Chapter 14

fourteen

KASH

Kash managed to hold off until he got into his room, and then he completely shook apart. He covered his mouth as his knees hit the side of his mattress, and he sobbed against his palm. He wasn’t crying, and frankly, he couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad. He was overwhelmed and completely terrified of how much the next few moments were going to change everything he held dear.

He’d suspected for a while, and he’d been ignoring it for too long, but now, it was out in the open. Adele wasn’t doing this to be kind. He wanted more than hushed hookups in the cover of darkness or out-of-town hotel rooms.

It was everything Kash had ever wanted, being offered in the palm of Adele’s gorgeous, impossibly strong hands. And it was everything Kash was too afraid to reach out and take because if it didn’t work out, he had everything to lose.

He knew that was what he needed to tell Adele when they finally sat down to talk. The day had been wonderful, and in spite of his body betraying him, the ferry and the beach had been perfect. Adele was good at listening. He was good at knowing when he fucked up, and he was so perfect at making it right afterward.

But that didn’t mean it would be like that forever. He needed to know that Adele understood that this disease was forever. It wasn’t going away. There was no cure, and treatments only helped so much. He would face remissions and relapses, and while his life expectancy wasn’t shortened, that didn’t mean he would be the same man he was before he left.

At least not physically. He had no idea what Adele expected from him, and right now, he was a little afraid to ask.

Still, he needed to be a grown-up about it. He had to put on his big-boy pants, nut up, and tell Adele everything he was afraid of. And what he had going for him was the fact that he knew Adele better than he knew himself. He’d be able to tell if he was lying, and if that was the case, he’d cross that bridge when he had to.

Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and shuffled to his dresser for a pair of sweats. He smelled like lavender, and he swore underneath it, he got a faint whiff of come. He knew that wasn’t possible, but the idea of it crawled under his skin and settled there.

It was all he could do not to think of the way it felt when Adele had snapped, pinned him to the side of the tub, and then kissed the life out of him. His toes had curled, his stomach clenched, his cock ready to shoot off from that alone.

And he’d begged. God, it should have been pathetic, but Adele looked at him like the sun rose and set on his smile, and Kash felt himself giving everything he had to that man. His hand had pulled him over the edge, the orgasm almost blinding as he let go.

“Enough,” he murmured to himself as he got his sweater over his head. He stopped in front of the mirror and finger-combed his hair, and by the time he felt like he was presentable, at least twenty minutes had gone by. Adele hadn’t come to look for him, and that probably meant he knew Kash was somewhere between panic attacks.

Opening the door, he stuck his head into the hallway and heard Adele humming softly. He did that when he was lost in thought—made up little tunes that often got stuck in his head. Kash’s chest warmed, and he barely noticed his stiff, unresponsive feet as he braced himself on the wall and made his way to the living room.

Turning the corner, he came to a sudden halt, his heart in his throat at the sight of what Adele had done. The sofa had been pushed against the wall, and the coffee table was nowhere to be found. In its place were four chairs from the kitchen, sheets draped over the tops, and a mountain of pillows underneath.

It looked exactly like the blanket forts they’d made back in middle school, hiding in his parents’ basement from his dad’s after-work wrath. It was the one place Kash had felt the safest when his home life was ugly and volatile.

The fact that Adele had remembered—the fact that he’d known Kash would need this even when Kash himself had no idea—was almost too much. God, if he hadn’t been in love before, he was now.

With his whole heart and every atom of his soul.

“Need a hand?” Adele asked, crawling out from under the fort.

Kash swallowed against a dry throat and shook his head. “No, ah. I think I can make it.” He walked over, then dropped to his knees and crawled into the center of the pillow nest. It took him a second to get comfortable, but before he had to struggle too much, Adele was there.

He lifted Kash’s legs and got them settled, elevated to ease the pressure off his hips.

“You didn’t need to do all this,” Kash rasped.

Adele snorted. “If the situation was reversed…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kash was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. He shifted over a little, making room for Adele’s sizable body, and he felt something settle in his chest when Adele slid alongside him and rested his temple against Kash’s shoulder. He looked up at the ceiling and realized the sheets had stars on them. “Where’d you get these?”

“Left over from Gage’s astronaut phase,” Adele murmured. “They were buried in the linen closet.”

Kash hadn’t been around for that, and he felt a small pang because there was so much he’d missed because he was running from his feelings. He reached between them and picked Adele’s hand up, kissing his knuckles softly.

“Can I take that to mean you’re not outright rejecting me?”

Kash sighed and squeezed his fingers. “Needing to talk isn’t a rejection.”

“But it’s also not the moment you’re going to confess to being ass-wild in love with me with a plan to run to Atlantic City for an all-night wedding chapel, right?”

“I wouldn’t do that no matter how I felt, and you know it,” Kash said with a sniff. “I expect a grand wedding with the most expensive catered menu.”

Adele turned and propped up on his elbow, looking down at Kash, calling his bluff. “Don’t tempt me.”

Kash wanted to. He wanted to tempt him into everything. To get lost in his gaze, in his touch, in his kisses. He wanted to accept that this was all real and it would last and last until they were wrinkled and old and forgetting their own names.

But he was too much of a realist.

“I know that look,” Adele said softly. He looked heartbroken.

Kash let go of his hand and wrapped his fingers around the back of Adele’s neck, drawing him in for a kiss. “It’s not the look you think it is.”

“Mm, then tell me,” Adele said, pulling away. “Obviously, you know how I feel.”

“I don’t, and that’s part of the problem. I don’t know if you expected me to know that all this time, it wasn’t…I don’t know. A friend helping a friend, but?—”

“No. No, I knew you were either clueless or being deliberately obtuse,” Adele said softly. “I know how you are, and I know what scares you.”

Kash bit his lip, nodding. “I was clueless. But that was my fault. After you and her —” He still refused to say her name. “—were over and you still didn’t want me, I figured that was my answer.”

Adele closed his eyes and leaned his head over until their foreheads were touching. “We’re disasters.”

Kash couldn’t help a laugh. “We are.”

Taking a huge breath, Adele leaned back and met his gaze. “For both our sakes, I’m just going to say it. I’m in love with you.”

For all the times Kash had fantasized about Adele saying those words to him, it was nothing like he’d imagined. It was worse…and somehow, it was also better. It was quieter. Softer. Careful. It was matter-of-fact, like it was a mathematical equation’s only answer .

There were no fireworks. No sparks. No trumpets.

There was just Adele’s soft breathing and the hesitant look on his face as he waited for Kash to say something.

“You’re in love with me?” he finally repeated.

Adele rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I am. I have been I think since I knew what love was. But you never showed interest in me, so I didn’t think you’d ever feel the same way. And I was in the closet for so long, which made it harder.” Adele sighed. “I wish I had done everything different.”

“You wouldn’t have the life you have now if you had,” Kash pointed out.

“Yeah. I know. I couldn’t live without Gage, and I don’t really regret anything that happened before this except how long it took for me to tell you after you came home. But you were sick, and you were afraid. I wasn’t going to drop that bomb on you while you were still trying to deal with everything else.”

Kash wanted to argue that it would have been fine, but in reality, that might have broken him. He would have done the same thing if he’d been in Adele’s shoes. “But you do love me. Not because you feel sorry for me, or?—”

“Wait,” Adele interrupted. “Is that what you’ve been afraid of this whole time?”

“Not this whole time,” Kash said. “But for too long. I was scared that if you knew how I felt, you’d give up your chance at actual happiness to be with me because you’d know it would make me happy.”

Adele closed his eyes. “I mean, that tracks.”

Kash choked on his tongue. “Does it?”

Adele looked at him and smirked. “I would literally do anything to make you happy. I’m not even kidding. I would fist fight a snowstorm if you were cold.”

“Adele,” Kash whispered .

Adele took that as an invitation to kiss him, and Kash gave in like he had no choice. Because he didn’t. “But the reason I’d do all those things is because I am wildly in love with you, and I’ve been holding it in for years.”

“We’re fools,” Kash murmured.

Adele grinned and kissed him a second time before rolling further back. “We are. But there it is. I love you.”

Kash knew it was his turn. “Before I say anything?—”

“Right. Okay. I’m ready,” Adele murmured.

Kash knew this wasn’t what his friend wanted, but it was what they needed. “—I need you to know that I love you too. I have for probably as long as you. But I’m not ready to make something of this yet.”

Adele licked his lips and nodded, looking on the verge of shattered. “Right. Okay.”

“This isn’t a ‘we should see other people and sow our oats’ or whatever kind of thing,” Kash said quickly. He didn’t want Adele getting any ideas. Thinking for even a moment that he might be interested in that other firefighter had almost destroyed him, even if he’d told himself that it would have been for the best.

No, the problem was he needed time to learn to live in his own skin before he could live for Adele. He needed time, and that was it. Nothing more. He wanted space to figure himself out while knowing he had Adele to come back to when he was ready.

“So what do you need from me?” Adele asked.

Kash could hear the sincerity in his voice. “Just you. I need you to be yourself. To be my Adele.”

“I will always be yours,” Adele said quietly.

Kash rolled to the side as much as he could with his legs propped up and wrapped his arms around him. “I need patience as I figure my life out. I’m so…I’m so angry right now. Not all the time, but sometimes I feel so hateful about my circumstances. I don’t want to take that out on what we could be.”

“I can do that. I can be anything you need me to be,” Adele murmured against Kash’s hair. “Did you not notice that in all the years after my divorce, no one has ever caught my eye?”

“I thought you were focusing on Gage.”

“I was,” Adele said with a small chuckle. “And at night, I’d go to bed dreaming about you. I waited for that long, Kash. Nearly two decades. I can keep waiting as long as you need me to.”

“But we can have this, right?” Kash asked, holding him tighter.

Adele leaned back and curled a knuckle under his chin, tipping his face up. “This was never off the table. And neither is anything else we’ve done. Kash, if we never define this, if we stay exactly as we are, that’s enough for me too. I’m yours, and I always will be. That’s all you need to know.”

I’m yours too , he thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. Not yet. It didn’t seem fair, but it was what it was, and Adele didn’t seem upset about it. He looked happy.

“Tell me you love me again,” Kash whispered.

Adele kissed him first, then murmured the words against his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Am I a fool for needing time?”

Adele pulled back again and held his gaze. “No. You’re not a fool for putting yourself first. Just don’t push me away.”

“And you promise to stop being so careful,” Kash warned .

Adele rolled his eyes, making Kash laugh. “Fine, fine. Yes. Next time we’re outside, I’ll make sure to push you off the curb.”

“Thank you,” Kash said with a sniff.

Adele growled and tackled him to the pillows, kissing him again, then again, and again. “Too much?” he asked when he pulled back.

Kash shook his head and bit back a smile. “No. This is just right.”

“What the hell ?”

Kash woke up with a start, attempting to sit up, but he was pinned by a heavy weight. It took him far too long to remember it was Adele and that they weren’t in bed. They were on the living room floor under a blanket fort.

And the voice belonged to Gage.

“You made a fort without me?”

“A fort?” came another voice. Kash recognized Gage’s best friend, Lucas. “Is anyone inside?”

“My dad and Kash.” The sheet rustled, and then Gage’s face appeared. “Oh, good. There’s room for us. Move over.” Gage grabbed Lucas’s hand and guided it to the edge of the pillow nest. “To the left.”

Kash bumped Adele, who sat up with a gasp, his eyes bleary. He glanced over at Gage, very obviously not with it. “Whassat?”

“The teenagers are going to join us,” Kash said. His legs were rested and far more mobile, so he kicked away the pillows elevating them and shoved Adele over enough to make room for the boys, who quickly crawled in .

Adele groaned, curling up against Kash’s side, and before Gage and Lucas were settled, he was snoring again.

“Are you two on drugs?” Gage demanded.

Lucas snorted. “I don’t smell weed, but I know all about your generation and poppers.”

Kash choked on his tongue as he turned his body to the side to face the boys. They were both on their backs, Gage looking at him, Lucas running his fingers over the stars embossed on the sheets. “I’m going to pretend neither of you know about poppers. That was nothing your dad and I indulged in, and I’ve gone to enough emergency calls involving drugs that I’ll pull out my very stern lecture about overdosing if I have to.”

Gage rolled his eyes. “Please. Hugs not drugs, okay? That’s our motto.”

“I know you’re probably lying, but I’ll let it slide,” Kash said.

Gage grinned. “That’s why you’re my favorite.”

“I have to piss,” Lucas said suddenly. He felt around in front of him, then crawled to his hands and knees until he was clear of the tent before standing. “Don’t miss me too much.”

“I pine, I wither,” Gage said, and both of them burst into laughter.

“I feel like I should be asking you about the drugs,” Kash said.

Gage rolled onto his side, then peered over at Adele, who had his mouth open, and Kash swore he could feel a little drool against his shoulder. “Quid pro quo? You obviously have something else you want to talk about.”

Kash scoffed, hating a little how perceptive Gage was. “I know you’ve probably spent plenty of time parenting your dad?— ”

“Actually, no,” Gage cut in. “People assume that a lot. Like, I know the reputation about single parents and them being all weird and best friend-y with their kids. And okay, my dad is basically one of my best friends, but he was definitely an annoying-as-fuck parent all of my life. It wasn’t like that.”

Kash sighed. “I meant I know you worry about him.”

Gage scooted a little closer and rested his head against Kash’s temple. “Well, yeah. I’ve wanted him to be happy for so long, and I know most of the reason he’s not is my fault. He always told me that dating was less important than me and how he didn’t want anyone to take attention away from us being a family. And…I don’t know. I guess I wonder sometimes if I was some annoying little shit who made him think I’d be bitter if he didn’t spend all of his attention on me.”

“That’s definitely not it,” Kash promised him.

Gage rolled his head back to look into Kash’s face. “Then what was it?”

Kash didn’t want to say right then. It wasn’t his secret to tell. “Are you okay with me being back here?” he countered.

Gage blinked at him. “Uh, well…you’re going to stay, right?”

“Hmm?”

“Like, for good. You’re not leaving again?”

Kash put his arm around Gage and held him closer. “I’m going to stay. I’m still kicking myself for not being around when you were younger. Not because he needed the help but because I wanted to watch you grow up in person. Not just our crappy weekly video chats.”

“Then I’m good with it. And for the record, I did like those chats,” Gage said quietly. “They were my favorite nights of the week.”

Kash closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I feel like I failed both of you.”

As though Adele heard him in his sleep, he let out a soft hum and nuzzled closer, but he didn’t wake up.

Gage watched his dad for a beat, then looked back at Kash. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes,” Kash told him. He wasn’t going to promise to keep it to himself, but he’d promise to try.

Gage glanced away and swallowed heavily. “I’m scared to leave home. I’m afraid to meet someone and fall in love. I can’t…I can’t leave him by himself.”

“Hey, you know he’ll never be on his own, right?” Kash said. “He has me, and I’m not going anywhere. And he has his guys.”

Gage laughed softly. “Yeah, he does. And they’re great. It kind of feels like I’m being raised by a village of old, queer nerds. Like, I’ve never felt so safe, and it kind of freaks me out because I know the real world isn’t going to be this nice. And, like, I know they do love him. All of them will show up for him no matter what, but he also pretends to be super happy that they’re all falling in love and creating these little families while he’s left behind.”

Kash’s chest ached. He knew things were different between them, but he still couldn’t give Adele what he was asking for. Not yet. He knew Adele meant what he said—that this was enough—but he also knew his friend deserved better than that.

Bzzt bzzt! The sharp vibration of Gage’s phone startled them both.

“Lucas is texting me,” Gage said, pulling it out of his pocket. “I wonder if he fell in. He—oh. Do you mind if I take off? He wants to start a game.”

Kash laughed, which was interrupted by a yawn. “Go. Be kids. Have fun. I’m going back to sleep like the old man I am.”

Gage smiled at him, then rolled into a fierce hug before pulling away and climbing to his knees. He stared down at Kash for a long, silent moment. “You know I love you, right?”

Kash blinked in surprise. “Um.”

“I wanted you to be my dad for a long, long time. My old mom or whatever—I don’t know what to call her, we’ve never met. But I saw pictures of her, and I feel like…I feel like I wouldn’t have been happy with her, so I was glad it was over before I could remember.” Gage picked at his thumbnail, not meeting Kash’s gaze. “When I was little and my dad would get really sad, I’d lay in bed and imagine you showing up at the door and kissing him, and then having this big wedding where I’d get to wear a suit and a flower on the pocket, and he’d smile all the time, and you and I would hang out, and when I was scared, I could crawl in between you both, and it would feel better.”

“Gage…”

“I still want that. Maybe not the crawling into bed part,” he said, then stopped and laughed, “though I guess that’s what I just did. But anyway, my point is, I don’t know what y’all are to each other, and that’s fine. I just want you to know that I love you. And if this is the whole thing,”—he waved his hand between them—“I can be happy with that too.”

He left before Kash could get another word in.

God, the kid was exactly like his dad, only worse. Kash knew he couldn’t relent. He knew he needed to get himself to a better place before he could commit to Adele and dedicating the rest of his life to making sure he never felt another second of loneliness ever again. And he trusted he’d get there.

He wished he could do it now. He wished he could be the hero Adele and Gage were looking for. Then his legs began to stiffen and cramp again, and he was reminded once more why the race to that finish line would be met, not in a run but in a crawl.