Page 38 of Crown of Ash

"Marcus, you're scaring me a little," Andre admitted, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Your mother's lawn." Marcus said it like he'd rehearsed it and the rehearsal had failed him anyway. "The snow on her walk every winter. Somebody's had a service doing it for years. Cheap, reliable, always shows up before she calls."

Andre didn't understand, and then, all at once with Marcus filling up the doorway, he did.

"That was you."

"Every winter. Every spring, the flower beds. I never let it come from a company with my name anywhere near the paperwork." Marcus's voice had gone very quiet, very even. "Flowers on Deon's grave too. Every year, on the day. No card. I didn't want her to have to feel anything about it. I just wanted to make sure it got done."

Andre's throat had closed around something he couldn't name yet.

"Three years," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "You've been doing this for three years and you never once told me."

"I almost came." Marcus's words were a sudden rush, as if he hoped speed would lessen the sting of the revelation. "The day he died. Your mother called me. She still had the number, I never changed it." He paused, his gaze dropping to the worn kitchen tiles before he continued. "You were unreachable, lost somewhere in your grief. She was alone in that house. She didn't know who else to call. She called me. I picked up."

His voice wavered, a tremor of regret seeping through. "I sat in my car outside the funeral home for two hours. I couldn't bring myself to go in. It wasn't my place anymore, and I didn't have the right to make his funeral about the two of us. So I sat there." He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with the effort. "Then I drove home. I've been taking care of her yard ever since because it was the only piece of taking care of you I still had permission to do."

The kitchen was steeped in silence, the hum of the refrigerator and the distant tick-tock of the wall clock the only sounds punctuating the heavy quiet.

"You picked up," Andre echoed, his voice a hollow echo of disbelief. "Six years, and the one time it actually mattered, you picked up."

"I always would have picked up. For that. For you." Marcus finally looked at him, his eyes raw and vulnerable in a way Andre had seen maybe twice in his life. "I just never had a way to tell you without it sounding like I wanted credit for it, and I didn't. I don't. I'm telling you now because I'm tired of it being something I hide from you. And because tomorrow, I might not get another chance to."

"Don't." Andre's voice was a sharp command, cutting through the tension. He crossed the kitchen in three long strides, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "Don't finish that."

He reached out, his hands cradling Marcus's face, forcing him to hold still, to meet his gaze instead of retreating into himself.

"Three years," Andre murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "You've been taking care of my mother in secret for three years because you didn't think you'd earned the right to be seen."

"I didn't think I had the right to do any of it when my choices destroyed us."

"You didn't. I'm… I'm the one who couldn't love all of you, trust you when you asked me." Andre's thumbs traced the sharp lines of Marcus's cheekbones, brushing away an unshed tear that clung stubbornly to his lashes. "You've been right the whole time. I was just too much of a coward to admit it."

Marcus made a sound that wasn't quite a word, a choked-off syllable that spoke volumes.

Andre kissed him then, before either of them could shrink this moment into something smaller than it was.

Marcus made a sound against his mouth, a low, guttural groan that Andre had never once heard him make. It was raw and wrecked, a sound that seemed to bypass the filters of self-control and spill out unbidden. It was a sound that spoke of surrender, of a man teetering on the edge of something profound.

Andre didn't let up. He walked him backward through his own kitchen, both hands still cradling his face. The counter caught Marcus's hip. He grabbed for it, missed, his hand flailing in the air before it found purchase on Andre instead. His fingers dug into Andre's shirt, holding on as if he were a lifeline.

"Bedroom," Andre murmured against his jaw, the words more of a command than a question.

"Wherever you want me." Marcus's voice was ragged, the words tumbling out in a breathless rush. The vulnerability in his voice nearly undid Andre right there.

With a firm grip on Marcus's hand, Andre led him down the short hall, past the case files stacked neatly on the shelves. He was suddenly grateful for the unread spines, for the secrets they held that no one would have time to discover tonight. They entered the one room in the apartment he'd actually bothered to make into somewhere a person could live.

Marcus stopped just inside the door, his eyes wide and searching.

"What?" Andre's question hung in the air between them.

"Nothing." Marcus's eyes moved over the room slowly, drinking in every detail with an intensity that made Andre's heart clench. It was as if he were memorizing something precious, something he feared he might only get to see once. "I just never let myself picture this. Any of it. Seemed like asking for something I didn't have a right to."

"You have the right." Andre's voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. He slid his hands under Marcus's jacket, pushing it off his shoulders. The fabric fell to the floor in a forgotten heap. "Always have.I believe we covered that part already."

"Andre." Marcus's voice was a plea, a single word carrying a world of emotion.

Andre cut him off before he could finish. "You want to keep talking, or you want to come here?"