“There’s a guy?” Kai mocked.
“What do you mean?” Steel asked.
He slowly raised his head. He didn’t know how to find the words, but from the shocked expressions meeting his gaze, he didn’t have to.
“Aguyguy?” Kai screeched.
Steel put a hand over his husband’s mouth, staring Wilder down with a strange look in his steely blue eyes. “You mean…?”
“Why do I get the feeling this surprises you more than Jane and Solo?” he drawled, sitting back with a sigh.
Steel pressed his lips together, glancing at Kai, who pulled his husband’s hand off his mouth and threaded their fingers together before putting their hands on his lap.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kai smirked. “Because you don’t do relationships?”
Wilder felt his brows lower.
“What do you feel when you think of him?” Steel asked.
He sat back, trying to think of what those feelings were. What had driven him to not only kill to protect him, but to that burning need in his veins that told him Emmett was his.
“Like my chest is lighter and heavier at the same time. Like I might die if I don’t get to see him smile again, if I don’t hear that laugh. Like the world didn’t start spinning right before I met him. Like I?” He almost spoke the word, halting only because it surprised him. Love. He loved Emmett. He wasin lovewith Emmett.
“There it is,” Steel whispered, his smile soft and a light sheen to his blue eyes.
“Hits you like a brick to the face, doesn’t it?” Kai said with a grin. “It’s the best and the worst feeling in the world becauseit comes with so much fear.” Steel muttered under his breath, stopping when Kai grabbed him by the chin and brought his face up, so they were looking into each other’s eyes as he said, “There is nothing I fear more than losing you.”
It took him a moment to realize that Steel wasn’t arguing or placating Kai because he couldn’t promise Kai that he wouldn’t lose him. He couldn’t promise that the world wouldn’t take him away from Kai.
That realization drove a stake of uncertainty through his heart. Nothing in life was guaranteed, especially when your life was surrounded by the kinds of dangers theirs were.
“You have all of me,” Steel said, leaning toward Kai. Just before their lips met, Wilder looked away, affording them the modicum of privacy he could give them from across the table.
“We’re not sucking face,” Kai teased, earning himself a light slap to his arm from Steel. He laughed, something devious twinkling in his dark eyes. “We’ll save that for when the kids are asleep.”
Steel grunted, muttering under his breath yet again.
Wilder sat back, trying to digest the knowledge, the emotions coursing inside him. If this was how Jane and Solo felt for each other… he understood that fear now. Understood it too well. Still, the bitter bite of betrayal didn’t leave. It felt like a crushing weight on his chest, and despite his newfound understanding, he still couldn’t remove it. He’d tried to dig it out, to let it go, but even knowing the root of it, he still wasn’t sure how.
“You know, you came here a broken kid with too many scars no one could see, and still, you protected everyone. You were always the buffer. The one to put things right. Even when you were a menace of a teenager.”
“Thanks.”
Kai shrugged.
“What he’s trying to say is that you always take care of everyone,” Steel said, a hand reaching across the table to squeeze Wilder’s arm. “Maybe it’s time you let someone take care of you?”
Something hard formed in his throat, his swallow painful.
“I don’t know if I can,” he whispered.
A smile tugged at Steel’s lips. “I know you think that, but you have to promise me you’ll try. You deserve that. You deserve to be loved.”
He wasn’t sure if he did. He was, however, completely certain straight into his soul that Emmett deserved to be loved. He deserved to be worshipped. To be told of his worth every day until he knew it was nothing but the truth.
Kai’s palm struck the back of Steel’s head, making him grunt and lift a hand to rub the spot as he glared at his husband.
“What the hell was that for?”
