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Grady’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah.” Lake pursed his lips and gave a helpless shrug. “I’m in love with you, you grumpy bastard. The marriage, and house, and dog that I dreamed of having? I want them withyou.” He bit his bottom lip, nostrils flaring as tears pricked at his eyes. “You don’t get to decide whether or not I’m ‘gay’ enough to want those things. Even though we both know that I’m a huge fan of your dick, what matters to me is who you are inside, not what’s between your legs.”
Grady didn’t respond, and Lake’s heart broke. Why wouldn’t this beautiful man just let Lake love him? It was clear how much he needed to be loved. How much hedeservedit. Lake wanted to shower him with affection and love and everything else that he’d been missing.
“We’re already dating, Grady. The only part that’s missing is the label. Why are you the only one that can’t see that?”
“If you think we’re already dating, why do we need the label?”
“Why are you so afraid to give it one?” Lake countered.
“Once something is given, it can be taken from you,” Grady ground out.
Lake shook his head. “I’m not either of them. I would never do to you what they did. I wish you would trust that. I wish you would trustme.” He licked his lips, his chest already aching and pained. He’d known deep down that revealing what he wanted would make Grady tuck tail and run, and yet even deeper down had been the hope that maybe, just maybe, that wouldn’t be the outcome. For the first time in his life, he hated being right. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said, his voice cracking.
“What does that mean?” Grady’s voice sounded thick too, like it had been dredged from his throat with forced effort.
“I want the label, Grady. I want every part of you, not just the parts you decide to give. And if you…” Lake took a deep breath. This was important because Lake deserved better than this. Theybothdid. “If you can’t, then I don’t think we can be friends.”
“What?”
“I can’t be your friend. I can’t pretend that you don’t mean as much to me as you do. I can’t go out in public and introduce you as my ‘friend’ when I know in my heart that you’ll always be more than that.”
“I can’t give you what you’re looking for.”
“What happens to us if I start dating someone else? Ifyoudo?” Even just saying the words hurt. Now that he knew what this kind of love felt like, why would he ever want anything else? How could he ever look at someone else the way he looked at Grady? The simple answer was that he couldn’t.
“I don’t want anyone else,” Grady said numbly.
“And neither do I,” Lake said. “So I don’t understand why you’re pushing so hard against this!”
“Because you’ll just leave!” Grady roared. He turned away and lifted a hand to his face. “What you want is a fairy tale, and I’m not built for that.”
Lake approached slowly. Grady tensed when Lake placed his hands on his lower back. He slid his hands up Grady’s back, reaching his shoulders and then up his neck. He moved them back down and then twined them around Grady’s waist. He rested his forehead against the middle of Grady’s back, feeling the muscles bunch beneath him.
“I don’t want the fairy tale, Grady. I’m a handful, and I don’t pretend to think that I’m perfect.” He squeezed gently. “I don’t think that everything will be perfect once you say yes, or that things will be smooth sailing all the time. I just want you, whatever that means. We can take it slow. Hell, we can take itglacialif you want. I’m not asking you to move in with me and marry me right this second. I’m not even asking you to say you love me back. I just want us to try. I want to be able to call you mine, to be guaranteed that Friday night date. To be able to tell anyone that flirts with you that you’re taken, and they can go dunk their head in a toilet.”
Grady let out a huffed laugh. “I don’t get flirted with.”
“You get flirted withwaymore than you think you do.” Lake was going to have to practise his death stare in the mirror so he could use it on any of the idiots who thought Grady was ripe for the picking. “That’s not the point.”
“What if I say yes, and it all falls apart?”
“If you’re asking me to guarantee that it won’t, I can’t. Life doesn’t work that way. But I can promise you that I would never lie or cheat.” Lake kissed Grady’s back lovingly. Hope was flaring in his stomach like butterflies dancing, and this time he let them free. If he was asking for trust, he had to give trust in return. He knew Grady,lovedGrady. And Grady would never try to hurt him, not if he could help it. Grady had only ever tried to protect himself, and that was something that Lake could understand. If Grady wanted to push him away, he would have already done it. “If something is wrong or something doesn’t work for me, I’ll talk to you about it. I won’t go behind your back and ever do anything that I know will hurt you, not deliberately.”
Grady twisted in Lake’s arms and cupped his cheeks. “Lake, you are an extremely attractive man, inside and out. Realising that you’re bisexual opens up an entirely new pool for you, for dating or just casual relationships. Why would you want to tie yourself down?”
“I think we already covered the whole ‘I don’t want anyone else’ thing, so why would I care that other people are out there? I don’t want other people.”
“And what if you decide later that you do?” Grady asked, his eyes imploring. While his words said one thing, the sadness beneath the surface said that he was worried about the answer. Lake wanted to heal all of that hurt, show Grady that he was worth everything to him.
But Lake knew it wasn’t that simple. He knew that this was the crux of the matter. The betrayals Grady had experienced at the hands of two men who had likely promised exactly what Lake was trying to promise would have dug down and gotten their claws deep inside him. Lake didn’t know what else he could say to reassure Grady. All he could do was keep repeating it until Grady believed it. Lake was willing to do that for however long it took. Grady just had to let him in so he could do it.
“The only one that thinks that will happen is you,” Lake said softly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a pretty great catch yourself. Those guys were idiots, and sometimes you just can’t account for taste. Their loss is my gain. I know myself, and I know that I’m never going to think otherwise.”
Lake leaned forward and kissed Grady’s soft lips. He’d meant for it to be quick, but he couldn’t resist the lure and allowed Grady to slip his tongue in and have a taste before he pulled away. Lake stroked Grady’s cheek, running his fingers through his soft beard. Fuck, he loved Grady’s beard. “For the first time in my life, I can see the path of the future that I want because I’ve found the person that I want to walk it with.”
Grady kissed him hungrily, pulling soft moans from deep inside Lake. Lake was helpless to do anything but open for him. There would never be a time in his life that he wouldn’t want to kiss Grady. He wrapped his arms around Grady’s neck and arched up, pressing their chests together.
