Hitting that button? It’s one morefuck youto the man who tried to take everything from me. But more than that? It’s reassurance. Proof I survived.
I wish I had someone to celebrate with. Sure, Graham will be here in under an hour, and we’ll have the “getting to know you” talk. But he won’t understand how important this is to me. How big of a milestone it really is.
“You didn’t win,” I whisper, even though Alec can’t hear me. The words still bring me peace. Satisfaction. Maybe even a hint of pride.
Maybe I can’t walk to the grocery store or the coffee shop. Maybe I’ll never be able to do those things. But this? This win means more to me than anything. I’m here. I deserve happiness. And maybe even…love.
* * *
Graham
This isn’t like any other first date I’ve been on. Going to the guy’s house? It’s something you might expect to see onUnsolved MysteriesorDateline. After one member of the couple disappears.
But Q isn’t like anyone I’ve met before. And maybe this is more my speed. Maybe it has been all along.
He opens the door wearing a pair of khaki pants and a short-sleeved blue Henley, and it does things for his chest and arms that should be illegal. His cheeks redden the longer I stare without moving, until finally he clears his throat. “Um, do you want to come in?”
Hell, yes.
“Sorry. I was enjoying the view.” The flush spreads down to his neck, and I carefully brush past him with the massive pizza box and six pack of lager. “Big Mario’s is an institution in this neighborhood. But if you hate New York style pizza, there’s another place around the corner we can try.”
All four locks click into place, and Q joins me in the kitchen. “I appreciate pizza in all forms.”
He’s relaxed tonight in a way I haven’t seen before, and I want to ask him what’s changed, but I won’t risk spooking him, so instead, I pass him a beer.
“To starting over?”
Q twists the top off the bottle and swallows hard. But he smiles, and it’s about the best damn sight in the world. “To starting over.”
* * *
We’retwo beers in before we move beyond the superficial. Q designs websites for a living, work he can do from anywhere, graduated from Texas A&M, and a couple of years ago was working for a little weekly newspaper when he discovered the paper’s owner was into child pornography.
“Shit. I remember that case.” Draining the last of the beer, I relax, draping my arm over the back of the couch. “Seattle has a really popular weekly too—The Stranger—and when the bar’s not busy, I read it between customers. The guy went to jail for at least fifteen years, right?”
“Seventeen. The judge knocked a few years off because he helped break up the ring that was distributing the images.” Q rubs his palms on his khakis, his shoulders hiked up almost to his ears.
“Hey. Ease up.” I lay my hand over his. “We don’t have to talk about this. Or anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
“It’s not...” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “Everything makes me uncomfortable.” Just as I’m about to offer to clean up the plates and our empty bottles, he adds, “Except this. You. Here.”
He scoots closer so my arm is almost around his shoulders. Fuck. I feel like I’m in some romanticized memory where I wasn’t the only gay kid at my high school. One where I had the courage to pull a move this suave on a date.
“How long has it been?” I ask quietly.
“A year.” He stares down at his knees, picking at an invisible piece of lint on his pants. “That was my last relationship. The...uh...the bad one.”
Dammit. I canfeelhim withdraw, shrinking back inside this hard shell no one can penetrate just to keep himself safe. Playing with a lock of hair curling over his collar, I press my thigh to his. “I haven’t dated in years. Did the Tinder thing here and there for a while. Always hated myself the next day. Until…” How much do I tell him? About my own past? About why I haven’t had a relationship since that awful night eight years ago?
“Until?” The tremble in his voice makes me want to hold him and promise him that everything will be okay, but I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Learned that from Ryker and Wren. All I can offer him is the truth and hope it’s enough.
“I found a family. Hidden Agenda. The people there—and in our partner company, Second Sight in Boston—they’re like my brothers and sisters. Once I realized that? I stopped searching for meaning in anonymity.”
I’m rambling. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m making any sense.
“I’ve always had anxiety.” Q slides his thumb over the label on the bottle of beer, then starts working a corner free, staring at it like it holds the secrets of the universe. “Only had a couple of boyfriends before…him. And after…” He shrugs. “Hard to meet anyone when you don’t leave the house.”
“You met me.”
