And then there was Gabriel…and the aliens. Of the two things Blake had to panic about back then, aliens took precedence. He’d never had to struggle like Gabriel did. It made him feel like a fraud. Like he hadn’t earned the right to be open and authentic.
“I—I can’t even imagine,” he said, a little sourly.
Gabriel looked down at him. “I’m glad.” He stopped them, taking Blake by the nape with his free hand. “You might think it’s some kind of badge of honor that I had to throw fists just for the right to exist, but it’s a sign of how awful some people can be. How backward and self-absorbed. And if I had to bleed a little so others could be free, then I’m glad. That’s what I signed up for when I joined the army.”
Gabriel tipped Blake’s face up so he couldn’t hide from him. “I’m not going to lie and say it was easy to see guys I considered closer than brothers turn away from me. Or worse, try to assert their own sexuality by hurting me. But everything I did, everything I do, led me here. With you.” He bent and kissed Blake, soft and sweet. “And I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing.”
They kissed again. And again. Blake went up on his tiptoes, wrapping his arms around Gabriel’s shoulders, melting againsthim because he knew Gabriel would hold him. Would always hold him.
The kiss at the motel, in the dark when Blake still had blood under his fingernails, didn’t count. This was their reunion. This was the moment where Blake could touch, feel, remind himself that through everything, Gabriel was it. The man who saw him through hell and back. The one who looked at the ugliest parts of himself and told him they were beautiful. He made Blake feel comfortable in his own skin. Gave him the joy of intimacy. The pleasure of touch.
Lips tingling, Blake kissed the corners of Gabriel’s mouth, relishing the burn of his stubble raking across his cheeks.
“You keep saying I have superpowers, but you’re the hero.”
Gabriel played with the hair at the base of his skull, kissing him again. “I don’t need to be a hero. I just need to be yours.”
Emotion clogged his throat, and Blake hugged him tightly. The stale smell of clothes washed with hotel shampoo mixed with the intoxicating aroma of masculinity that Blake could only describe asGabrielGabrielGabriel.
With a final kiss, Gabriel tugged Blake forward, leading him to a large, Victorian-style home with a latticed front porch and gable over every window. The house was all right edges, the kind of home that threw sinister shadows that reminded Blake of all the low-budget scary movies he was never supposed to watch as a kid.
Gray, with contrasting white trim, it was a beautiful home that had obviously been maintained with love. One of the upper-floor windows was cracked, and leaves were gathered along the creases in the gables. The shingles on the roof of the impressive turret looked to have been blown off, but Blake had never seen a house quite like it.
It was cooler when they stepped onto the shaded front porch. The well-worn wood creaked under their boots, but ratherthan being unsettling, it sounded homey. Like the porch was welcoming them with a soft sigh, happy to have residents after being alone for so long.
Gabriel led them straight to the front door, twisting the brass knob and letting the door swing open on oiled hinges. He stepped into the dim interior and immediately began making his way through the cluttered front room. Blake followed him, noting the boot prints on the dusty hardwood.
He’s been here before,Blake thought as his eyes adjusted, and he got his first look at the interior of the home.
Whoever owned it had clearly kept up with the Victorian charm. The staircase banister to the left had old-world spindling, and dark, matching paint for the walls and ceiling. Even the furniture looked of the period, with curled legs, stiff patterned fabrics, and upright backs. They looked terribly uncomfortable, and that was before the protective plastic cover.
While the sitting room was cluttered, there was a kind of coziness to it that Blake’s sterile, modern apartment in the city didn’t have.Charmwas the buzzword realtors like to use when describing tiny rooms, impossible to heat high ceilings, matchbox-sized closets, and only one bathroom in the entire home.
“C’mon,” Gabriel nodded toward the back of the house and guided Blake through a formal dining room with the loudest wallpaper he’d ever seen, into what he assumed was a study. With no exterior windows, it was difficult to see until Gabriel opened the door a little wider and light spilled in to reveal more than a study.
A library.
Another uncomfortable-looking settee was the focal piece in the middle of the room, but Blake barely noticed it when he saw that all four walls were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.Complete with a rolling ladder. The room was beautiful, sparsely decorated to let the books shine.
And shine they did. There were no pompous books set out for looks only; these books were all read, with dog-eared pages and broken spines. He spotted the usual fare likePride and PrejudiceandFahrenheit 451,but more importantly to him, there were endless lines of mass market paperbacks.
He stepped forward and ran his fingers across the wrinkled spines. His finger left a trail in the fine dust across bent covers. Blake pulled one off the shelf at random, a thriller where the author’s name was bigger than the title. The cover was glossy under his thumbs, and he opened the book to press his nose into the spine. It smelled like dust, paper, and ink. The familiar cream pages tickled his cheeks, and for a moment, he was back at his school library, getting lost in the shelves.
When he’d breathed his fill, he let the pages flip between his fingers. He looked up to find Gabriel watching him, his face soft. He had his arms crossed, one shoulder leaning against the door frame.
“You said there was only one!” Blake accused, thinking back to the bodice ripper he’d read cover to cover twice now.
“I know,” Gabriel’s face fell. “I found this a couple of months ago and thought I could keep it a secret. Bring you a book or two at a time, it would be like fun surprises. But then I realized I was wrong. It was selfish to try and…” Gabriel paused and looked away briefly. “To keep you dependent on me.”
Gabriel stepped forward and gently took the book from his hands, placing it on the shelf so he could hold Blake’s hands again. He brought his knuckles to his lips and kissed them.
“You know, when I was in the army, I saw so many relationships break up—a lot of them for the better. But a lot of them started out with the soldier being too preoccupied. Too invested in their team and the job, they took their partner forgranted. They made their partner feel like an option.” Gabriel tightened his grip on his hands so Blake could feel Gabriel’s breath ghosting over his knuckles and his stubble teasing his skin.
“You are not an option, Blake. You never were and never will be. You are the only thing worth surviving for, and I’m so sorry I forgot that.”
Blake’s mouth was dry. Where he previously couldn’t take his eyes off the books, now he was trapped in Gabriel. In the way his eyes shifted colors, now a rich gray, to the soft lilt in his voice. A little bit of his northeastern accent tweaking his vowels. It was the same face Blake had looked at a thousand times, and it hadn’t changed. Blake had.
Because this time, Blake was looking at Gabriel as more than a commander. As more than his lover. Even as more than a man. Blake was looking at Gabriel as a person. One who was here before him, scraping his insides raw begging Blake for something he wasn’t qualified to give him.
