Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Jason
Victor naps and maybe I doze a bit too. When I open my eyes, the late afternoon light slants through my bedroom window, painting golden stripes across Victor’s bare chest. He’s on his back next to me, one arm tucked beneath his head.
He looks relaxed and peaceful, and I want to memorize this moment.
The weight of him in my bed, the smell of sex and him heavy in the air, drowning out the memory of the scent of lavender sachets Leah used to tuck into her drawers.
That thought should sting. For fifteen years, it would have. But right now, lying here with Victor, I feel something I haven’t felt since before Leah died.
Peace.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Victor murmurs, cracking one eye open to look at me. “I can practically hear the gears grinding from here.”
I huff out a laugh and roll onto my side to face him properly. “Sorry.”
“Jason.” He says my name like a reprimand and a prayer all at once. “You don’t need to apologize for existing in your own head. I just want to know what’s going on in there.”
Everything. Nothing. You.
I reach out and trace the line of his collarbone, feeling the solid warmth of him under my fingertips. He’s so alive, so present, so here. After weeks of him being in Los Angeles, after fifteen years of keeping him at arm’s length, having him in my bed feels both surreal and inevitable.
“Before giving my notice, I told Father Gabriel about you. About us, about everything.”
Victor goes very still. That restless energy that usually vibrates through him—the constant motion, the easy laughter, the way he fills a room just by entering it—all of it stops. “You did?”
“I know I told you earlier that I wasn’t resigning because of you.”
Victor sits up fully now, the sheets pooling around his waist. His eyes search my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch. “Jason. Jesus. I never wanted you to have to choose between—”
“I know.” I sit up too, needing to be at eye level for this. Needing him to see that I mean every word. “You never asked me to choose. You never would have. That’s one of the things I...”
I falter. The words are right there, pressing against my teeth, desperate to be spoken. But fifteen years of guilt and shame and self-denial are hard habits to break.
Love about you.
But I’m not ready for that word yet. Not quite.
“One of the things that makes you different,” I say instead. “You’ve always given me space. Even when I was being an asshole.”
“You weren’t being—”
“I was,” I insist. “Fifteen years, Victor. Fifteen years of pretending that night didn’t happen. Making Kelsey coordinate everything because I couldn’t—“ I stop. Breathe. “Because I was too much of a coward to be in a room with you.”
“Jason.” Victor’s hand twitches toward me, like he wants to reach out but is afraid to.
I close my eyes. Behind my eyelids, I see flashes of the past few weeks.
Victor on his knees before me in Costa Rica.
Victor at the end of the flower-strewn aisle I walked Kelsey down, his face calm but his eyes shining with love for our daughter.
Victor in my backyard earlier today, romping around with Barnaby like they’ve been best friends for years.
Victor here, in my bed, in my home, in my life.
“I know after the way I’ve treated you that I have no right to ask,” I say.
“Jason, you have every right to ask for what you want.”
The intensity in his voice catches me off guard. His expression softens and he does reach for me now, his hand cupping my face, his palm warm against my cheek. “Ask,” he says.
I’ve made him ask for what he wants, so I suppose it’s only fair that I do the same.
“I feel like I can breathe for the first time in ages,” I say, opening my eyes to meet his.
“I feel terrified and exhilarated and more myself than I’ve been since Leah died.
I want to be with you. Because when I’m with you, I don’t have to perform or pretend or be the person everyone expects me to be. I can just…be.”
“Jason.” He slides his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me close enough to rest our foreheads together.
For a moment, that’s all, just us breathing together.
Then he sits back. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that.
But you should know—I’m shit at relationships. Always have been.”
I wait.
“When Leah got pregnant, I let her dad scare me off. I wasn’t there.
For any of it.” He says it flatly, like a fact he’s made peace with, but his jaw is tight.
“And even after I came back into Kelsey’s life…
” He shakes his head. “I’m the fun dad. The one who shows up for the big moments. I don’t do messy.”
I want to interrupt, to tell him that’s not true, that he’s been more present in Kelsey’s life than he gives himself credit for. But this is Victor being vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely seen, so I listen.
“But with you,” he continues, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper, “it’s different.
It’s always been different. That night after Leah’s funeral…
I know we were both grieving. And drunk.
But for me it wasn’t just sex.” He swallows.
“It was never just sex. And then you pushed me away, and I told myself that was fine. Easier. Less messy.“
He closes his eyes. Takes in a shaky breath.
“I’ve been lying to myself for fifteen years. The truth is that I love you.” He opens his eyes to look directly at me. “I’m in love with you. I can’t do this unless you know that.”
The world narrows to this moment. This room. This man.
I love you.
The words that I’ve been choking on for weeks. Longer, even, but I’ve been too afraid to say them, even to myself.
“Victor.” It comes out hoarse. “I love you too.”
His eyes widen, like he wasn’t expecting me to say it.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
“I love you.” The words come easier the second time. “I’m in love with you. I love—” I stop, almost laugh. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been so careful not to feel this way for so long that I don’t know how to say it.”
He’s smiling now, his eyes wet. “Keep going.”
“I love that you see me. The real me.” My throat is tight. “And you’re still here.”
He pulls me close and I’m talking into his shoulder now, not sure if he can even hear me.
“I want this. I want us. Not sneaking around or pretending we’re just co-parents.
I want you in my life, properly. I want to wake up next to you.
I want to fight about the dishes. I want—” My lips are smashed up against his collarbone and I’m not making sense and I don’t care. “I want everything, Victor.”
I pull back and kiss him softly, tasting salt and promise. He kisses me back, deeper this time, his hands tangling in my hair. When we finally pull apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“Okay, wait,” Victor says. He pulls back, something uncertain flickering across his face. “I need to know something.”
My stomach tightens. “Okay.”
“Are you going to resent me?” The question comes out quietly. “Six months from now, a year from now, are you going to look at me and wish you’d made a different choice?”
It’s a fair question. More than fair. It’s the question I would be asking if our positions were reversed.
I take his face in both hands, making sure he can see the truth in my eyes.
“I didn’t give up my identity for you. I gave up a job that required me to deny who I am.” I kiss him, soft and quick. “You didn’t make me choose, Victor.” I’m figuring this out as I say it. “You made me brave enough to choose myself.”
His shoulders drop. “Okay.” A shaky exhale. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” I kiss him again. And again and again. “I’m all in.”
We sit there for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other in. Outside my window, a truck rumbles past, and there’s the sound of a car door slamming, the constant noise of the city. But in here, in this room, in this moment, everything is still.
“So,” Victor says eventually, pulling back with that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. “Are you going to tell Kelsey, or should I?”
“I’ll tell her,” I say. “Soon.”
I kiss him again because I can, because he’s here and he’s mine and I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. “But not right now. Right now I just want to be here with you.”
“I can work with that.” He settles back against the headboard, pulling me with him until I’m tucked against his side, my head on his chest. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, a rhythm I could get used to.
Outside, the afternoon is fading into evening. Soon we’ll have to get up, get dressed, figure out all the logistics. Soon we’ll have to tell Kelsey.
But right now, wrapped in Victor’s arms, listening to his heartbeat, right now is enough.
Right now is everything.