“Me too,” he says, nuzzling me. I feel content. And this feels right. I’ve never been a guy to lose their mind after having sex with someone, but I’ve lost my mind when it comes to Charlie. “I feel lighter,” he declares.
“Probably because you’ve had blue balls for years,” I tease.
“That is true,” he jokes with me before his face falls for a moment, he’s lost in his mind. “I don’t want to scare you …” he starts, which does the opposite to me. Is he going to say that was fun, let’s keep fucking, but that’s all it will be? That he doesn’t see a future with me? “… but you feel this, too, don’t you? Or is it just me?”
Relief fills me. “I do.” I run my hands over his buzzcut. “I thought it was just me.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t want you to think I was one of those needy guys who like, has sex and then wants a commitment.”
“I was feeling the same,” I confess to him. I can’t believe he feels the same way as me. Hope blooms in my chest that this could be the start of something special.
He looks as relieved as I do. “Logistically, not sure how it’s going to work but …” he bites his bottom lip contemplating his next words, “… I want it too.”
My eyes widen. Did I just hear him say that he wants to try? I don’t want to appear too excited, but I’m fricken excited.Keep it cool, Derrick.“You want to make us work?”
He nods. “If you will have me. You deserve so much more than I can give you, Derrick, but I’m selfish and want to keep you for myself.”
That is the sweetest thing. “I’m rather selfish, too. Because you’re a catch, Charlie, and I hate that you don’t see it, but I’m also glad you don’t because no one else can snatch you up from me.” I lean in and kiss his plump lips.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to move to LA, though,” he mumbles his confession against my lips. I still, because my mind instantly goes to the negative space, that he’s not really into you, he’s just saying what you want to hear because the sex is good. But I push aside those words and listen to what he is really saying. LA scares him, not because of me but because of him and what he has been through. Montana is his safe space, and leaving that safe space after his trauma is scarier than me opening my heart to this man.
“That’s okay, we don’t need to worry about all those things just yet. All I care about is you and me, location is meaningless.” The relief is written all over his handsome face, it was the right thing to say. “Look, I’m obviously in my cowboy era, so I can’t wait to come out and see this ranch that you live on.”
“You’d look good in a pair of assless chaps.” He smirks, pulling me into his strong arms. I bite my bottom lip as the naughty thoughts swirl around my mind. “Derrick, don’t look at me like that. The images I have of you bent over a hay bale while I fuck you in the barn are bringing my dick back to life.”
Now my dick is twitching thinking about that scenario. “Let me check my schedule and see when I’m free to come out and try said scenario.”
“Fuck.” He groans as he lets his forehead press against my own. “I’m so fucking thankful you didn’t write me off. I’m not going to lie, mentally, things are going to be tough for me. After my accident, I had to protect myself because …” There’s a hitch in his voice. Oh no. “I don’t know if Jackson ever told you about my older brother Lyle.”
I didn’t know he had an older brother. Shit. This isn’t going to be a good story, I can feel it, especially in the dark cloud that has surrounded him. I shake my head, letting him know I don’t know anything about his brother.
“Lyle was the oldest, then Faith, me, and Everly,” he explains, and I can feel his body tense as he continues his story. “I looked up to Lyle, he was a superhero in my eyes. He’s the reason I joined the military. Unfortunately, a mission went wrong, and he never returned. We found out later that he was taken as a prisoner of war by terrorists. He was gone for a year, then he was extracted. Lyle was the last man alive. He watched his brothers die around him from the harsh conditions or torture.” Fuck. This is heartbreaking. I can’t stop the tears from forming while listening to him. “When Lyle came home, he wasn’t the same, he tried to be, but mentally he was tortured. A year after his home-coming he ended it, he couldn’t go on anymore. I was so angry. I couldn’t understand how he could do that to me, to our family, we loved him.” Tears fall down my cheeks. “Until my accident. Then I understood. What happened to me is nowhere near the hell my brother went through, but seeing your brothers die around you, seeing them struggle, and some succumb to that struggle scares you. And I guess, I know the fucked-up shit that is in my head, D, and then I met you. This pure, bright light of a person, and I knew that my darknessmight consume you, extinguish that light that burns so brightly in here,” he says, pressing his hand on my heart. “I pushed you away because I was scared that, for the first time, I wanted to live. That I wanted a future with someone.”
“You did?” I blubber through my tears.
“I’m a work in progress, D.”
I shake my head. “I like DIY.”
“I can’t be a burden to you,” he confesses, stroking my cheek.
“How could you be a burden?”
“There’s a million reasons, my leg, my PTSD, my dark thoughts.”
“There are a million reasons why I’m a burden for you, too. I work in fashion in LA, I have no filter, I’m a gossip, I’m vain, and I spend way too much money on shopping. I say inappropriate things at the wrong time, I’ll talk about our sex life to my friends, I have co-dependency with said friends, and I want to be a dad sooner rather than later.”
“All those things sound wonderful. Where do I sign up?” Charlie declares, cupping my cheek.
“I’m a handful,” I warn him.
“So am I.”
“I’ll embarrass you.”
“Luckily, I don’t embarrass easily.” He smirks.
“My life is chaos.”
