The Embrace of Evergreen (Unexpected Love #2)

Blue

Blue

I can’t help but wonder about our tarot readings as we pack up our hotel room after enjoying the evening’s fireworks. About the way Gabriel’s spoke of a long-lasting love, something I know he secretly wants more than anything despite the fact that all of his relationships seem to fizzle out quickly. The way Ethan’s spoke of true love, and mine spoke of peace after pain and the stupid, terrifying, hopeful idea that what I want might just be right in front of me. Mostly, I can’t seem to suppress the deep soul-aching spark of belief that maybe, just maybe, there is magic in the universe and that somehow, if I’m worthy of its attention, mine and Ethan’s readings - and futures - might align. Somehow, he might miraculously wake up one morning and realize that he wants me, the same way I fell head over heels for him, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t happening.

“Okay. Which one of you muffin fluffers thinks you’re funny?” Gabriel asks as he squirms around on the bed Ethan and I shared last night while trying to pull something from the back pocket of his overly tight jeans. He packed before the show, so he’s decided that annoying Ethan and me while we pack is the best use of his time.

“Muffin fluffers? This is where you’re at. Please let me teach you some grown-up swear words.” I chuckle as I try - for at least the fifth time - to shove an obstinate and dangling pant leg into my overstuffed suitcase so that I can zip it up.

“Never. And come on, which one of you did this? I’m pretty sure it makes you a stealer.”

“A stealer? Do you mean a thief?” Ethan’s disembodied and slightly echoey voice asks from the open bathroom door.

“I mean what I mean, and for real, which one of you was it?” Gabriel bounces off the bed and shoves something in my face.

I have to lean back to see that it’s the mermen tarot card. “Wasn’t me. Although it is a pretty card.”

Ethan wanders out of the bathroom, his packed suitcase wheeling along behind him. Being the thoughtful man he is, he makes his way straight to me and sits down on the case I’m struggling to close. It zips right up. If I take an extra three seconds pretending to struggle with the zipper so that I can simply be close to him for one more moment, well, no one has to know. “It wasn’t me either. Do I really seem like the kind of person who would steal something and shove it into someone else’s pants? ”

“No.” Gabriel sounds both annoyed and devastated as he stares at the offending card. “Well, it had to be one of you.”

“I swear it wasn’t. Maybe it was magic.” I wiggle an eyebrow.

“Haha, very funny,” Gabriel snarks.

“Maybe you picked it up by accident,” Ethan offers as he stands up with a small grunt, a noise that definitely doesn’t shoot through my veins like fire.

“If I were to accidentally steal something, it would be like…cheese or a puppy or diamonds, not a stupid can’t-really-tell-the-future card.” Gabriel glares at it like it might conjure teeth and bite his fingers off at any moment.

“Well…” I pull on my jacket and join Ethan by the door with my suitcase, ready to lock up and head home. “We can drop by her shop on the way out of town and see if she’s still there.”

Gabriel just sighs and drops the card in the wastebasket beside the door as he joins us. “No. At least this way, no one else will be subject to its nonsense in the future. ”

Gabriel growls as he slams the freezer door. The double mermen card is taped at eye level just above the ice dispenser. I don’t know how it ended up in our apartment after he threw it out when we left the hotel last month, but he says that he found it while cleaning out his pockets doing laundry. In truth, if he didn’t get unreasonably upset and try to glare it into flames with his nonexistent eyeball lasers every time he’s in the kitchen, I’d assume he’d found a copy online and bought it just to fuck with me. I don’t have a logical explanation, but its reappearance doesn’t bother me in the same way it bothers Gabriel. It’s not like I go around believing in actual magic, but I’m a pretty easygoing guy, and I just don’t care enough to worry about coming up with an explanation that makes sense.

“What the frack is wrong with me, babe?” Gabriel plops down on the couch next to me and lays his head on my shoulder. “Yet another man added to the ever-growing list of men who seem to think I'm good enough for a few romps in bed but nothing more.”

“Fuck. Gabriel, I’m so sor…”

“Nope. I don't want to talk about it.” He cuts me off. “If you want to make me feel better, then let's talk about how your plan to never develop real feelings for any humans other than me while solving all your needs for intimacy with wild and jealousy-inducing, no-risk-of-being-dumped-for-the-thousandth-time one-night stands is going. ”

He somehow manages to keep talking while shoving a frankly pornographic-sized bite of ice cream into his mouth.

“Because last time I checked, you haven't hooked up with anyone in months. Something that seems to serendipitously coincide with precisely the moment a certain redheaded non-stockbroker came into our lives.”

“It’s auburn.”

“Nice try, doll. We’re not discussing the minutia of red hair versus auburn.”

I spin my lip ring with my tongue and idly trace my fingers along the fine-line tattoos that extend down to the first knuckles of my left hand as I try to put what's happened to me into words. As much as I want to find a way to convince Gabriel that it's just a coincidence, even though we both know it absolutely isn’t, I can’t. So I settle for sitting here, quietly hoping Gabriel will miraculously become so focused on his ice cream that he’ll forget what he asked. I mean, stranger things have happened; look at the mermen on our fridge.

"I can wait all night, kitten,"he mumbles around yet another bite.

I don't know why I thought I could wait him out; the fucker is nothing if not persistent. In truth, I don't really think I want to, not anymore. For months now, he’s kindly chosen to not say a word about all of the ways I've been changing, even though he absolutely noticed it beginning the moment I first winked at Ethan in the coffee shop. It’s strange to look at myself and see how different I am from just a few months ago, and it’s taken some time to wrap my head around this new me. But Gabriel has been my biggest support since the moment we met, and it feels like it’s time to let him in. Having a bit more of his support right now certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.

The past month has been wonderful and confusing and complicated and…hard. Things between Ethan and me are good. We still meet most mornings for coffee, and he still joins us for Friday Night Friend Dates. Saturdays have changed though. During our normal coffee not-an-actual-date date the Wednesday after the boat festival, Ethan asked me to join him in exploring a new trailhead the following weekend, and it took everything in me to say yes like a normal person instead of jumping up and down like a kid who’d been given a bonus bag of candy on Halloween. We’ve spent every Saturday together exploring nearby woods and beaches for the past four weeks. We pack coffee and pastries and talk and laugh and enjoy comfortable moments of lingering silence while eating our car breakfast. We stop at random diners and pubs on the drive home, always ordering different things and splitting them the way we did after our first trip into the forest together.

We talk about work and art and nature and life. Our knuckles brush and our shoulders press together as we hike around tight trail corners. We offer hands to help one another up steep inclines, and our thighs or calves press against one another when we pause to rest and enjoy brief moments of early winter sun in grassy fields or take shelter from sudden rainstorms under moss-covered tree branches. Ethan’s head falls back and his entire body trembles when he laughs. When he leans in to tell me stories about his youthful hijinks and indiscretions in a near whisper, as if he doesn’t want any birds or foxes that might be hiding nearby to be able to repeat them, he gets close enough for me to notice the shadow of stubble along his strong jawline and the way his eyes seem to reflect the colors of the pines and redwoods and firs that surround us. The intoxicating scent of sweat and clove and orange permeates my car and my clothing and my life.

My entire existence seems to have reorganized itself to revolve around Ethan. I want his smiles and his laughter and his quiet, painful truths. I want his gaze on me and his small, innocent touches. For the first time in so, so long, I want. I want more than just the fleeting enjoyment or momentary satisfaction of fingers and tongues and skin and orgasms that come in a rush only to leave an aching emptiness in my chest and cold, stained sheets behind.

I want to lie in bed and talk about nicknames and hobbies and favorite books. I want whispered words of desire and fingertips that move slowly enough to count every freckle sprinkled across pale white skin. I want late mornings tangled up in strong, lithe limbs and my cheek resting on a broad chest in the dark. I want to let myself believe that love just might be real and that not everyone in the world is going to hurt me. I want to be open and honest and truthful. I want to forget my past and find a future where I belong to someone, mind and body and heart and soul. I want that someone to be Ethan.

I want to spend every waking moment with him. I want to spend my non-waking moments with him, too, if I’m honest with myself, and I’m afraid that if I allow myself to ruminate on the color of his eyes or the freckles that speckle the bridge of his nose or the way his broad, broad shoulders taper down to a narrow waist that fits so perfectly in my hands on the dance floor that I’ll slip up and let him see how much I want him. I don’t want him to realize that as hard as I’m trying to behave like nothing more than a good friend, I want more. So, so much more.

"Ethan is my friend. It's not my story to tell, but he's got a bit of a rough history. Not like mine, rough in other ways, but he hasn't had a lot of friends or support. I don't think he’s even known much real kindness, and there is something about him that makes me want to offer him those things, to support him and help him and make him happy."

Gabriel's expression has shifted to something gentle and concerned, and he's let his hands fall to his lap, his attempt to ingest a pint of ice cream in under three minutes seemingly forgotten.

"You know what you're saying, right? Tell me you recognize what those words mean. ”

I close my eyes and shift to curl up under Gabriel’s arm.

“It means I’m falling in love with him.”