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I turned my hand over so I could hold his. “I met Terry when he was assigned to my team. We hit it off right away. It was a couple of years before we got together because, technically, he was my subordinate. But we just couldn’t keep our hands off each other. So we kept it on the down low for a long time. My commanding officer found out but pretended he didn’t know anything. As long as we didn’t let it affect our mission readiness, he didn’t care. And thankfully, he wasn’t homophobic. We were happy. Everything was good until Terry was wounded in combat.” I stopped talking and closed my eyes as flashes of that day ran through my mind.
I felt Liam’s hand on my cheek. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me anything more if it’s going to hurt you.”
I opened my eyes and put my hand over his. “It’s okay. I want to tell you. You need to know.” I took another deep breath. “Terry’s injuries were so bad that he was medically discharged and sent home.”
“Oh shit,” Liam whispered.
I nodded. “Yeah. I followed him home as soon as I could. He did rehab here, and it went well. For a while, things were good. Good enough for me to propose. Good enough that I thought Terry was ready to join our extraction team. I was wrong. He got reinjured on our first mission. Badly enough that he had to have another surgery, and his doctor banned him from that kind of work indefinitely.”
“And he didn’t take it well, did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” I agreed. “He went downhill fast after that.” I felt my heart racing. My throat was closing up. I didn’t know if I could get the words out.
Once again, Liam gave me an out. “Marco, don’t. It’s okay.”
I clenched my jaw. “It’s not okay. It’ll never be okay.” My voice was thick when I could speak again. “In the middle of the night on October twenty-second twenty-nineteen, he drove out to Sandy Hook beach and blew his brains out.” I couldn’t say anything else because my throat was so tight with tears that wouldn’t come.
“Oh God, Marco.” Liam got out of his seat and crawled into my lap. He put his arms around me and held me. And finally, finally, the tears came. I sobbed like a baby in his arms while he spoke soothing nonsense.
When I finally stopped crying, he gently wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. He smiled tenderly and said, “Why don’t we go to the couch? There’s more room, and you’ll be more comfortable.” He stood and held out his hand to me. I took it and pulled him into a tight hug.
“Thank you.” It was all I could say at the moment.
He led me over to the couch and gently pushed me to sit. He sat next to me, but I wasn’t having any of that. I grabbed him around the waist and dragged him back onto my lap. “That’s better.”
He made a happy sound and snuggled into me. “I always wanted to do this, but I figured you wouldn’t want to.”
“I did, and I didn’t,” I said. “I wanted you more than I wanted to want you.”
Liam leaned back and looked at me with a raised brow. “That’s a lot of wanting.”
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” I pulled him close and sighed. “I want to tell you why Wednesday night happened the way it did.”
“Okay,” he said.
“After I dropped you off, I went home. And, of course, I got all up in my head about our night out. I decided to sleep on it and had a nightmare.” Liam put one of his hands over mine and squeezed. I blew out a breath. “It started out the same as they always do, but at the end, instead of Terry being dead on the ground, it was you.”
Liam gasped. “Oh. That’s…”
“Awful,” I finished. “I lost my mind. Literally. All I could think about was how I didn’t ever want to go through what I went through with Terry again. I figured I’d show you once and for all that we were casual, and you would stop wriggling your way under my skin. And into my heart.”
Liam leaned away from me so he could look into my eyes. “Have I?” he asked.
“Have you what?”
“Wriggled my way into your heart.”
I cupped his cheeks and kissed his forehead. “Yes, you have. Despite my best efforts to stop it.”
His eyes filled with tears. “That’s good then because I love you too.”
I put my arms around him and held him close. “I never thought I’d want to hear those words from anyone else. I can’t believe I almost lost you. I love you, Liam.”
He leaned back again, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “I think you need to make it up to me.”
“Make what up to you?” I asked, smirking.
“All the heartache and angst of the last few days.”
