“That’s not hot,” he half yelled.
I laughed because he was freaking adorable, and he couldn’t help himself and smiled back.
After dinner, I medicated him, made him take some Vitamin C, and had him curl up on the couch while I did the dishes.
“Finish your story about running out of Portland,” I ordered.
“Can’t I come over there and sit on the counter or something?”
“No. You need to rest. Now, tell me about leaving home.”
He took a deep breath. “After I spent three days with Alice and had this insane epiphany where I realized that my heart was in helping people with their paranormal issues, I talked to my partners and, for all intents and purposes, resigned. I paid the rest of what I owed on our shared office space for the year, gave them the names of three other doctors who wanted to take my place, and then I left. That was the easiest part.”
“What was the hardest?”
“Telling my parents and my brother and the guy I was seeing.”
“Ah,” I said, chuckling, “tell me about the guy.”
He groaned and shoved his face into a throw pillow.
“C’mon now, how bad could it be? Did ya break his heart?”
Lifting his head, he turned to look at me, and he appeared resigned. “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“How do you not know what you did or didn’t mean to the man?”
He was quiet.
“Sorry. It’s none of my business,” I assured him. After a long, awkward moment of silence, I checked on him, and he seemed deep in thought. “We can drop––”
“He wasn’t heartbroken,” he explained. “He was disappointed that I didn’t see the bigger picture. That I didn’t see the future as clearly.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Our financial portfolios lined up well.” He sounded so clinical, not a trace of warmth in his voice. “And we both wanted to travel, buy a house, have a dog. We made a lot of sense on paper.”
“Okay.”
“But there was no… you.”
I squinted at him. “What?”
His smile lit his face. “He’s a nice, handsome lawyer; he’s on the partner track at his firm; he owns his own condo; he has a beautiful car, lots of respectable friends, and comes from a wealthy family. But I never, not once, caught my breath when he looked at me, like I’ve done a hundred times already since we met.”
“So… you weren’t hot for him,” I declared with a lazy grin. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Yes,” he replied with a long exhale. “I never wanted to ravish him.”
I shot him a murderous look, and he lost it, shoving his face into the pillow and howling.
“You’re an ass,” I apprised him loudly. “Drive it into the ground, why don’t you.”
Once he got himself back under control, I finished the dishes, left the light on over the sink, and then joined him on the couch. I took a seat next to him, and his smile told me how pleased he was about that.
“Is there a problem?”
“I didn’t have to threaten you to get you to sit next to me.”
“We’ve established that I like you and you like me,” I reminded him. “Why would I act like that wasn’t the case?”
“No game playing?” He shrugged and smiled at me. “That’s crazy hot, Mr. James.”
I shook my head. “Are you sure you’re older than me?”
He chuckled, and I lifted my arm so he could snuggle in, head on my chest.
“Finish about the guy,” I demanded, liking him plastered to my side.
“The fact of the matter was,” he said with a yawn, “Justin and I were going through the motions of being together, but in three years, we never moved in, and we had no plans to make anything permanent.”
“Huh,” was all I said.
“That sounded very judgmental.”
“No, I was just thinking about my buddy Croy.”
“Why?”
“He met a guy, and a few days later decided to move to Las Vegas to live with him, and now they’re married.”
“Really?” He sighed. “How romantic.”
“Personally, I think he’s lucky his husband didn’t turn out to be a serial killer.”
He laughed softly, slipping his leg between mine, molding himself to me.
“What about your parents and your brother?”
He snorted. “My parents pretty much disowned me. My father was horrified, and my mother was almost certain I was having some sort of psychotic break.”
“Because you wanted to do something different?”
“It’s not that it’s different. It’s that it’s unheard of and unseemly.”
“And they told you that, did they?” I asked, sliding my fingers into his glossy black mane, pushing it back from his forehead. “How horrifying your decision was?”
“Yes. At length,” he murmured, and I could tell he was fading.
“What’d your brother say?”
“My brother, the oncologist?” He scoffed loudly. “What do you think he said?”
“So they all pretty much wrote you off?”
“That’s exactly what they did. I’m not welcome until I make better choices and am no longer a disappointment to them. They can’t watch me throw away my life on nonsense.”