The Lights on Knockbridge Lane (Garnet Run 3)

Gus scrunched up her face with anger.

“A very bad word!”

“Okay, you have permission, just this once.”

Gus’ cheeks flushed as she worked up to it.

“Butt!” she ejaculated triumphantly.

It took every ounce of self-control that Wes possessed not to laugh, and he could see the same struggle in Adam’s face. Adam clearly managed it by the slimmest of margins, nodding seriously and pulling Gus into a hug.

Their eyes met over Gus’ head and neither of them looked away. Then Adam smiled, and Wes smiled back at him.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Adam

“What do you think?” Adam asked Gus as he kissed her good-night.

Her previous severity had been softened by dinner, winning at Uno, and sleepiness. Now she closed her eyes and smiled softly.

“I love Wes,” she said. “I think people deserve a second chance.”

Adam’s heart felt too large to be contained in any human form.

“Me too, baby,” he said. “Me too.”

* * *

In the living room, Wes had put the crackling fire on TV and lit the tree, bathing everything in a warm glow.

He stood, reticently, until Adam gestured him onto the couch and pulled the blanket over both of them.

“If you’re too tired to talk, I understand,” Wes said.

Adam was tired, but he’d missed Wes so damn much, and been so damn sad without him, that there was no way he was putting this off for even a minute.

“No, I’m ready.”

Adam forced himself to sit quietly as Wes sorted through his words. He forced himself not to forgive Wes before he’d even spoken.

Adam had heard his whole life that he was a pushover. Too quick to forgive; too easy on people.

But the truth was that Adam had never once regretted forgiving someone. Because forgiveness was about him, and not about them at all. He had forgiven his father for being a bad parent, even though he had no interest in ever seeing him again. He’d forgiven his mother for being a coward. He’d forgiven friends for not coming around anymore after he became a father. Forgiven Marina for not being able to take care of Gus. And Mason...well, okay, he wasn’t quite there yet with Mason.

He carried a deep well of forgiveness inside him and when he doled it out it gave him peace and never diminished. It was, he believed, the thing that rescued him from the deep damage of other people’s failures. That he had the power to forgive, and in forgiving heal his own wounds without needing the instrument of them anymore.

Wes took a deep breath and Adam knew he could see the promise of forgiveness in his eyes.

“The other night, when I left your house. After all those people came? The newscaster stuck a camera in my face. She thought I was you at first, I guess, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was like I was right back there, people taking my picture and trying to cut off locks of my hair and writing about what I ate for breakfast. I...I just panicked.”

Adam nodded. He was relieved to have called it right.

“I kind of realized that’s maybe what happened. Those people coming to take pictures... I didn’t even think about your past. I guess, if I’m honest, I didn’t understand it was as much of a phobia for you as it is.”

“It’s... I don’t mean to react the way I do. But after that time in my life, I never felt normal. People were always staring at me, and I hated it so much, and had such a clear strategy of just kind of freezing and being a nonperson. Being the fake person they were taking a picture of instead of myself, so it wasn’t me they were seeing.”

Adam remembered the way Wes had frozen at the car outside Gus’ school the day of her show-and-tell.

“Even years later, every time someone looked at me, I felt that way. So I started hating anyone looking at me. And that led to me not wanting to be in public because that was a sure way to avoid being looked at. So when that lady stuck her camera in my face, all I could think was Shit, they found me. And even after I got inside and calmed down cuz I realized it wasn’t about me, I still...”

He trailed off and Adam got scared.

“I still knew that if I...if I was with you. Part of a family with you and Gus... I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t hide in my house. I would have to do things like go to parent-teacher night and go to her science fairs and take you out to dinner.”

A look of horror passed over Wes’ face.

“Sorry, I don’t mean those are bad things. I just mean... I never thought I’d do them. Never. I thought if I was just by myself I could be...”

“Safe,” Adam supplied.

“Yeah.”

Wes took Adam’s hand, and the feel of those gentle, rough hands after days without them nearly brought Adam to tears of relief.