Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jake woke first, consciousness returning gradually.
Next to him, Ru’s body was a warm, comfortable weight.
He lay still, eyes closed, allowing wakefulness to steal over him, growing more and more aware: of Ru’s breath against his shoulder, the pleasant ache in muscles that had grown unaccustomed to physical intimacy, and the particular quality of light pressing against his eyelids.
He opened his eyes, turning his head towards the window. A bright, clear blue sky filled the window. The icicles that had hung from his gutters for days were shrinking fast, each drip catching the light as they surrendered to gravity drop by drop.
The storm had finally passed. The rain that had followed the snow had stopped, and the temperature had risen a few degrees.
It would still be cold outside, but it was enough to allow the thaw to set in, quicker than forecast. The remaining snow would soon disappear and the isolation that had created the fragile bubble they’d been living in would dissolve.
Jake stared at the ceiling, his body fully aware of the man sleeping beside him, in a room that had been exclusively his domain for so long.
He sucked in a deep breath, held it for a second or two, before letting it go, the attempt to centre himself failing.
The morning would demand answers to questions that had been asked in the darkness.
Beside him, Ru stirred.
“Happy Christmas,” Ru murmured, his voice rough with sleep, eyes finding Jake’s with a directness that still caught him off-guard.
Ru’s gaze shifted past him to the window, his eyes narrowing against the hard brightness of the cloudless sky. He didn’t speak, but his arm tightened around Jake’s waist, as if instinctively wanting to hold on to what had blossomed between them.
They lay together in silence for a few moments, neither rushing to move despite the brightness of the day, or the pull of Christmas morning.
Jake found his gaze repeatedly drawn to the window, to the evidence of change outside, of the world shifting from one state to another.
Each drop of water from the eaves felt like a countdown, time slipping away from them, forcing decisions he knew he had to make.
He shifted, ready to get up, but Ru’s hand found his, interlacing their fingers.
“Not yet. Let’s just stay here for a while.”
Jake hesitated, the urge to move, to act, to regain some sense of control through motion nearly overwhelming.
But Ru’s fingers were warm against his, a shelter in the growing turbulence of his thoughts.
He nodded, some of the tension easing from his shoulders as he settled back against the pillows, Ru’s hand still joined with his, as his eyes dropped to a close.
Jake opened his eyes, his brain and body instantly awake as he sat up.
He was alone in the bed. Panic like wildfire swept through him.
Where was…? The spot where Ru had lain held the merest hint of warmth.
Jake collapsed back against the pillows.
Ru had left him to sleep, that was all, but not finding him curled up beside him in the bed, had turned his blood to ice.
Christ. Was he fucked, or was he fucked?
Jumping out of bed, he dressed quickly and rushed downstairs.
He lurched to a stop by the kitchen doorway.
Ru was bent over Monty, giving the dog the obligatory belly rubs, as he told him what a good boy he was, how he wished he had a dog like Monty, how he’d slip him some treats when grumpy old Jake wasn’t looking.
Jake chuckled and Ru looked up.
“Grumpy old Jake?” Jake raised a brow and tried to look fierce. Ru wasn’t having any of it.
“Oh, yes,” Ru said airily. “Or maybe only sometimes. Coffee’s just been made,” Ru said, straightening up and nodding to the cafetière.
Jake poured himself a mug, and went to stand at the window. The thaw, now it had set in, was working fast. Jake’s fingers tightened around his mug. “If the sun stays out like this, the roads might start clearing by tomorrow,” he said, the words heavy on his tongue.
“And then what?”
“I… Christ, I don’t know. I—”
“What do you want, Jake? What is it that you really want?” Ru stared at him, his gaze unflinching.
The questions cut through Jake’s defences like a bayonet through butter. What did he want? Not what was practical or safe or what he’d convinced himself was enough.
The answer rose with such force it nearly stole his breath. Connection, companionship, the hundred small intimacies of a shared life that had been absent for so long. The warmth of another body beside his, the sound of another voice in rooms too long filled only with silence.
He wanted all that, and he wanted it with Ru.
The realisation he’d been fighting was terrifying in its clarity. To acknowledge such a want was to admit vulnerability, to open himself to the possibility of pain he wasn’t certain he could survive again.
“I don’t want to go back.”
Moving to the table on heavy, leaden legs, he put down his mug, but his hands shook and he knocked it over, the remains of the coffee pooling on the scarred wood. Neither of them noticed.
“I can’t go back. To how things were before you arrived.
The silence. The… emptiness of it.” The admission stripped him bare, exposed him in a way that made his heart race.
“But it scares me, the idea of changing what I’ve been so used to.
” He let his head drop, no longer able to face Ru’s gaze.
He’d spent his life being strong and self-contained but here, now, it was all being stripped away, the defences he’d built around himself falling piece by piece.
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not as easy as that. It can’t be,” he said, aware even as he spoke that he was retreating to familiar ground, to all the complications, obstacles, and the reasons why not.
“Isn’t it? Not sure I’d agree. But right here, right now, I’m asking you a simple question, Jake. Do you, truly and honestly, want your life to return to exactly how it’s been since Phil left? Because it can. We can chalk this up to extraordinary circumstances and go our separate ways.”
The possibility sent a jolt of panic through Jake’s chest. He gripped the edge of the table to steady himself. The thought of returning to the silence and solitude that had been both his refuge and his prison, suddenly seemed unbearable…
Yet…
It would be easier in so many ways. Safer. The path of least resistance. He could allow Ru to leave when the roads cleared, and he’d return to the life he’d built. Part of him, the part still raw with old wounds, urged him to retreat to familiar ground.
But another part rebelled against it. The part that had felt truly alive for the first time in years during these days with Ru. The part that had rediscovered laughter and light, and sunshine. Of discovering Ru.
“No.” His voice was no more than a whisper, as he turned to face Ru. “No, I don’t want that.”
Ru gave him a shaky smile. “Guess what? Neither do I.”
Jake looked across at Ru, looking so right and at home at the kitchen table, looking as if the belonged there. Jake’s chest constricted. Because he did belong there, he belonged there with him.
Yet…
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Jake asked, voicing the fear that still lurked beneath. “What if we try and it falls apart? I don’t know if I could—”
Survive it.
He didn’t know if he could survive another loss, another confirmation that connection, that… love… could never be his.
“If we try and it doesn’t work, then at least we tried. We’d know we didn’t let fear make the decision for us.”
Ru came and stood before him, gazing at him with courage and conviction. But there was trepidation there, too. The words and what they meant, the step away from the known into a new and dangerous territory, wasn’t just costing him, it was costing Ru, too.
Danger.
He’d been a soldier, was still a soldier in his heart. Wasn’t danger what he did, who he was?
Ru took Jake’s hand in his, the touch grounding Jake. He looked down at their joined hands, then at Ru’s face, finding no false promises, only honest and open acknowledgment of the risk.
“It’s a leap of faith. But what else do we have? Because isn’t that what life’s all about? We can never really know how things’ll turn out, but what’s the alternative? We just decide what’s worth the risk.”
Ru’s words settled in Jake’s heart. A leap of faith.
Take the leap into the unknown, or step back and never know what could have been.
He’d stepped back, after Phil, letting himself become frozen, defensive, protecting himself by avoiding all that could open him up to pain.
He’d stepped back from life. Now, like the melting snow outside, the freeze inside of him was thawing.
“You’ve got that grumpy face again.”
“What?” Jake’s eyes widened. “I’m just—”
“Tying yourself into knots. This is only as complicated as we want to make it and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had more than enough complications in my life in recent years. Do you want us to try, Jake? That’s the only question that needs answering for now.”
Their gazes locked. Did he want to try to build something with Ru beyond the bubble of the storm?
There could only be one answer.
“I do.” The words, said aloud in the quiet of the kitchen, were both terrifying and liberating. “I want this. To try, at least.”
“That’s enough to start with. The rest we can work out as we go.”
Jake cupped Ru’s face between his palms, his thumbs sweeping across the bruises staining Ru’s skin. Soon they would disappear, leaving nothing other than a memory. His lips twitched. If he had more, or any, poetry in his soul, he’d say that sounded a lot like life.
“Stop thinking, because it makes you look like a grump.”
Jake laughed. “The only thing I’m thinking about is unwrapping my present, because it is Christmas after all.”
“Well then,” Ru said, brushing a soft kiss to Jake’s lips, “perhaps we should go upstairs and wish each other a very, very, Happy Christmas.”
Jake smiled as Ru slipped his hand into his, warm, firm, and sure, as he led them both out of the kitchen.