Chapter 21

twenty-one

ADELE

Over the course of Adele’s career, he had seen his fair share of injuries and a few deaths, though those were rare in their little town. He’d seen homes blazing, heard people screaming, himself caught up in the adrenaline of making sure everyone was safe and unharmed as they got the flames put out.

But he’d never been around for the aftermath. After the trucks packed up and rolled back to the station. He saved his own sanity by tucking those images into tiny boxes in his head, showering off the smell of soot, and putting on comfy sweats.

He’d go home to his kid and the little family he’d created. In recent months, he could cuddle Audra to get his baby fix, or play dress-up with Briar, or let Rex wax poetic about the dress shop he planned to own when he was a grown-up while watching videos on YouTube about cake decorating.

He could forget how bad it was because he never saw what came after.

But this time, he couldn’t hide. This time, the blackened rubble was his. Everything that wasn’t burnt was soaked. The house reeked with the stench of growing mold and rot. There was a hole in the roof that had let in the elements, and although it had been nearly a week since the fire, it still felt fresh.

The embers had cooled to blackened husks, and he was now forced to face the reality of his situation: they were homeless. The life he’d spent building over eighteen years had burned down by a single freak accident, and there was no saving it.

Photos were gone. Everything Gage had spent years building with his D&D games were ash. Important paperwork that hadn’t been in his safe could be ordered all over again, but all the cards and notes and drawings and little elementary school projects Adele had meticulously saved over the course of his son’s life were no more.

His stomach ached.

“I think I found a few bins in the basement,” came a voice from the stairs. Bowen appeared a few seconds later, his arms weighted down. “And I think Lane found Gage’s baby clothes.”

Adele’s heart twisted in his chest. They were doing a last sweep now that the adjuster had gone through and declared it a total loss. They’d be bulldozing the lot and starting over again. He had a fuckload of equity in the house, so the check would be fat.

He could start from the ground up, rebuilding it all to the specifications they needed for Kash, but that didn’t really ease the pain. Not completely.

“You wanna quit for the day?” Bowen asked as he looked at Adele.

He sighed. “I don’t think I have it in me to go down in the basement right now.” Or at all. He didn’t know why, but every time he thought about digging through the house, it felt like his arms and legs were stuck in superglue.

“Let us take care of it. I know what’s important and what isn’t.” Bowen set the box down on the ground, then tugged Adele close. “Anyway, don’t you have an appointment downtown today?”

If anything could perk him up, it was that. He was getting married in a few days, and today was the day they got to pick up their license.

The morning after the hospital proposal, Adele kept waiting on edge for Kash to say he’d changed his mind about it all, but that didn’t happen. Kash threw himself into making sure that Gage was okay and then threw himself into finding a suitable rental for them to live in because this was going to take months, and Adele was not interested in having roommates.

He loved his friends, but he wanted to be able to enjoy this new thing with Kash without an audience. Adele was pretty sure Kash felt the same way.

He didn’t think Renato and Frey minded either. He knew they were happy to have them, considering the circumstances, but he also knew they were a disruption to their home, and Adele was tired of feeling like an inconvenience to everyone—even if he knew that was only in his head.

“Hey.”

Adele blinked and looked over at his brother. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just go, okay? Anything Lane and I find is going into the garage, and you can sort through it all when you’re ready.”

Adele swallowed heavily and nodded. “Thank you.”

Bowen laughed softly and pulled him into a hug. “Go kiss your fiancé, take him to lunch, do schmoopy shit to make yourself feel better. You’re getting married soon, and the guys are going to want to celebrate. Get your quiet in while you can.”

Adele rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. His initial plan to have it be only Bowen and Gage at the ceremony had been quickly dashed when he realized the guys would never let him get away with that. And better yet, he didn’t want them to. There was not a chance in hell he was excluding them from his day.

He squeezed his brother once more, then hurried to his car for the long drive out to Renato’s. He wasn’t really in the mood to be alone, but with what he had coming up, he was grateful for the momentary silence before chaos hit the fan.

By the time Adele pulled into the driveway, he had a text from Kash letting him know he was running an errand with Renato and would be back well before they needed to leave. That gave Adele time to shower the smell of burnt house and mold off him, which was the first thing he did.

He took his time with a fluffy sponge and some woodsy-scented soap and scrubbed his skin until it felt raw. He was struggling to feel clean even after all the bubbles rinsed away, but he knew it was mostly in his head.

His fingers were wrinkly though, and he didn’t want to stick Renato with a massive water bill, so he stepped out and shrugged into the long robe Frey had given him to use. Adele paused by the sink and stared at himself. He looked tired, but he also hadn’t been sleeping well. He was waking up with nightmares of fire and death nightly, and most of the time, he couldn’t get back to sleep until he peered into Gage’s room to make sure he was still breathing .

But he knew Kash didn’t care what he looked like. Things between them were finally settled. They felt real and safe, and it was the only thing keeping Adele from falling apart.

He scrubbed his hands down his face with a heavy groan and then turned and walked into his bedroom, coming to a skidding halt when he saw a tiny figure rifling through the closet.

Adele opened his mouth to address Rex, then remembered and instead stomped his foot on the floor.

Rex spun around and broke into a smile. ‘…clothes!’

Adele couldn’t always keep up with Rex’s signing, but he was pretty sure the word he’d missed was wedding . He laughed and sat down on the bed. ‘It’s not a big wedding,’ he signed.

Rex pouted. ‘Why?’

Adele didn’t have the will or the lexicon to explain it all to him. ‘Because we’re getting married soon. Two days,’ he clarified.

Rex frowned, then jumped up. ‘I can help.’

‘Yes,’ Adele said, catching his arm before he could dart away. ‘You can stand with me?’

‘Hold the rings?’

Adele’s heart crashed into his stomach. Rings. Rings? He had no rings. Christ. ‘I need to find some when I go shopping.’

Rex’s eyes got watery. ‘Fire hurt the old ones?’ Then he flung himself at Adele and held him tight.

Oh. This sweet child. Adele kissed the top of his head and then eased him back. ‘It’s okay. We’ll find something. I want you there, okay? You and everyone. Family.’

Rex brightened at that and nodded. ‘Food after. Big wedding dinner? ’

Adele laughed. ‘Yeah. Big wedding dinner.’

Rex jumped up and then ran out of the room, his little feet pounding on the hardwood floor. When he heard the boy’s bedroom door slam shut, Adele fell back on the bed with a heavy groan and lay there until he heard footsteps shuffling into his room.

“Tell me he’s not giving you a hard time about not having a big wedding,” Frey said.

Adele laughed and shuffled over to make room for Frey, who flopped beside him. “More like reminding me of all the ways I’ve already fucked up before we even got started. I don’t have rings.”

“Go to one of those cheap-ass places in the mall,” Frey said. “Then order nice ones later. Or don’t do rings at all. Who cares when it’s you and Kash.”

Adele couldn’t help his smile because it was true. It was him and Kash, and nothing else mattered. “I hate how chaotic this all feels.”

“You’d hate it more if it was a big white wedding,” Frey pointed out.

That was true. Adele had hated his first—not because of his ex but because it was a big production to show off her father’s money and how pretty she looked in her white dress. Which she had. She’d looked like a goddess. But she’d had the emotional range of one too.

“Dallas texted. He wants to know if he can bring Dani and her girlfriend,” Frey said, staring at his phone.

Adele smiled. He adored Danni and Poppy, even if it was a little strange that Poppy had been married to Monty’s father not that long ago. He wasn’t even sure the divorce had been finalized yet, but he didn’t really care. Not as long as they were happy .

“Yes, please.”

Frey set his phone down and rolled onto his side, propping his head up with his fist. “It’s time for you to let go.”

Adele blinked at him. “Uh. Of what?”

“Of this need to still be everyone’s fucking dad in the middle of what is probably one of the worst crises you have ever been through.”

Adele’s chest got a little tight. “I’m not?—”

“Stop. You’re trying to deal with insurance, grief, trauma, an engagement and a wedding, worrying about your son, and still trying to make room for our problems,” Frey told him. “I can see it on your face. You’re going to crack if you’re not careful.”

Adele’s breath left his chest in a tremble. “If I let go, I will fall apart.”

“So fall apart. You have the population of a small town standing under you, waiting to catch you before you hit the ground.” Frey’s eyes met his. “You’ve saved us over the years. All of us. It’s time to let us return the favor.”

“Fuck off before I start crying, please,” Adele begged. “I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime.”

Frey laughed and swung his legs off the bed. “Fine, but only because Renato and Kash are home, and I know your lover boy will want to kiss your face off before you both take off for court.”

Frey was out of the room in a hurry, which gave Adele enough time to compose himself before Kash appeared. He was walking steadily, though he was leaning heavy on his cane, but he left it at the door as he crossed the room to the bed.

Adele immediately took him into his arms and kissed them as they dropped against the pillows. “Mm, I have been waiting for this all day,” he murmured against Kash’s lips .

Kash laughed. “Good. Me too.” He took a deep breath. “You smell amazing.”

Adele was beyond glad the shower had worked because he knew the scent of smoke was hard for Kash and Gage to take. “I need to get dressed, but we do need to go soon.”

“I was thinking about getting something to eat after.”

Adele rolled away and stood up off the bed, turning to look at his lover. “Are you taking me on a date?”

Kash grinned. “If you’d let me.”

“I’ll think about it.” He winked and moved to the dresser to pull out one of the two pairs of jeans he had that fit him. Dallas was closest to his size and had sent over some extra clothes, but on his teaching salary, he didn’t have a lot to spare.

Adele planned to shop for all of them, but he wanted to wait until they were somewhere a little more permanent. “You’ll have to make do with me like this, so I hope those plans aren’t fancy,” he said, pulling the Henley over his head.

Kash pushed up from the bed and walked over, taking Adele by the waist. “You could be in a potato sack and I’d still want to rip it off you and choke on your dick.”

Adele nearly swallowed his own tongue. “You’re saying that shit to me right before we have to leave the house?”

Kash grinned, then seized his hand and all but pulled him through the door. They stopped to get shoes on, and then Adele called a quick goodbye before he and Kash made their way outside to the car.

Their mood had sobered a little by the time Adele was on the road, but before he could panic about Kash having second thoughts, he reached over and took Adele’s hand, kissing his wrist.

“Stop making that face. ”

Adele rolled his eyes. “I can’t help it. I’ve thought about shit like this for years. I mean, the night of my first wedding, I woke up after having a sex dream about you.”

Kash choked on his own spit. “What?”

Adele flushed and pulled his hand back to hold the wheel steady. “I never told anyone about that. I woke up humping the bed, five seconds away from coming all over my sheets.”

Kash said nothing for a long time, and then he said, “Would you change anything if you could? Like for real?”

“I’d change a lot of things,” Adele told him. “If I could go back and find a way to have you and still be the ones who got to adopt Gage, I’d change everything. But I’m happy now, and that matters, right?”

Kash touched the side of his face with gentle fingers. “It matters. Right now, it feels like the only thing that does.”

Adele turned his face briefly to kiss his hand, then kept his eyes on the road. They stayed quiet until they saw the turn for downtown, and then his heart began to kick off in his chest. He tried to breathe slow and steady, but it wasn’t helping.

“I think I might have a panic attack before we go in,” he admitted, pulling up to a meter spot. He turned the car off, but he couldn’t bring himself to look over at Kash.

“Are you having second thou?—”

“No,” he interrupted before Kash could put the full thought out there into the universe. “Not a chance. I…I don’t know. I feel overwhelmed.”

“This is a lot. We should have waited,” Kash said softly.

“Do you want to wait?”

Kash’s laugh was high and tight. “No. God, no. I’m scared if we don’t do this now, shit will keep coming up to stop us, and it’ll never happen. ”

“Not a chance.” Adele released the wheel and, with trembling hands, turned and cradled Kash’s face between his palms. “Nothing will stop me. I don’t care if I have to fight a god for this.”

Kash’s smile was so big his eyes wrinkled in the corners. “But the panic…”

“It’s not because I’m afraid to be married to you. I think it’s because I’m afraid not to be. I’m scared we’re going to walk in there, and someone’s going to tell us we’re not allowed. It’s irrational, I know,” he added before Kash could debunk his anxiety. “But it is what it is, and I’m trying to let myself feel these things so they don’t bottle up so much.”

“Kiss me,” Kash whispered. “We’re ten minutes early.”

Adele leaned in and, for the next eight minutes, busied himself with Kash’s lips and tongue. By the time they were forced to pull apart, he was no longer shaking. He was still a mess of nerves, and he fumbled a bit as he grabbed their folder full of paperwork—the few things that they’d managed to salvage from Adele’s fireproof safe—and they headed inside.

This wasn’t the wedding day. It was paperwork day. But it was the first step toward their actual forever, and as afraid as he would always be that someone would come between them to stop him from being happy, he was ready to face that head-on.