“This house was your surprise.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. A damn good one, I thought.” Bellamy sounded as belligerent and defensive as he looked.
“It’s a great one,” Seamus agreed in hushed angry tones. “It’s perfect. A pool, a library from a children’s story, Jake’s dream computer. This is all absolutely perfect. It’s the most beautiful fucking house I’ve ever seen.”
His voice was rising as he spoke, echoing off the cathedral ceilings.
“Then why are you being so goddamn pissy, Seamus?”
Seamus knew he was overreacting, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Pissy? Why am I pissy?” He started to walk away but turned back to face his lover. “We already have a house that I’m still paying the mortgage on. It has one shower, a hole in the porch roof and an old stove, but the kids were fine with it before today. Now nothing will be better than this.”
Bellamy tried to reach for him but he backed away. “But they can have this,” he said urgently. “I want them to. I want you to live here with—”
“I told you not to try and buy their affections. You agreed to that. They’ve only known you a few weeks and already they’re sharing secrets with you and calling you Bell and relying on you to be there whenever they need you. Then you do something like this. Without asking me, without discussing this with me, you offer them everything they ever wanted on a whim…” He shook his head, dread and tension coiling in his stomach. Like Murphy’s. He always left a place better than when he found it. “I knew this was a mistake.”
He started walking away but Bellamy came after him, slamming him roughly against the wall. The reminder of their first fight made Seamus ache. “What the hell is your problem? I found a way for this to work for both of us. A home where neither of us would be a guest and we would have everything we needed to be together. You can’t take a fucking step back and see how good this could be?” He swore under his breath. “Yes, it was a mistake not to talk to you, but I wanted to be with you the first time you saw it. I wanted everyone to be together. You told your parents about me. You told me you loved me and I thought we were… Hell, Seamus, I was trying to make you happy.”
“We were happy before. I had things taken care of.” He gestured between them. “This is the mistake, Bellamy. All of it. You belong in a place like this, but we don’t. Tell your driver to take me and my children home. Our life might not be a fairy tale, but it’s ours.”
“No.” Bellamy’s voice rasped with pain. “What are you doing? You can’t just leave like this. Not after this last month. Forget the fucking house. I’ll sell it tomorrow, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Seamus forced a laugh that came out sounding like a sob. “You see? It’s all so easy for you. You come in and make one grand gesture after another. You make it all look so easy.”
“It can be. With us, Seamus, it can be.”
“It’s not for me. It never is.” He pulled away and made himself move toward the door. Bellamy was still calling his name when he made himself close it.
Through the door he heard a muffled shout and it made his body jerk as if he’d been shot through the heart. But he kept moving, walking to the car and making himself climb inside with his silent children and the whining dog.
When Dan came outside, he wasn’t smiling anymore, but he was alone.
Like Seamus.
It wasn’t just the house. The perfect dream house he’d tried to give them that was within walking distance of his sister and filled with everything Seamus and the children had ever wanted.
It was Bellamy. Everything he’d quietly hoped for alone in his bed. Everything he’d never let himself want because it was too much to ask for.
Seamus suddenly remembered the way he’d described his mother.
When Elle is focused on you, the world is full of color, anything is possible and you feel so loved you think you might burst.
That’s how he felt with Bellamy. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Something like that couldn’t last.
Coward!
Bellamy’s muffled accusation ripped through him and cut him open. He was right. He was a coward. Seamus could tell himself he was protecting his children from heartbreak all he wanted, but he knew better. He was protecting himself.
Saint Seamus was a selfish bastard and a liar. He lied about Presley to protect himself. He kept his relationship with Bellamy from the kids, to protect himself.
But he hadn’t lied to Bellamy. What they’d had was a mistake, but Bellamy had been the one to make it. He’d picked the wrong man. And Seamus wouldn’t be able to put himself back together again if he stayed long enough for him to find that out.