He stares at me, blinks a few times, and swallows. “Does anyone know you were together?”
I nod, and for a moment he looks relieved, until I answer. “You do.”
“John! Holy shit! I knew you were private, but what the fuck? What else haven’t you told anyone?”
I don’t think he actually expects me to answer, but at this point, with the look of shock and horror on his face, I decide putting everything on the table at once is probably for the best so he doesn’t find out later and freak out all over again. “Well, it isn’t like some huge secret, but I feel like you should know. I live in his house.”
“In Luke’s house?”
I nod. “Well, his parents’ house, but yeah.”
“Holy. Fuck.”
27
CHAD
My mind is reeling from everything John just shared with me. He’s been carrying even more than I’d realized for nearly a decade, and doing it completely on his own.
The pain he’s held onto must’ve been insurmountable. I can’t believe he’s been trying to preserve his first love’s memory without anyone knowing they were together. Not even his best friend! Up until the Vegas wedding, I’ve always told Blake everything. It makes so much more sense to me now why John wanted to keep everything a secret. He probably doesn’t know any other way.
And he even bought Luke’s childhood home! I can’t believe he lives there now, probably surrounded by memories, and he goes on this annual camping trip to the spot where they shared their first kiss and came back to every year they were together. I knew he struggled with the idea of getting married because it couldn’t be to Luke, but this is so much more than I expected.
There’s so much hurt and grief wrapped up inside him that it makes my heart ache just thinking about it. But what really getsto me is how alone he’s been in all of it. For years, he’s been honoring their relationship in silence because Luke was someone the rest of the world never even knew he had. The weight of that realization settles heavily in my chest as I glance over at John, taking in the tension still written across his face.
He looks exhausted now that everything’s out in the open, almost like speaking those words aloud for the very first time took its toll, but hopefully it’ll relieve some of the weight he’s been trapping inside of him. His eyes stay fixed somewhere ahead of us instead of on me where I’d like them to be, and I get the sense he’s waiting for my reaction with more apprehension than he’d admit.
“Well, thank you for telling me. And holy fuck,” I finally say because my brain hasn’t quite figured out how to process something this big yet, but I’m so happy he shared it with me.
John lets out a quiet, humorless laugh beside me and rubs a hand over the back of his neck.
“I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with his loss all by yourself,” I add quietly.
John shrugs. “It’s fine.”
I try to imagine what that would actually feel like to carry something this painful while the rest of the world keeps moving forward like nothing happened. Coming back here every year with memories no one else shares. Living in a house full of reminders of the person you lost. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the kind of loneliness that must have created.
“You should’ve told someone,” I say before I can stop myself.
John turns toward me, his brows pulling together slightly. “Why? What difference would it have made?”
I hesitate, realizing how defensive that question sounds.
But I refuse to believe it wouldn’t have helped, that it wouldn’t have made a difference. Maybe not with everyone, butat least with the people who care about him. Liam would have listened. His brothers probably would have too. Even if the town they grew up in, the town I call home now, wasn’t exactly the most welcoming place to come out as a teenager, he didn’t have to carry the aftermath of Luke’s death alone.
“It’s not like it would’ve brought him back,” John continues. “After a while it just became… normal, and I guess I didn’t want to risk turning his memory into gossip.”
I blow out a big breath. He wanted to protect what he and Luke had, and as sad as it makes me to think about him dealing with it by himself, I suppose it makes sense in a very grumpy-John-logic kind of way. If other people didn’t know the extent of their relationship, he never had to hear others’ unwanted opinions or let them pick their relationship apart.
Luke belonged to him, and the memories they shared belonged to him too. I can’t fault him for that.
Still, another thought pops into my mind as I attempt to process everything. “Wait, is that why you’re restoring everything to look nearly the same in the house? Because it’s Luke’s childhood home?”
John shrugs.
This man. This deep, sentimental man.
No wonder he’s been holding onto Luke’s memory so tightly. Anyone capable of loving someone that fiercely would struggle to let the people they love go.
