Chapter 5
Two Days Later
Casen rolled over and snuggled into Tam's side, refusing to wake up just yet. He didn't have anywhere to be and it was cold, thanks to the storm passing over again during the night. The sound of the rain battering on the roof had kept him awake into the early morning.
Savouring the warmth of his husband, he kept his eyes squeezed shut and contemplated life. He would never get back to sleep now that he was awake and, considering the things he'd dreamt about, he didn't muchwantto go back to sleep. He'd suffered a horrible, awful dream about what might have happened had Grayson turned down Konnor, back at the wedding reception where Lachlan said he'd first brought up the subject of marriage. It had been a long time ago, but early enough in their relationship that, had Grayson questioned living life with a man and not a woman as he'd once envisioned, there was time for things to have changed drastically.
Namely, Casen's dream had involved Konnor getting drunk and running to Tam for comfort, well before Casen or even Giovanni had entered his life. As full of forgiveness as he was, Tam had taken him back and they'd managed to reconcile a relationship from their past together. Grayson had gone on to marry a woman, who gave him kids, while Tam and Konnor stayed together. Without Grayson or Giovanni's actions to help life along, Casen had never met Tam and his life had turned out so different that he wanted to consider the dream more of a nightmare than anything else. But he knew that was unfair. Tam had once loved Konnor deeply, or at least thought he did. He could have been happy with that alternative life. Casen knew that much.
Still, he was glad to wake up and find Tam byhisside and ashishusband, instead.
It was Lachlan's fault. Or rather, Darren's fault for suggesting it and Lachlan's for seeing it through. Casen's newest friend, whom he'd only ever e-mailed until this trip, had admitted to reading a story that reminded him of Lachlan and Konnor's relationship, in the latest submission pile. It had been about two best friends, one who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend, suffering a misunderstanding and ending up together. Lachlan, of course, needed to read the story and find out more, just for morbid curiosity's sake. So they'd logged into Darren's submission board on the writing forum and read the story together, all three of them. It had been beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. Darren had already decided to accept it, thankfully, so Casen could look forward to having the paperback on his shelf within the year.
But, the problem had been the conversation that followed. Lachlan wondering aloud what might have happened had he not met Cormag and had agreed to date Konnor. With all three of them chipping in and offering ideas for the imaginary plot, it had been fun to discuss, but had left Casen with a bad taste in his mouth. Especially since none of them could come up with a happy ending, no matter how many times they backtracked and tried to rewrite it.
Eventually, they'd had to admit defeat and allow Lachlan to meet Cormag and Konnor to find Grayson, as their hearts and minds insisted they should. All while Casen's mind had secretly worked on overdrive, to ask what life might have been like for Konnor and Tam had they come back together again or, even worse, had always been in love.
He didn't like the answer his over-active brain had given him.
“What's wrong?” Tam mumbled beside him.
Casen almost flinched to realise his husband was awake. He only managed not to because it was becoming a bad habit of Tam's to lie awake for a while, first thing in the morning, if he already knew Casen was awake. It was an unofficial and very short 'long lie in together'. “Just thinking,” he promised, refusing to saywhathe'd been thinking. “Sometimes life turns out funny, doesn't it? I mean, meeting you took me by surprise; I'd never have imagined we'd be friends with Giovanni after all that happened. Or that Levi and Mack would be an item,” he confessed, trying to divert suspicion from his horrible dream.
Tam hummed and turned onto his side just enough to wrap him in both arms and brush a cheek against his forehead. “Life is strange. So is love,” he said, sounding so wise, even as his words were punctuated with a loud, long yawn.
Casen couldn't help but chuckle sleepily and let his fingertips caress the dip in Tam's spine. “It definitely is. What do you think about Konnor and Grayson getting engaged?” he asked, thrilled that they'd taken that next big step, when he'd always thought they never would.
“I'm glad,” his husband replied, shifting his legs until they tangled with Casen's. “Konnor's wanted to get married ever since he was a kid. To him, marriage is stability and 'forever', definitely not something you do twice or question once it's done,” he admitted.
That made sense, when he thought about how adamantly Konnor had pursued 'love' in all its glory, even down the wrong roads and alleys that all led to heartache. It was that ever beckoning thought of true love that kept him going, that gave him hope and made him fight even harder for what he wanted.
It was romantic, in a way.
“He's quite the romantic, isn't he? Dreaming of love, marriage and white picket fences?” he pondered, loving that about Konnor, but also lamenting over how much heartache it had given him. To search for something so desperately, only to face disappointment after disappointment. It was no wonder he'd thought himself unworthy, after being knocked on his ass by 'love' so many times.
What was it Lachlan had once said? An over eager heart can cause the most pain? Of everyone, he should know. Lachlan had spent his entire teenage years, until he met Cormag, believing that love was a lie or even just unreachable for him, because attraction itself was something so elusive that he'd never felt it before. When all he'd known of love was his parents' relationship, was it any wonder that he'd never noticed how Konnor felt about him?
“I feel like we've all been blind,” Casen confessed, tracing the contours of Tam's lean back as he thought to himself. “We were all raised with loving, happy families, with near perfect parents, who were deeply in love. With the exception of Konnor, whose parents turned against him, and Darren, whose mother was a piece of work, we were all living the dream. From childhood to adulthood, we had it made,” he said, wondering why he'd never considered this before. “Why did it take us so long to see in ourselves what we could see in our parents?”
Tam sighed, his breath ruffling Casen's hair. “You've lost me, baby. I'm not sure what you're getting at,” he said, only to yawn again. “It's too early for Lachlan's psycho-babble analysis.”
He smiled, because it was probably true. Spending time with Lachlan always made him a little more contemplative, because Lachlan's mind was always whirling with possibilities, outrageous ideas and the next big story. It was inspiring. “Love, Tam. When we met, when Konnor and Grayson met, even Darren and Giovanni, none of us ever recognised it for what it was. For love. Only Lachlan did, and even then he had to fight for it, to keep a hold of it, to convince Cormag that's what it was,” he reasoned.
Sitting up, only for the blood to rush to his head, Casen blinked a few times before continuing. “We'd grown up surrounded by love, but we couldn't see it when it was right in front of our faces. Inside our own hearts,” he explained, feeling strangely passionate about the idea. “Were we all just brainwashed into thinking 'that will never happen to me' or was it ignorance that made us think love could possibly be nothing more than lust?” he asked, though he had a feeling he would never get an answer.
“Maybe it was a little of both,” Tam theorised, before leaning forward and propping the pillow behind him, to sit up against the headboard just a little. “I mean, perfection is overrated and unbelievable. Falling in love as quickly as we did – or at least how it felt we did – doesn't happen in real life. When it came to us, baby, I was too scared to believe it could be real. True love didn't just happen like that; it took work and hardship, years of toiling and working together, like my parents did.”
With a smile, he snuggled back into Tam's side and thought about his words. “I suppose you're right. My folks took a while to get together, too. They must have dated for about three years before either of them thought about marriage,” he agreed, wondering if that was the real difference.
Did couples have it easier today? Did he and Tam have the luxury of no overbearing parents, no prejudices and expectations hanging over their heads when they met so that they could think and feel and act how they wanted to?
Casen remembered his grandmother insisting that she'd had no choice but to get married to his grandpa, because she got pregnant. There was no risk between two gay men and, even now, there was a much lower risk of health hazards than there used to be. Education had given them the freedom to experiment, try different lovers and see who fit the best, as well as an increased tolerance of gay men allowing them the freedom of dates and public displays of affection.
God, just thinking about it, Casen realised how damned lucky they were. They had so much freedom that people had fought and died for that he could barely wrap his head around it. Others had suffered so that he could walk down the street holding hands with his boyfriend. People had stood up to fight so that he could put on a suit and marry the man he loved in a proper, legal ceremony.
He felt so ungrateful, for taking that all for granted. He'd grown up in a world that said, “This is the twenty first century; I'm entitled to my rights”. A world that stuck two fingers up at old fashioned laws, then tore them down and rebuilt them into something more tolerant and accepting. They didn't even think of the hard slog to get here, unless it was a sanctioned holiday.
Casen wanted to do more. He wanted to make a permanent feature in the museum for LGBT history and show the world how far they'd come in their fight for equality. He wondered if Cormag would add his weight, if he brought it up in front of the museum panel?
“Are you going back to sleep or having an epiphany?” Tam whispered by his ear.
Smiling, Casen lifted his head and gazed up at his husband. “An epiphany. A massive one. One that will educate the masses of our little Briarwood town and pay due respect to the people we forgot along the way,” he confessed, feeling exhilarated by the idea.
Tam smiled and nodded. “Good for you. You want to shower first or just barge in and tell Cormag now?” he asked, once again never questioning his moments of clarity or lessening them in any way.
The support Tam gave Casen was worth more than its weight in gold. It was beautiful and wonderful; it meant more than anything else in the world.
He stole a quick kiss, then slid out of bed with a smile. It was going to be a glorious day and he was eager to get started. He had to talk to Lachlan about the dream he'd had and ask if he could re-write it into a story, then talk to Cormag about his museum idea and maybe even have a quick chat with Konnor about how amazing it was that he was finally getting to live his dream.
Somewhere in amongst all of that, he might even sit down and thank Konnor and Giovanni for the happy times they'd given Tam, before Casen had met him. It might not have ended well for either of them, but they'd made Tam happy and consider the possibility of love. For that alone, Casen wanted to thank them. If it wasn't for them, Tam might not have been ready to fall in love with him. And that would have been just awful.
