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Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m proud of you, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’ll be happy again soon enough. Gayle didn’t appreciate you,” Mom said as if a relationship solved everything. But I got what she was trying to say. “You’ll make a good husband someday.”
My stomach twisted. Would I even consider that possibility if it didn’t meet her expectations?
“Would you be happy no matter whom I chose to spend my life with?”
“Of course. As long as they treat you right.”
“Awesome.” Time for a subject change. “Please tell me there’s pumpkin pie.”
She smiled. “I made it especially for you.”
23
Nolan
I drove straight to the practice spot from Thanksgiving dinner with my family. The food was good, and I enjoyed myself, but something about it felt off. When Annabeth showed up with Collin, it only hit home harder. I felt lonely without Ellis, and that had never been the case with anyone I’d ever dated before. I missed him even though I saw him practically every day and slept with him more nights than not. But this was a different sort of hollow ache inside me.
“How was your Thanksgiving?” Anthony asked when I got inside. Ellis and Perry were already there, and when my eyes met Ellis’s and he gave me a secret smile, I felt that same fluttering in my stomach. And just like that, the whirlwind inside my head calmed.
We shared details about our families and meals as we loaded the van and drove to the bar, and it was hard not to touch Ellis outside of an accidental brushing of hands and knees in the back seat.
And if I thought that was excruciating, playing through an entire set without being able to express how I was feeling in a meaningful way was killing me. Why this was hitting me so hard tonight, I couldn’t unpack right then. But I tried showing him with my persistent gaze and smile, and Ellis seemed to give back in kind.
When he feathered his fingers across the small of my back while sharing the microphone, I could hear the catch in my voice, so other people likely did too. But in that moment, nothing else mattered. I only knew I wanted him so much that I ached.
Tonight might’ve been the first time I exhaled in relief at the end of a show. I almost wished we didn’t have to go through the effort of packing up.
Ellis and I carried the first load to the van and then got inside to push the speaker cabinet toward the front. We were breathing hard in the small space, alone for at least a few brief moments. I tugged the door closed, then turned to Ellis.
“I couldn’t wait,” I said and took his mouth in a scorching kiss. “Missed this.”
“Damn it, what are you doing to me?”
Ellis’s lips were just as fervent, which only fueled the fire inside me. Our tongues battled, our hands groped, and I wanted to get him home as soon as possible so I could devour him properly.
“What the fuck is going on?” Perry boomed as the door swung open, and we pulled apart, my stomach bottoming out.
“I…we…fuck. I’m sorry you had to see us like this before we could explain.”
Perry rubbed his eyes as if they were deceiving him. “I don’t understand. Are you two together? But you…you’ve dated women…”
“Believe me,” Ellis said, “we’ve had trouble understanding it ourselves.”
“How the fuck long has this been going on, and why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because we wanted some privacy so we could figure it out ourselves,” I told him. “This is new for us too.”
Perry folded his arms. “What about our rule of not dating bandmates after what happened between me and Heather? You were all up in arms about it.”
“Dude, that was so not how it went down.” I huffed out an exasperated breath. “We had no idea this was something that would ever happen between us. We planned to tell you as soon as we felt more comfortable to…to…”
“Holy shit, is this for real?” Perry leaned toward us and lowered his voice. “I didn’t think I was in a band with a couple of gay guys.”
“What the fuck, Perry?” I threw up my hands. “You homophobic now?”
“No! I’m trying to understand. How the hell did you expect me to react?” He gripped the edge of the door. “I knew something was going on with you two, but I never would’ve guessed this!”
“What’s going on?” Anthony asked as he came around the corner. “I heard raised voices.”
Perry motioned to us. “I caught these two making out like teenagers.”
“What are you saying?” Anthony’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “You two are hooking up?”
Fucking hell. “We can explain—”
“Let’s get our equipment loaded, and then we can talk,” Perry said.
I screwed my eyes shut, feeling the beginning of a throbbing headache. “Yeah, okay.”
