And I think it says a lot about them, that they’d make the effort to come down here and look after you.” I put a finger to his lips when he was about to say something. “Oh, for sure, I know you’re a grown-ass man. I know that really well.”
He smiled under my hand.
I curled my fingers, ran them along his jaw and kept speaking.
“But they obviously love you a lot, and it’s rare a lot of love is ever a bad thing.”
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Are you over it?” I asked.
“No choice,” he answered. “I love them too, and they weren’t coming from a bad place, so…yeah.”
“Can we have our sex sesh now?” I asked.
That got me a Gabe Grin, and he asked back, “Sex sesh?”
“I’m tired, so my body votes hot and heavy quickie. But it’s relatively early for us, and as such, my brain is saying long and lazy, but also hot and heavy.”
He started chuckling.
But, I’ll note, he did it while pulling us out of the couch.
I was frowning as he led me to the stairs, holding my hand.
“You’re not going to carry me?” I asked.
He looked down at me.
Then he bent and hoisted me up on his shoulder.
