Always Mine (Love in Eden 1)

"Fine, call 'em." I took another step back and added, "I'm surprised you didn't just get the insurance on the rental. You always did like to play it safe."

The second Brooks dropped his eyes, even just for a moment, I knew I’d called his bluff, inadvertent as the intent had been. So Brooks had changed a lot, but not completely. I wondered in what other ways he’d changed and in what ways he was still the same person I’d been so strangely enamored with. I'd known I was gay long before I’d met Brooks, but he'd been the first person I'd actually wondered about beyond just sex. And I hadn't even really considered sex with him because he’d been so damn young.

And innocent.

And just too damn sweet.

I glanced at his outfit and realized that that part of him hadn’t changed. He was just as stiffly dressed as he'd always been. Slacks instead of jeans, a button-down shirt instead of a T-shirt, hair nicely done, even if it was mussed from our earlier fight. Even his shoes looked like the loafers he used to wear instead of sensible boots that were safer in this particular environment. He hadn't had a pocket protector back then, but he should have. Instead, he’d carried around a little notebook and pencil wherever he'd gone. I could see the cell phone sticking out of his shirt pocket. That had probably replaced the pencil and the notebook.

I turned back to Millie and her son and ran my hand along Millie's neck.

"Is that your old horse? The one you got right before you…"

I chuckled for two reasons, the first being that although he couldn't tell that a baby horse was a boy versus a girl, he somehow managed to remember a rather nondescript horse from ten years ago as being mine. It was the second reason that I voiced out loud. "Before I went to prison?" I asked. "You're allowed to say it. After all, your family is the one who put me there."

"You put yourself there, Xavier. You've been blaming everyone for all your problems your whole life. I actually believed that bullshit you were feeding me about people not giving you a chance just because of who your father was. But that particular apple didn't fall far from the tree, did it?"

His comments stung, though I'd never let him see that. I didn't react to the statement.

"You want to know the ironic part?" Brooks asked. I heard, rather than saw, him move closer to me. My instinct was to turn and face him, but I fought it. I'd already been close enough to see that he had no weapon. And even when he’d thrown a sucker punch, he’d been no match for me. So I just had to remind myself that I was physically safe from him, that there was no reason to turn around and fight back. And even if his words did hurt a little, it wouldn't be enough to take me down. I’d heard so much worse throughout my life. But, of course, that was all in theory because his next words rattled me to the core and left me completely speechless.

"I was the one who convinced my father to give you a chance… and a job."

Chapter 3

Brooks

I'd already said much more to this man than I'd intended to. But I'd been thrown for a loop when I'd seen him standing there at the base of those porch steps. I hadn't had any trouble recognizing him. Well, except the voice. For some reason, that had seemed really different. Much more deep and vibrant than when he'd been a kid. And yes, he was bigger now, more filled out, and his hair was shaven instead of just closely cropped like it'd been when we’d been teenagers. But it was his eyes that I'd recognized first. He’d always had the most uniquely colored eyes I'd ever seen. He'd always referred to them as being green, not that we’d had a lot of conversations about them, but I'd always been fascinated by the little flecks of gold in them. It probably said a lot about me that, even as a youngster, I’d noticed things like that about someone of my own sex and that I'd gotten close enough to him to even see such fine details. He'd always been a guy’s guy, so I doubted he'd even noticed my strange fascination with him.

Which was a good thing.

And it was an even better thing that he seemed not to notice how I’d reacted to him in the past few minutes, specifically when he’d had me pinned up against the wall.

Twice.

Twice that I'd struggled to hang on to my control.

Twice that I'd tried to keep him from noticing my shaking body.

Shaking that hadn't had as much to do with fear and confusion and anger as I would've liked. No, I'd been shaking for a whole other reason. Even as a kid, I’d been physically attracted to Xavier, though I hadn't fully understood that at the time. I’d attributed my accelerated breathing, sweaty palms, and racing heart to some weird ailment that I’d yet to be diagnosed with. It'd been a couple years later when I’d felt something that had been even remotely close to those sensations, and that had been when I'd lost my virginity to a good-looking upperclassman who’d flirted shamelessly with me in an advanced economics class. He’d never spoken to me again after that, but I’d still had some of those same not-so-welcome physical feelings around him afterward.