Chapter Twenty
Demir
Marco sat across from me on the bed with his legs crossed beneath him. He was wearing a pair of my boxers, which always made me hot for him.
This one was a pink pair, and he’d hitched them up his thighs to sit comfortably.
“Demir?” he said, waving a hand in front of my face. “Are you there?”
“Sorry,” I answered. “Just tired.”
“I guess being tired is good practice,” Marco said with a wink. “For raising a baby.”
I was on the edge of the bed, half-undressed after another day at work. The two of us had talked about almost nothing but Grayson’s proposition for days. I felt like we were circling some revelation, something that, if I could only get my hands on it, I would know what it was.
But still, nothing.
I stood up, then tossed my pants and shirt in the closet laundry. “Tired, that I can handle,” I said, turning back to Marco. “I’m just having trouble trusting myself. I got so obsessed with the business these past months, I started to lose track of what really mattered.” I sighed, then took a seat on the bed. “It’s making it hard to trust myself now.”
Marco clicked his tongue and reached for my hand. “This is a little hard to say…”
I arched an eyebrow, not sure where he was going.
“This last week, I started to doubt you, too,” he admitted, his voice strained. “It only lasted a minute, but I saw that you had all these secret appointments written down, and I started to question how much you were being truthful with me, and with yourself.”
It was like a bolt of ice fell through the ceiling and struck me. My jaw shook, and I tightened my fingers around Marco’s hand. We’d always trusted each other, and I hated the idea that I could have compromised that. “I’m so sorry, babe.”
Marco kept my eye. He was trying to look unbothered, but I could still see the hurt, and it fucking tore me open. “It’s okay, it really is. I see what you were doing now, and I understand how difficult this all is. You’re trying to manage the business at the same time we’re making these big changes in our life. And I know we haven’t really talked about it much, but Grayson learning about his mom has brought up some of your old feelings, too.” Marco wiped the corner of his eye with his free hand, then beamed his smile at me. “It’s a lot. But I’m just happy you found your way to the right decision. And I’m so thrilled about your idea for the shop.”
Sometimes, Marco had just had to meet my eyes, and it was like the whole world was set right again.
“I’m excited for the next, quiet chapter with the club,” I said. “If the dance crowd goes across the street, we’ll have the kind of place we used to have. With all my experience, I can manage that easily, and we know the money will be good enough to keep us going while your business with Grayson grows.” I paused, then nodded. “All the pieces are there.”
“All the pieces,” Marco repeated, then suddenly laughed. “Can you believe we’re actually talking about having a kid?”
I chuckled, the surprise of it landing on me all over again. “Hell no. But then Grayson went and said it, and now I’m thinking about it.”
Marco crawled across the bed and laid in my arms, and I stroked the back of his head while we talked. “I know we talked about it a long time ago,” he said.
“When we first started seeing each other,” I agreed. “And we both swore we’d never have kids.”
Marco laughed. “And I swore I was going to sport spiky hair for the rest of my life. But some things change.”
“Have you thought about it over the years?” I asked. The idea had only briefly crossed my mind a few times, and I’d always immediately dismissed it.
“Maybe,” Marco said slowly. “I guess a little bit.” He turned his head and looked up at me. “I’ve thought that you would be a great dad.”
I was proud to hear him say it. “What about you, though? Do you want to be a father?”
Marco didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I kept my arm tightly around his shoulder and measured his breath with my own.
“I guess I never really thought of men like me as fathers. You know, all the things people would say and the jokes they would make.”
My muscles tensed as protective anger flared through me. “I would never let anyone hurt you,” I said. “Or Grayson.”
Marco’s hand landed on my side. “All these years, if you had asked me, I would have told you that I didn’t want kids because they didn’t make sense for our lifestyle. Babies and nightclubs just don’t mix, you know? But maybe that wasn’t the reason at all. Maybe I just wasn’t able to see myself as that kind of man.”
“You can be whatever kind of man you want to be,” I said, kissing the top of his head. I needed him to hear it and kept my voice steady and strong. “And you would be a wonderful father. We all would.”
