“Well, well. What do we have here?” He raised a brow. “Something you want to share with us?”
“It’s a wonder we’ve remained friends all these years, Juli,” said Marcus, biting back a grin. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”
“Because you love me,” said Julian promptly. “So, if I’m right, you two are together now?”
“Yes to that and maybe to the first,” he said, granting the smile threatening his lips full access. “Go ahead; give me your best shot. I’m waiting.” To think he was in a committed relationship with a man who had a young child. What the fuck was he doing? Then Tyler took his hand and laced their fingers together, and Marcus remembered why.
To his surprise, Julian merely shook his head and slid his arm around Nick’s waist. “I’m happy for you, Marc.”
Those simple words, with no sarcasm or joke behind them tore Marcus up enough that he couldn’t speak. And from the small nod and warmth shining in his eyes, Julian understood.
Julian was never one to let a question remain unanswered or a topic slide. “Aside from obvious reasons, Tyler, why is the fact that both Nick and Sam punched your boyfriend so funny?” He paused and shook his head. “Marcus and boyfriend in the same sentence. The Earth may have stopped on its axis.”
Having regained his ability to speak, Marcus squeezed Tyler’s hand. “You don’t have to answer him, you know.” Marcus nudged Tyler. “He’s having entirely too much fun with this conversation at my expense.”
“As he should.” Tyler kissed his cheek again, then addressed Julian. “And it’s funny because I decked him also. Put him right on his ass in my dressing room.”
“It wasn’t that funny,” Marcus grumbled, though even he found it hard to contain his grin.
The room exploded with laughter; several minutes passed before the hilarity quieted down and they could speak.
“Priceless. We might need tee shirts for you all.” Julian wiped his eyes and picked up his coat from the coat rack in the corner. “Well, we’re heading home. Thanks for this momentous occasion, Tyler.” He gave him a hug, and Zach waited right behind him.
“Welcome to the family.”
Watching his friends accept Tyler with such ease, Marcus beat back the doubts circling his mind. Could he be the man they believed him to be—faithful to one person, taking someone else’s needs into consideration. He hadn’t prepared for Tyler walking into his life; a life he’d planned on sailing through alone, easy and unencumbered.
Julian once said one never plans for something like this to happen, and he had to admit his friend was correct. Lately he’d been more dissatisfied, helpless and angry, watching his world change and unable to control his friends creating lives apart from him. Lives he’d no longer had a place in.
Tyler made him happy, and he hadn’t been happy for a while. He wanted to make him happy as well, and protect Lillie from all the evil in the world. The one thing he didn’t want was to be the man his father was. He’d do anything and everything to prevent that from happening.
Chapter Eighteen
‡
“Live here forkeeps? With Marcus?”
Lillie sat on the sofa next to him while Marcus chose to sit on the overstuffed club chair. She’d never know what happened that weekend, how they’d almost split apart, then came back together, and he and Marcus decided when she came home from school on Monday, they would have The Talk with her.
He and Marcus had planned what they were going to tell Lillie. Marcus had thought to keep it from her, but Tyler refused to sneak around and insisted they tell her the truth and let her ask as many questions as she wanted.
“Would you like that?”
Serious round blue eyes met his own, and she sat still, her face screwed up in thought. Every few seconds her gaze would flicker to Marcus, then skitter back to him.
Tyler had no doubt Lillie would love living in Marcus’s apartment; who wouldn’t want to live in a luxury building? His concern ran deeper than that; if Lillie didn’t feel comfortable with Marcus and him together, they’d have to figure something else out.
“Are you gonna get married like Jacob and Rebecca’s daddies?”
Marcus’s brows rose high. “Uhh, sweetheart, your uncle Ty and I don’t know each other well enough to get married.”
At the panicky, deer-in-the-headlights look in Marcus’s eyes, Tyler choked back the bubble of laughter threatening to escape. “We aren’t getting married, but we will be more than friends.”
“I saw Micah kissing Josh; have you kissed Marcus?”
He nodded and waited for her response. She surprised him by sliding off the sofa and going over to Marcus, who watched her with a mixture of amusement, fascination, and a touch of fear. It was a dichotomy Tyler had never thought to see: Marcus holding a conversation with a child. He only hoped Marcus would learn to tolerate Lillie. In the month they’d lived here, he and Lillie had only minimal contact, since his hours at Sparks prevented him from spending time at home in the evenings.
“Are you Uncle Ty’s boyfriend?”
