Chapter 18 #2
I watched him carefully. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Adrian huffed a breath, not quite a laugh. “No. It’s just… quiet feels different here. Not like in LA. There, it’s more like… loneliness in a crowd. Here, it’s—” He paused, brow furrowing. “It’s full. Like the quiet means something.”
I reached for his hand and pulled him toward the sofa. “That’s the pine trees and generational trauma talking.”
He smiled faintly. “Maybe.”
A beat passed as we settled on the couch, bodies angled toward the dark fireplace. I reached for the remote and clicked it, watching the gas logs roar to life.
Adrian gasped and let out a choked laugh around the wine he’d just sipped. “J’accuse! You made fun of me for wall switches! How dare!”
I shrugged and grinned. “Maya had one condition on moving out of the house. She wanted a fireplace. Chief Kincaid and I had words about my options, and then he reminded me I could use the store’s wholesale discount for it.”
“Cheater,” he murmured before taking another sip of wine.
“I prefer the term dream-fulfiller.”
Adrian stared into the flames for a few minutes as the silence settled around us. “I used to think bonfires were trashy,” he said after a minute. “Like, suburban dad energy. Oversized hoodies, red Solo cups, that sort of thing.”
“And now?” I asked, eyes on him.
“Now I think I maybe missed something important.” He tilted the glass in his hands, watching as the light sparkled off the burgundy wine.
“We never had stuff like that growing up. No bonfires. No cocoa stands or community potlucks or town parades. We had… galas. Brunches. Pressed napkins and catered shrimp towers.”
I made a sound of encouragement.
Adrian shifted until his back was against the arm of the sofa and he was facing me. “I know I sound like an asshole, complaining about the fancy shit—”
“You don’t,” I said, voice low.
Adrian inhaled through his nose. “It’s just…
I don’t know. I’m not saying I was neglected.
I wasn’t. Not in a way that counts. I had everything.
Clothes, school, skiing in Stowe, and summers on the Cape.
I just—” He shook his head, eyes flicking to the fire again.
“My dad said I could absolutely be gay; I just needed to do it in private if I wanted to have a decent career. My mom once told me I’d never get anywhere with ‘that tooth.’ So I got braces for a third time.
At sixteen. Even though the orthodontist tried telling them it wasn’t easy to twist a tooth that was otherwise perfectly aligned. ”
He pointed to the crooked canine I already low-key had a crush on and tried for a laugh, but it came out too thin. “Isn’t that fucked-up? That these stupid things bother me? Like… I didn’t have it that bad. Nobody hit me, or screamed at me, or… or left.”
I didn’t speak, but my heart felt like it was being shredded. I reached my hand out and slipped it into his and squeezed.
“I’ve told myself for years it wasn’t that bad,” Adrian whispered. “Because it wasn’t. I just don’t… remember being anyone’s favorite. Ever.”
Adrian’s admission was devastating because I imagined they represented an all-too-common experience. The fact that Adrian had experienced it made me want to fly to Connecticut and hunt down his fucking parents.
I set my glass down and shifted closer. My voice was rough around the edges when I spoke. “That’s a wound no one allows you to claim,” I told him softly. “And it breaks my fucking heart, Adrian.”
Adrian’s throat worked as he tried to swallow.
“You deserved more than being the good-looking accessory in a Christmas card,” I continued. “You deserved to be loud and messy and loved anyway. You deserved someone who looked at you and thought, ‘That one’s mine.’”
Adrian blinked hard.
I squeezed his hand and cupped his cheek before leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips. Gentle. Solid. Real.
“You’re still trying to be so good for everyone,” I murmured, pulling back only enough to meet his eyes. “You’re perfect just as you are, Adrian. Messy and real. Crooked tooth, weird oat milk fixation, and all.”
He sniffled and grinned, reaching out to poke me between the ribs. “Jackass. Sadie doesn’t think my oat milk fixation is weird. She said lots of her customers have been using that creamer since she started buying it for me.”
I caressed his cheek with my thumb again before moving my thumb to lift his upper lip, exposing his crooked canine. “Do you know that the first time we met, I kind of, sort of had a thing for this tooth?”
“Liar.”
“It’s true. I thought it made you perfectly imperfect. I would imagine if you were able to fix it, you wouldn’t look like yourself anymore. You’d look like all the other pretty boys on socials. Boring.”
“Keep lying,” he teased, though his voice sounded rough. “I like it.”
I tilted his chin until he met my eyes. “Anyone who makes you feel small for wanting to be loved, to be chosen—they’re the broken ones. Not you.”
Adrian’s voice was hoarse when it came. “Stop saying nice shit, or I won’t leave before morning.”
I grinned. “Not letting you leave before morning. Did I mention I also get a wholesale discount on chains?”
The air between us shifted, the gentle intimacy of the conversation bleeding into something more charged. Adrian’s gaze dropped to my mouth, and I felt that familiar pull, the gravity that seemed to exist between us.
“Adrian,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.
“Yeah?”
Instead of answering with words, I closed the distance between us, capturing his mouth with mine.
This kiss was different from the desperate hunger we’d shared before—slower, more deliberate.
Like we had all the time in the world to explore each other, to learn the taste and texture of want without the fear of interruption.
Adrian’s hands fisted in my flannel, pulling me closer as he deepened the kiss. I could taste the lingering sweetness of marshmallow on his tongue, could feel the wine-warm heat of his mouth against mine. When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, his eyes were dark with desire.
“Bedroom?” I asked, the word coming out somewhere between a question and a plea.
“God, yes.”
My bedroom was as simple as the rest of the apartment—a queen bed with a quilt Maya had given me for Christmas the year before, a dresser that had belonged to my grandfather, windows that looked out over Founder’s Row and the square.
Nothing fancy, nothing designed to impress.
Just the space where I slept and read and tried not to think too hard about the future.
But with Adrian in it, the room felt transformed. He moved to the window first, looking out at the snow-covered street below.
“I can see the gallery from here,” he said softly. “And the café. It’s like having the whole town as your backyard.”
“Sometimes it feels more like a fishbowl,” I admitted, moving to stand behind him. “Everyone knows everyone’s business. Everyone has opinions about how you should live your life.”
“Is that why you’ve been so resistant? To this?” He leaned back against my chest, and I wrapped my arms around him instinctively.
“Partly.” I pressed my face into his hair, breathing in the scent of him—expensive shampoo and woodsmoke and something that was purely Adrian. “Small towns have long memories. If I let myself care about you and you leave…”
“Everyone will know,” he finished quietly.
“Everyone will know I was stupid enough to fall for someone whose whole life is about leaving.”
Adrian turned in my arms, his expression serious. “What if I told you I’m not sure I want to leave?”
My heart stuttered, hope and terror warring in my chest. I swallowed hard. “What if… what if I told you that scares me more than you leaving?”
“Why?”
“Because wanting you to stay feels selfish as hell. You’ve got this whole life, this career, this world that’s bigger than Legacy could ever be. What right do I have to ask you to give that up?”
Adrian’s hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs stroking across my cheekbones. “What if you weren’t asking? What if I wanted to give it up? What if I wanted something solid and real instead of shallow and empty?”
Before I could answer—before I could find words for the storm of emotions his question unleashed—he kissed me again. This time, there was desperation in it, a need that went beyond physical desire. It was the kiss of someone trying to say with his body what his words couldn’t quite capture.
I kissed him back with everything I had, pouring years of loneliness and want and careful distance into the connection between us.
My hands found the hem of his sweater, tugging it up and over his head.
He was beautiful in the lamplight, all lean muscle and smooth skin, and I took a moment just to look at him.
“You’re staring,” he said, but there was no self-consciousness in it. Just warm amusement.
“Can you blame me?”
Adrian responded by reaching for my flannel, working the buttons open with steady fingers. When his hands spread across my chest, I had to close my eyes against the intensity of it—not just the physical sensation, but the emotional weight of being seen, being touched, being wanted.
“Maddox,” he whispered, my name carrying words unspoken.
We moved to the bed slowly, taking time to explore and relish.
This wasn’t the desperate fucking of our first time or the hungry reclamation of the cabin.
This was something else entirely—a conversation conducted in touches and sighs, in the press of skin against skin and the soft sounds of pleasure.
Adrian lay back against the quilt, legs parted, eyes wide and dark with want but also trust. Trust I didn’t take lightly.
I took my time prepping him—tracing every line of him, coaxing him open with slow fingers and slick warmth. Teasing and tantalizing until he couldn’t remember his own fucking name.
I didn’t rush it. Didn’t want to. There was something sacred about it, the way Adrian’s body gave way to mine inch by inch, the way he gasped when I curved my finger just right, when I kissed the inside of his thigh like it was something meant to be tasted, savored.
“You always this thorough?” he asked, voice wrecked and teasing.
“Only when it matters,” I murmured, twisting my wrist just enough to make him shudder.
His breathy whimper made my cock leak and my balls tighten. I felt like I was halfway there just from edging him. “Jesus fuck. You’re gonna make me come just watching you,” I admitted in a low growl.
By the time I was ready to press inside his body, he was soft and flushed and ready for me—his breath shaky, his hands clenching the sheets, his whole body humming with need.
I paused, one hand on his hip, the other cupping his jaw. “Tell me you’re okay.”
“Better than okay,” he said, eyes searching mine. “Just… don’t stop touching me.”
Never planned to.
When I finally moved inside him, both of us slick with sweat and shaking with need, it felt like coming home. Not to a place but to a person.
“Stay,” I whispered against Adrian’s neck as he moved beneath me, his hands gripping my shoulders like I was his anchor. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here,” he gasped, misunderstanding. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I meant more than just tonight, and I think he knew it. The words hung between us as we moved together, building toward something that felt too big for my small apartment, too real for the careful distance I’d been trying to maintain.
When Adrian cried out my name as he came, arching beneath me with an abandon that stole my breath, I followed him over the edge with an intensity that left me shaking. We collapsed together in a tangle of limbs and racing hearts, both too overwhelmed to speak.
Later, as he dozed against my chest, I stared at the ceiling and tried to process what had happened.
Not just the sex—though that had been incredible—but the shift in what this was between us.
The way he’d looked at me, confided in me, responded to me.
Like I was something precious and trustworthy instead of convenient and fleeting.
His phone buzzed from somewhere in the pile of discarded clothes, probably another message from his manager or a notification about his social media. But he didn’t move to check it, just burrowed deeper against my side with a soft sigh.
I’d planned to keep my distance, to enjoy whatever this was while it lasted without getting attached. But right now, with Adrian Hayes sleeping in my bed, wearing nothing but my old flannel sheets and the scent of our lovemaking, I realized I’d failed spectacularly.
I was already attached. Already imagining mornings that started with his sleep-warm body against mine, evenings that ended with his laughter filling my quiet apartment.
Already dreading the day he’d realize Legacy and I weren’t enough for him.
The snow continued to fall outside my windows, the flakes randomly catching the sparse moonlight. In a few hours, the town would wake up to another perfect winter morning, and Adrian would probably remember all the reasons why staying was impossible.
But for now, he was here. Real and warm and mine, even if it was only temporary.
I tightened my arms around him and tried not to think about tomorrow.
#ToothCrush #DiscountChains #ComeInside #Mine