“I used to be normal,” Jem lied, which caused another round of giddy shaking.
River loved him so fucking much. “Okay. We need a new plan. Are you ready?”
“Hit me with it.”
River kissed his nose. “I am going to learn to trust that good things happen to me sometimes. And you are going to kick that inferiority complex.”
Jem nodded along. “With you so far.”
“I am going to write you a thousand very embarrassing love songs.”
Jem’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “I am going to find out all your favorite recipes and make them for you all the time.”
Perfect.“Andwe”—River gestured into the minute space between their bodies—“are going to live happily ever after.”
“Deal,” Jem said immediately.
“Deal,” River agreed, giddy with happiness. But his curiosity wasn’t yet fully sated. “Now are you going to tell me why you still have your jacket on and you’re roasting to death?”
Jem barked with laughter and pulled away enough to look into his eyes. “Okay, well, I didn’t know originally if I’d get to see you in person to apologize, so Tori sort of suggested….” He drew the zipper down.
Under the jacket, Jem wore a plain white T-shirt with big black block letters that proclaimedStill Property of River Wild.
River clutched his chest in delight. “Sunshine. Thank God I saw you before the show.”
Jem flushed, running a hand through his boy-band hair. “Do you want me to change? It’s not exactly subtle.”
“I never want you to wearanythingelse.” Well—“Unless I buy it for you.”
“Sap.”
“Hmm. I learned it from you.” He ran his fingers in soft, soothing strokes down Jem’s spine and back. “Besides, I know how you get when I buy you pretty things.”
Jem snorted, then tilted his head in telegraphed consideration. “I mean… Icoulduse a new guitar. I got mineused like ten years ago. Pretty sure it needs refretting, and the bridge buzz isawful.”
River was sure people could hear his squawk from the other side of the arena. “You playguitar!?”
Epilogue
“It’s not toolate to run away,” River said.
Jem gave him a look that spoke volumes, all in a perfect deadpan. Then he added out loud, “I spend eight hours a day with two dozen five-year-olds. I’m not afraid of your mom.”
“I don’t think you’re afraid of her,” River protested.
Unfortunately, by this point Jem knew him too well.
He hadn’t exactly moved in, but his plants had. Apparently they suffered if left all alone in Jem’s apartment. What did that mean, if Jem didn’t live here but his plants did?
Probably that Jem lived here.
“No, so it’s something else.” He rolled over on the couch in the den, which had become their preferred cuddle spot, and planted his bony chin on River’s sternum. “Come on. Spill.”
River sighed, only about one-third serious. Maybe a quarter. “She’s going to like you so much. She’ll never let you out of her clutches. This is my last chance to keep you to myself.” She’d spent long enough thinking River’s early exposure to cult living had turned him into a drug-addicted megalomaniac who could only form attachments to Eric and Ward. Once she met Jem, a handsome, charming man with a petty streak a mile wide and River’s entire heart in his hands—once she ate his dinners—once she clocked the fact that River’d gone up an entire pants size in the past six months because Jem kept feeding him when he wasn’t paying attention—
Well, she’d probably propose marriage, if not on River’s behalf, then on her own.
Jem snorted. “I was going to say there’s plenty of me to go around, but uh….” He wrinkled his nose. “No. ‘Even my kindergarteners know how to share’ is out too.”
