Page 78 of The Man I Refused to Lose

“And when they get that bed put together, I’m gonna do a lot more gay things to ya,” I said, loving that I could still feel that flutter in my gut when I looked at him.

Maybe it was because I was still in love with him, or maybe because I was looking at a free man who seemed freer in other ways. We were never going to escape our pasts, our demons, but they didn’t follow him around as much. They were still there; that’s how demons worked. You never got rid of them, not all of them, and not all the time. The trick was to learn to live with them and accept that when they took over you had to go along for the ride.

There would be days when something got under your skin, and I couldn’t always predict when it would happen. I couldn’t always head it off at the pass. Even with my physical and mentaltherapist visits, there were times when I fell apart. I got lost in my thoughts, drowning in memories and emotions from a time before I got my shit together…as much as I could. There were days when I didn’t know where I was, but now I had Walker to help bring me back to reality, comfort me when I grasped what was real and got hit with a wave of self-loathing and regret.

I wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t one-sided. There were days when Walker got lost in his thoughts, finding that his regrets had teeth and the memories had claws. Those were the days he was edgiest, when he couldn’t decide what he hated more, the world we lived in or himself. I had to remind him of gentleness and compassion, of what it meant to remember the good things. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes I could coax him back, but other times I had to wait until he climbed out of that mental hole and wrapped himself around me, murmuring apologies as I whispered reassurances.

There were days when we were both in our respective pits. Those were the greatest lessons in compassion and understanding for us. We had gotten this far, though, and while there were rough days, we came out a little better each time. More capable of doing better next time.

After all, it was easier to get through life with someone you trusted completely at your side to bear some of the weight…and for you to bear some of theirs.

“Oh my God, Isaac!” Clay cried out dramatically.

“I am building the bed as quickly as I can.”

“No, they want to do gay things on it!”

“Why do you think I’m doing it as quickly as possible?”

Walker made a choking noise as Clay groaned. “Idiots.”

“True,” I said, thinking of our team and how ridiculous they had been. “Sounds familiar.”

“I was just about to ask if you would have grabbed my ass and shoved your tongue down my throat in front of the team justto torment them, but yes, yes you would have,” he said with a laugh. “Have you told the families?”

“What about these?” I asked, raising his left hand with mine and letting our rings softly click together. “Not yet. I figured when we called them next week, we could tell ’em.”

“They’re going to lose their minds,” he said with a sigh. “Probably more than my parents did…though only half as much as my sister and your mom did.”

Meanwhile, my dad said that at least one of his boys was finally going to be honest, God save me.

“Clay! Get in here,” Isaac called out.

“You just kicked me out!”

“Yes, and they’re having a moment, so get in here and close the door, and maybe I’ll do gay things with you when we get back home.”

“Hard to argue with that,” Clay said, and I rolled my eyes.

“You’re sure about this?” I asked, looking around at all our stuff shoved into boxes.

“It’s kind of bad timing to ask after we’ve signed the lease, flown out here, flown all of our stuff out here, and got jobs,” he said with a chuckle.

“Well, yeah,” I said, looking around. “But about us, all of this?—”

“Ever since the moment you told me you were falling in love with me in that interview room, I’ve never once doubted that being here, or wherever, with you at my side was the place I needed to be,” he said, tilting his head back and smiling up at me. “Also, I agreed to marry you, so yes, Cade, I’m fucking sure.”

“Good,” I said, my chest squeezing as I kissed him. “It’s time we had a place we can call home.”

“Agreed,” he said, closing his eyes and pressing his face into my chest. “But I think it already feels like home.”

I breathed deeply, holding him there as I considered what we’d gone through and what still lay ahead. The worst was behind us. I had to believe that, so that meant only the best was waiting around the corner, if not standing in the room with us.

“Jesus Christ!” I heard a muffled complaint. “The fuck is that?”

“Is the box of toys back there?” Walker asked wryly.

“Look at the size of that thing, holy hell!” Clay said, sounding horrified and intrigued. “Babe, look at this!”

Yeah, it felt like home.