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“Which isn’t great,” Enzo said, “since we’ll be losing a ton of sleep very soon.”
“That is true. Very true.”
“I’m so happy for you guys,” Fox said. I nodded enthusiastically. This was huge, and I was so happy for the two men. They were holding each other, smiling, and looking exactly how two expecting dads would look like. It was beautiful to see two people, who were clearly meant to be, share such a life-changing moment.
For a flash of a moment, Zane and Enzo’s faces swapped with mine and Fox’s. I let myself get carried away by the sudden rip current, down into the depths of a faraway fantasy.
Would we make good dads? Would we raise good kids? Would our relationship grow even stronger forged through the fire of parenthood?
The conversation carried on, Enzo excitedly telling a story of how his parents reacted to the news. “You should have seen them. We bought a shirt for Mona, their French bulldog, which they’re in love with. It said on the back: “Owned by the world’s greatest grandparents.” My mom read it first and thought we had bought the wrong shirt at first. Then it started clicking and she started shouting for my pa. She was jumping around, waving Mona in the air, giving her a full case of shaken bulldog syndrome. She couldn’t get the words out, so she showed my pa. Cazzo, that man started to bawl. I’d never seen him cry so much before.”
Zane was nodding, smiling, holding his husband’s hand in his. “It was a really emotional moment.”
“And this one,” Enzo said, pointing a thumb to his side, “he’s a brick wall when it comes to emotion. So imagine my surprise when I turn and see Zane crying like a baby, too.”
“Did you cry?” I asked.
“Oh absolutely.”
We hung out for a little longer, basking in the good news.
“All right, boys, I need a refill,” Enzo said, looking down at his empty cup. “Anyone want anything?”
I stood up, stretching my legs. I told Enzo I’d go with him. Fox said he wanted to hang out with Zane for a little longer, so the two stayed behind at the duck pond. I figured they had a lot to catch up on.
In the courtyard, the Stonewall party was still going strong, with people laughing and dancing and drinking. At the bar, Enzo and I found Beckham and Shiro, who were having a very animated conversation about the recent superhero movie that dropped.
As they talked about their favorite moments, my thoughts couldn’t help but drift away from costumed superheroes to my own real-life superhero.
Gabriel “Fox” Morrison, the man who’d swept down from the clouds and rescued me when I needed saving.
Tonight had only been confirmation on how badly I wanted Fox.
The need burned me, like a hand pressed and left on a hot stove top.
I wanted to hold Fox’s hand down the street, wanted to steal kisses from him whenever I could, wanted to be able to call him mine, publicly, not just behind the safety of closed doors.
No, I was done with that. My feelings for Fox had exploded at an exponential rate. I knew that this was way beyond anything I’d experienced before, or would ever experience again.
Fox was my one. The one. He was it. My heart was full in so many different ways with him in my life. And lately, waking up in his arms or him in mine, holy shit, I’d never been happier. It was a profound shift in my life, one I felt down to the bone marrow, a shift that happened because of how deeply I felt for Fox.
How much I loved him.
I was way too scared to say the L-word out loud, but damn it, I was feeling it. I knew I was because I’d never felt something like it before. Not with Wendy, not with anyone.
This was the kind of love movies and books always talked about, the kind I figured I would never really feel. The type of love that made colors seem brighter and songs seem sweeter, made reality feel like a dream.
So why the hell was I so scared of saying something? I thought I’d conquered fear when I stared death in the face as I was lying on the concrete floor, bleeding out from a bullet that had almost shredded my brain.
Turns out, I traded one kind of fear out for another. No longer was I as scared for my physical well-being as I used to be. As a young police officer, I had been terrified every time I got a call, and that fear never really went away, it only diminished. After getting shot, that changed. I wasn’t as fearful over the physical, but my emotional well-being?
That was an entirely different gauntlet.
And I was ready to run it for Fox.
