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He grinned and took my hand. “Can’t spoil the surprise. Gosh.” He tugged me forward, leading us to the little family we’d found along our journey back to each other.
They looked ridiculous, every single one of them. My mother was openly weeping for reasons I didn’t understand. One of Kate’s hands was on Jeff’s ass and the other was wiping a tear from her eye. The debs were standing side by side like a busted-up version of the Pentecostal-cat Dolls, praying up a storm. Christian was eye-fucking me like there was no tomorrow, holding Dog-Dog in his arms. As for Dog-Dog, he was wearing a sparkling sweater with a sewn-on doggy backpack. I wasn’t sure why he needed a backpack, but rather than question the matter, I blew him a kiss. Rhonda was missing in action, which offended me to my very core. Marty was wearing a shirt that readI LOVE MY HOMOSEXUAL SON,and there was a strip of black tape about an inch wide toward the end of that rainbow. Surprisingly, Sarah was at Marty’s side, holding the hand of my arch-nemesis, the nameless waitress from Shooters Saloon (AND SUSHI). I scowled at the waitress. She glared at me. Gray just groaned and led me forward.
When we reached them, Mom pulled me in for a hug and blubbered in my ear. My stomach was in knots, and though I didn’t know what was going on, it felt like it was something big. When she let me go, Gray spun me around until we were facing.
“Kent Fox—”
I leaned in, hissing my words at him. “You haven’t even said hello to anyone. That’s just rude. Christ, Gray, where the hell are your manners?”
Gray rolled his eyes and waved at the small crowd beside us before turning back to me. He pressed his forehead against mine. “I love you, Half-pint.”
“Love you. So much.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. So, what I need from you is to stand there and keep that beautiful little mouth of yours closed long enough for me to get this out.” He cocked his head to the side, giving me the sexiest set of bedroom eyes that I’d ever seen. “Can you do that?” He reached up, tracing the length of my jaw. “Can you be a good boy for me?” I nodded, unable to do much else when he was staring at me like that. “Good. Because you’re going to want to hear this.”
“I am?”
“You are.” He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “I used to pray for this, you know. After you left, I’d pray that you’d come home. I begged God to bring you back to me. To give me a chance to make everything right. When you left, I lost a part of myself. The best part.” Gray reached up, wiping a tear from his eye. “Your song, the one I sang for you ...‘Just for you, Half-pint,’I used to say. Do you remember?”
I nodded.“Abide With Me.”He smiled so widely at me that the very ground I stood upon felt like it was collapsing, and I knew that even if it took me, even if I fell into the Earth’s depths, I would die a happy man because that smile would have been the final sight that guided me out of this life and into the next.
“When I would sing it to you back then, I was pleading. Pouring my heart out to you and hoping that you’d notice me.Stay with me. I know that I’m not what you were planning for, and maybe I can’t be what you need, but please stay with me.When I sang it, those were my words. That song was my love letter to you, Kent. It always has been”
“Please don’t make me cry, Grayson.”
“I loved you so much, for so long, and I was so scared of losing you. When you started dating Kate, it killed me. It hurt so bad I didn’t think I’d get through it.” His eyes shifted to the ground and he sniffled. It sent an instinctual urge through me to wrap him up in my arms so that I could protect his fragile heart. “Then I did the same thing to you with Sarah. I knew how much it hurt—how much it had to be killing you. I was a coward, and I’m sorry for putting you through that. I regret a lot of things in my life, but there’s nothing I regret more than those first few months after you came home.”
“Look at me.” I waited for him to look up. “None of that matters. Not anymore. Fresh start, remember? It’s you and me now, and it always will be. That’s what matters. That’s what’s important. Not Sarah. Not Kate.”
“Was that really necessary?” Sarah asked.
“Oh, fuck you right back, dude,” Kate said.
I extended my arm, stopping inches away from Kate’s face, and flipped her off. Sarah got a pass because I was in a forgiving mood. Well, that, and because her new girlfriend looked like she could deliver a knockout punch with little more than the flick of a wrist. Ignoring their interruption, I looked back at Gray.
He cupped my cheek with his hand. “That night at the lake—”
“Wait, Gray.” It felt right. Everything about that moment felt right. My family was there. My friends were there. At the place where the best and worst moments of my life had transpired, it almost felt like coming full circle. So, I made a decision. Even if I didn’t have a ring, I could have this. This moment with Gray. I leaned in, kissing him gently on the lips, and then I dropped down on one knee.
“Grayson Collins, when I moved home, I never thought—”
Gray gaped at me, his nostrils flaring. “No. Get up. You get up right this second.”
I furrowed my brow, feeling absolutely humiliated. Tears pooled in my eyes, and my jaw trembled. “You’re turning me down?”
“I swear on everything. If you don’t stand up this second, I’m divorcing you.”
“How the hell are you going to divorce me when you just turned down my proposal?”
“I’ve been practicing this speech for weeks. Stand up.”
I glowered at him as he yanked me to my feet. “I just want you to know that if this is your way of breaking up with me, it’s about the most low-down, dirty thing that you—”
He placed his finger over my lips. Then, as if my entire impromptu proposal had never taken place, he continued his stupid little speech as I died inside.
“That night at the lake, you told me you loved me and everything just felt right. Just like it always should have been. How it could have been. And then you were gone. I lost my entire world in an hour.” I reached forward, wanting to touch him. Needing him to feel me. To give him strength. To show him that he wasn’t in this alone.
“Every night that you were gone, I sang that song. Right before bed. I would close my eyes and I would sing it out to you, hoping that you’d hear it. Like a prayer.” He leaned forward and brought his voice to a whisper, as if he could somehow speak so quietly, God himself wouldn’t hear it. “It was my prayer to you. When you left, the world felt like it was spinning around me while I stood still. Like life didn’t have a bit of purpose without you at my side. But I felt you.” He touched his hand to his heart. “My God, I felt you.” He turned to Christian and nodded. Christian set Dog-Dog down, and Gray clicked his tongue against his cheek. “Dog-Dog, come.”
