The mirror over the sink showed that he was pale and shaking, his hands trembling as he ran cool water over them, his skin stinging at the cold.
He forced himself to breathe more deeply, his lungs burning from the way he was gasping for air.
If the thought of losing Blake made him feel physically sick…
He needed to talk to someone.
Rusty grabbed his phone from where he’d tossed it on top of the laundry hamper on his way in, scrolling through his contacts to phone the only person he could think of.
“Rusty?” his mother answered, obviously surprised to hear from him.
“Hi mum,” he said, aware his voice was shaking. He felt like a mess.
“Are you okay?” she asked immediately. She could always tell when he was upset.
“I don’t want a divorce,” he said, his lip trembling as he got the words out. He was nearly in tears at the thought, his eyes already stinging.
He didn’t want to do this. His heart ached to stay.
That was the problem. He’d come all the way out here for one thing, and his dad was counting on him to do this, but he didn’t want to.
He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Blake behind again. It’d been hard enough the first time, but he’d been young and not ready to be tied down.
Now…
Now, he would have given anything for someone to call him theirs.
And he wanted that person to be Blake. He wanted to wake up beside him, and smile, and feel his heart soaring with joy every single day.
“Okay,” his mother responded.
That was it.
Justokay.
Rusty wasn’t sure whether it was permission or not, but he wanted to take it that way. “Is it okay?”
“Will it make you happy?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Yeah,” Rusty said. He didn’t need to think about it even for a second.
Blake made him happy. Being near Blake made his heart feel so full he was half-afraid it’d burst. Seeing him upset had been nearly enough to break it.
Leaving him would tear it in two.
“Then it’s okay,” she said. “I’ll handle your dad.”
“What if he doesn’t want me?” Rusty asked.
Blake had handed him the divorce papers, after all. Asked to be friends.
If he wanted Rusty to stay, would he have done that?
“Then you come home, and I’ll have as much Neapolitan ice cream and Ice Magic as you can eat waiting for you. But you’ll never know if you don’t try.”
It sounded so simple when she put it that way.
Maybe it was. Maybe it really could be that easy, and Rusty had been letting all the things he thought he was supposed to do get in the way.
