“Which is why I send you pictures of sunsets and delicious things I’m eating and weird signs I’ve seen all the time. I like to make sure you know I’m okay. And I want to be sure you’re okay, too.”
“I think… I think I’m getting to the point of being okay,” Brent said. “Thanks.”
He was a little afraid to say it, since he still had it in the back of his head that Riley would leave once the problem was solved, like he always did.
“Good.” Riley chewed on his pizza. “And I promise you that sitting around on the couch eating pizza with you is no hardship for me. This may be hard to believe, but Ilikespending time with you. Even when you’re sad.”
Brent huffed, the worst of the tension in his shoulders fading. He was worrying too much about what Riley thought of him, and that was stupid. He’d never worried about it before.
He had no idea what was going on between them, but Riley didn’t seem to be freaking out over it. Why should he?
“I just… I have regrets.” Too many to count, starting with missing out on so much with Riley and stretching all the way to not asking him to stay. Not even once.
Maybe Riley kept leaving because Brent had never told him otherwise. Never mentioned that hewantedRiley to stay, not just that he was welcome to. Those, he was beginning to see, were different things.
“Don’t,” Riley said. “There’s no point in regrets. They don’t do anyone any good. You make amends—with yourself or whoever you did the wrong thing by—and you move on.”
Riley always made things like that sound so easy. Brent wondered how much of his own advice he took, sometimes, but Riley… Riley did really seem to have stuff figured out, for the most part.
Brent still remembered him mentioning that he felt lost, that he felt as though he didn’t have a home. He’d never seen Riley that vulnerable, and his mind wanted to shove the whole incident to one side, because it didn’t fit with what he knew about his best friend.
He was forcing himself to remember it, though. Riley had meant that. Some part of him wasn’t totally happy with how his life was, and Brent wanted to change that.
“You say that like you can justdoit,” Brent said.
“You can. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying it’s possible. And the more used you get to not thinking of things in terms of what you should have done, the easier it gets. We all make choices. When a choice is hard, you’ll always regret the one you didn’t make.”
“I could have sent Emily to live with our grandparents,” Brent said. “In Maine.”
“But you didn’t,” Riley said. “And I don’t think you really regret that, but it would have been okay if you made that decision. It took a lot out of you to take care of her.”
“I had you,” Brent said. “And I think that’s the part I regret. I forced you into thinking you had to help when you were still free to do whatever. I took months of your life away from you.”
That was why he’d never asked Riley to stay. It hadn’t seemed fair to drag him into that situation. No matter how much Brent loved Emily and he wouldn’t have changed deciding to look after her himself, he knew it had been too much.Definitelytoo much to ask someone who wasn’t really involved.
“I never once felt forced,” Riley said. “So if that’s been bothering you all these years… I’m sorry. If I made you feel like I didn’t want to be there for you, I can’t apologize enough. But I did want to be there. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you those were some of the happiest months of my life, but I will tell you that they were the mostpurposeful. I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Preserving Brent Morrison for the world. The world deserves more people like you.”
“Accountants?” Brent raised an eyebrow.
“Good, kind men,” Riley said, giving Brent a look that told him they weren’t joking anymore. “I know you’re not going to believe this, but you’re everything that’s right with the world. I don’t hang out with you because I don’t have any other choice. I hang out with you because I’ve been out there and met hundreds of people and I keep coming back to the best of them.”
Brent swallowed. He had no idea what to say in response to that.
Well, except that he loved Riley, too.
That was what this felt like. AnI love you.
Not the kind of one that Riley handed out easily, because he genuinely did love everyone and everything. A bigger, heavier one. More than just acknowledgment that Brent was important to him.
And that was terrifying.
Terrifying because Riley had told him to follow his heart, and his heart just kept pulling him back toward Riley.
How was he even supposed tostartwith that?
“Thank you,” Brent said eventually, deciding that was the safest option.
He was too raw and vulnerable to respond to that tonight. Right now, he wanted to curl up next to Riley and never leave his side again, beg him to stay forever, tell him that what he really wanted, now that his life was his own again, was to spend it with the person he loved most in the world.
