“I’m not saying your father is innocent, by the way.” The intensity of Jayne’s eyes bordered on bellicose. Despite his troubled past, he wasn’t afraid to make himself heard. Courage bolstered him in the same way that air did, flowing freely through his veins and feeding his every cell. Jayne was slight, but he was mighty. Adversity would not hold him back. “The issue here isn’t his purported guilt—it’s the fact that you’re holding everyone’s emotions hostage while you stew over what happened. If you’re going to cut him off, cut him off. If you’re going to forgive him, forgive him. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, then do it for Everett, okay?” Jayne blinked, and just like that, the warrior he hid within was gone. “Nothing gets solved if you don’t take actionable steps to solve it.”
Pressure built in Caleb’s sinuses—the onset of tears. Determined not to let them out, Caleb cleared his throat and squeezed Everett’s thigh, distracting himself. For a long time, life had been about the now—nights spent selfishly indulging in excess and the immediate gratification that came with it—but Caleb was coming to realize how stunted that mindset had left him.
He was more than a night at the club, he was more than a weekend between the sheets, and he was more than the negative emotions he’d let shape his life.
For Everett, for Jayne, and for himself, he would be better.
“Think about it, I guess.” Jayne shrugged, then hopped off the bed and stretched. “I’d love to sit here and play psychiatrist all day, but Parker and Shep are waiting for me, and when it comes down to it, I’m not that kind of doctor.” Jayne made his way to the door, but didn’t leave. He stopped short of the frame and seemed to consider something. “Do you remember what you said to me when I was on the kitchen floor? About letting all the toxicity out? About how I didn’t need it?” Jayne’s fingertips brushed the doorknob. “Some people don’t deserve to be in your life. Some do. Let go of whatever’s festering in your soul and make the choices you need to make, but don’t dwell on your hard feelings forever. Parents die. Relationships can fall apart. Love that you thought would last forever might not. It’s okay. Cry. Let it out. Admit that you were wrong, or double down and prove yourself right, but dosomething.”
Everett pinched his shoulder blades together, then shook his head once and relaxed. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he settled on silence instead.
“Or, you know, don’t.” Jayne stepped into the hall. “I accept that while I am excessively good looking, talented, and smart, I might be talking out my ass. It’s easy to tell someone else what to do when you’re not the one who has to do it, but there you have it—that’s my unsolicited advice. Take it or leave it.” He started to close the door, but stopped before it was fully shut. “After I get dressed and leave, I should be back in about an hour. The Biernackimobile has been acting up over the last few days, so I’m going to take it slow. If you get an SOS, you know who it’s from.”
Before anything could be said, Jayne closed the door the rest of the way, leaving Caleb and Everett alone. The hint was so blatant that not even Caleb could miss it—Jayne wanted them to talk.
“Everett,” Caleb began, but Everett shook his head. He rested his head on Caleb’s shoulder, and for a while, they sat in silence. Then, delicately, Everett kissed Caleb and left the bed. Caleb admired him quietly, studying the ample build of his shoulders and the slight taper of his broad chest to his hips. After almost three decades of friendship, it was easy to forget that the bond they shared took work to maintain, and that nothing about their relationship was a given. Caleb had been treating Everett like a best friend for too long. It was time he went back to treasuring him as a lover.
“Will you think about what Jayne said?” Everett asked. He tugged the blankets on his side of the bed into a semblance of order, then looked Caleb in the eyes.
Caleb lifted one corner of his lips in a smile. He was fortunate to have found a man who’d put up with his bullshit for as long as he had. It had taken Caleb more than a year to figure out why Everett wouldn’t drop the subject, but he understood now. Caleb’s relationship with his family was as big a deal to Everett as it was to Caleb, and Caleb would no longer let him think that he didn’t care. “Yeah. I will.”
“I’m going to shower before the kids get back. Do you want to join me?”
“Nah. Not this time, at least.” Caleb looked Everett up and down, and his smile grew. Everett was wonderful, and it was time Caleb proved it to him. “There’s something else I need to do.”
“Oh?” Everett snagged his favorite pair of Caleb’s underwear from Caleb’s dresser drawer, then started toward the bathroom door. “What?”
“I need to call my father.”
36
Everett
When Everett left the bathroom, Caleb was sprawled across the bed, his arm above his head, and his gaze fixed on the ceiling. Sunlight striped his bare chest. If it hadn’t been for the conversation they’d had prior to Everett’s shower, Everett would have assumed that Caleb was spending a lazy morning lounging wherever he found comfortable, but now he didn’t think that was the case. Something had to have happened, and Everett feared that whatever it was might not have been good.
“How’d it go?” Everett stopped and adjusted the waistband of the boxer-briefs he’d pinched from Caleb’s drawer. It had been his intention to head to the guest bedroom, where he kept his clothes, but sticking around to hear what Caleb had to say was more important. There was a distant, almost forlorn look in Caleb’s eyes that had him worried. He wouldn’t go until he knew everything was okay.
“It went… okay.” Caleb kept his gaze locked overhead. “We didn’t stay on the phone for long. I called him and apologized for being a flaming asshole for the last year and a half, and he asked me if I’d come over tonight so we could talk about it in person. That was it.”
“And?”
“And I agreed.” Caleb dropped a hand over his face and made a noise that was part groan, part anguished cry. “Everett, why the hell did I agree?”
“Because you’re taking actionable steps to solve a long-term problem,” Everett reminded him, borrowing Jayne’s verbiage. He sat on the end of the bed and patted Caleb’s calf. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Caleb made another agonized noise, this one reminiscent of a wounded elephant. “My father is going to disown me.”
“If he were going to do that, he would have done it already. Your father loves you.”
Caleb answered him with a garbled moan and dropped his hand. His arm flopped on the bed and bounced a few times before settling. It wasn’t unlike Caleb to exaggerate, but the last thing Everett wanted to do was dismiss him if he actually needed support. Wanting to help, he cast his damp towel aside and hopped onto the bed to settle by Caleb’s side. Caleb, needy, rolled over and tugged him close, so Everett wrapped him in his arms and cupped the back of his head.
“He does love you, you know.” Everett gave him a short but ardent kiss. “If he didn’t, he wouldn’t keep calling. He knows that he made a mistake. Parents are only human.”
“You sure about that?” Caleb’s hands dipped down until he could grope Everett’s ass. Pleasure spiked in Everett’s groin, and he pushed into Caleb’s hands. “After the stunt Jayne pulled last night, I think all parents might actually have superhuman powers.Sexpowers. Why didn’t we go after single dads before we met him? It was hot as fuck.”
Everett made a face. “If Jayne’s got them, it means our dads have them, too.”
“Fuck!” Caleb pushed Everett away, rolling himself defensively into a blanket cocoon and gagging comically while Everett cackled with laughter. Once he’d recovered from his bout of pretend nausea, Caleb lifted his head and pierced Everett with a dirty look. “Okay, rumor officially confirmed. Superheroes have to exist, because you killed my boner so quickly that I’m pretty sure you have to be a supervillain.”
