Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Hey, you’re famous,” Danny said, grinning as he saw a tiny picture of Eliot pop up in the corner of the news report on Walter’s trial.
He could still hardly believe that Walter had done everything he was accused of, but he was glad Eliot had been around to figure it out.
Danny knew now that Walter had been setting him up because he was about to retire. He hadn’t needed a boyfriend—Walter had needed some kind of blackmail material, but he’d panicked when Eliot started looking into him.
The moment Danny had retired and sat down to look at his finances, it would have become obvious that Walter had been stealing. Walter, obviously, had expected to have more time to come up with a better exit strategy.
It hurt that a man who’d pretended to be his friend for so long would do what he’d done—not just to Danny, but to his team as well. Danny wasn’t sure he’d ever be completely over that.
“Oh, jeez,” Eliot looked up from his laptop, which he’d been tapping away on all evening.
At least he had Eliot, now. If nothing else, Walter had brought them together, even if it had been an accident.
The whole thing had worked out pretty well for Eliot, too. He was still working at Cocky, under Ben, but with a wider scope than he’d had before. There was other freelance stuff coming in, too. His career was taking off because of the work he’d done exposing Walter’s misdeeds.
He deserved the recognition. Eliot was the hardest-working person Danny had ever met.
“I like having a famous boyfriend.” Danny grinned.
Eliot laughed at that, setting his laptop down and sitting back. Danny let his arm fall from the back of the couch to Eliot’s shoulder, stroking through the fabric of his shirt with his thumb.
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had one,” Eliot teased.
In some ways, that was true. Danny had stepped back from the limelight the moment he’d announced his retirement, just wanting to be left alone. The shine had worn off playing hockey right around the time he had his second knee reconstruction, and he’d kept playing because it was what he’d always done.
Now, he had a chance to sit back and assess what he really wanted out of his life. The answers he’d come up with so far were… surprising, but exciting all the same.
“Hey, umm,” he started, not sure what he wanted to say, exactly. Eliot had been patient with him while he healed, and while he sat around the house complaining about not knowing what he wanted next.
He knew now, though.
Eliot turned to look at him, his full attention suddenly on Danny.
“I just… umm, wanted to say… thank you. For getting me through all this.” He waved at the TV. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Eliot smiled softly at him. “I love you, too,” he said.
“I know.” Danny swallowed. “Listen, I, uh. I guess you live here now, but I just wanted to say… I want that to be an official thing. You living here, I mean.”
“It’s been six months,” Eliot pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
“I know,” Danny defended, blushing. This was stupid, after all, but not for the reasons he’d thought it would be. “I’m just saying… I want you to stay. Maybe you knew that.”
“I got the impression.” Eliot turned his head to catch Danny’s lips, his glasses pressing into Danny’s cheek.
Danny was starting to develop a serious thing for glasses.
He hummed happily into the kiss, suddenly feeling stupid for being worried that Eliot might not want to stay. He’d stayed through the worst.
“Yeah, well,” Danny said once they broke off. “Good.”
Eliot snuggled a little closer to him, yawning widely.
Danny watched Walter being hounded by reporters on the TV, and smiled to himself. Everything had worked out okay in the end.
He reached into his pocket to play with the elegant gold ring he’d been carrying around all week. The one that had taken him a month to pick out.
Later. He could ask later.
Eliot wasn’t going anywhere.
