“Good,” Jacob said firmly. “But if you did need to get away from here, you better have room for one more on the road. Because I’m going too.”
“Thanks.” Warmth spreading across his chest, Linc appreciated his words more than he could ever say and had to lick his lips before continuing. “And yeah, I’ll always have a spot for you.”
“Promise?” Eyes serious, Jacob placed his hand over Linc’s.
Linc took a breath because this wasn’t a tiny thing. He took his word damn seriously, which Jacob well knew. “I promise. I’m not letting you go. And I’m not leaving either. That...wasn’t my best plan. I belong here.”
“With me. And doing your job,” Jacob added, squeezing Linc’s hand.
“It doesn’t matter what job I do. What matters is us together for all of it. And I want that. The rest of the future can work itself out with time.”
“I hope so.” Jacob sounded surer than he had in recent days, which counted for an awful lot as far as Linc was concerned, and he pulled him close.
“I know so,” he said right before he claimed a kiss. Jacob had been the certain one for so many years now, the one who had known that come hell or high water they were meant to be together. Linc had been the one intent on resisting the truth his soul had known for a very long time—Jacob was the one for him. If Jacob needed him to be the confident one for right now, Linc could do that for him, could wait for the moment when Jacob was as convinced as he was that this was the right course of action.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I don’t want to go.” Jacob had jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, faced back draft, done days of mop-up duty covered in ash, and publicly had his ass kicked in MMA matches, and even with all that history, one lunch with his family filled him with more dread than any roundhouse kick or fire flare-up.
“You’re going.” From his place on the couch, Linc gestured at the front door. “And the sooner you go, the sooner you can be back here and we can finish that movie we started last night.”
“I hate that she didn’t invite you. I say you should come anyway.” Jacob’s mother had texted, summoning him to an after-church meal at her place. He supposed it was an olive branch of sorts, but it killed him that Linc hadn’t received a similar message. She hadn’t specifically said to come alone, but also hadn’t suggested he bring Linc, which led Linc to assuming, probably correctly, that Mom wanted to see him alone.
“And I say give it time.” Linc’s voice was far more patient than Jacob felt. “This is a step. She loves you and wants to see you. Maybe she still needs to sort out how she feels about me.”
“Bullshit. She’s loved you for what...thirty years now? She can get over herself about objecting to us being together or thinking that you’re taking advantage or anything else ridiculous.”
“Just go. See what she has to say. If it’s too awful, leave early. I’ll heat up another casserole if you leave hungry.”
Jacob sighed, knowing he’d lost the battle. For all that Linc had stood up to Jacob’s mom and Sims, his family was still a touchy subject. And he understood. It was a loss for Linc, and Jacob would do anything to take away that pain along with magically healing his other injuries. No matter what Linc said, it did feel like Linc had chosen him over the family, like he was picking Jacob over Wyatt’s memory, and Jacob was still working out how he felt about that.
Linc saying all the right things helped a little, all his promises to keep Jacob around. Because if there was one thing everyone knew about Linc, it was that he kept his promises. Linc said they were together no matter what now, and Jacob wanted desperately to believe him, to trust his word and trust that shared future, but it was still hard.
Still, as he drove to his mom’s place, he replayed every tender thing Linc had said the past few days, let each sweet word lift his mood. Maybe he’d been a little naive in assuming that being together would be easy, but even if the reality was harder than he’d predicted, he still wasn’t trading it for anything. If there was one thing he didn’t doubt, it was his feelings for Linc. Those had only deepened over the spring and summer as he’d replaced his fantasy guy with the flesh-and-blood real person.
Privately, he could admit that a lot of his fantasy of being with Linc had been lust-driven, but after they’d given in to that, his emotions had become a lot more complex as he’d seen other sides of Linc. The playful guy with the dogs. The good cook. The careful gardener. The DIY house-rehabber. The snarky TV watcher. The late-night cuddler. The hot-water hog.