Chapter 26
Oakley
“Lawson,” Laura says, letting the door close behind her. She hesitates for a moment before stepping forward. “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”
“I am,” Lawson tells her, not letting my hand go when I try to give the two some space. He only grips me tighter.
Laura notices. Of course she does. She clears her throat once before finally meeting my eyes. “Oakley.”
“Evening, Laura.”
“Nighttime now,” she says.
I hold my tongue.
She returns her gaze to Lawson. “I won’t stay long. Just wanted to stop by. I assume you have all the help you’ll need?”
Lawson nods. “I’m all set.”
Laura glances at me again. “Well, then. I really am glad you’re all right, Lawson. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I appreciate it, Laura. Thanks for making the trip.”
She lets out a soft sort of sigh before turning for the door. Before going through, she pauses, looking back at us. “Is it…official now? You two?”
A beat of tense silence passes. I look to Lawson, unsure how much he wants to say on the matter.
He’s holding Laura’s gaze. “We’re figuring it out.”
Laura’s lips purse. “I always suspected, you know.”
I go still, but Laura keeps on.
“You don’t have to keep hiding it from me.”
Lawson’s responding tone is calm. “We’re not hiding anything.” He holds up my hand, as if to make his point. “But I don’t owe you information about me and Oakley.”
Laura looks taken aback. “We were married. You don’t think that gives me some right to know?”
“Who I’m involved with now?” Lawson counters. “No, I don’t.”
“Law,” I say quietly, squeezing the man’s hand. “She’s talking about before.”
“What?” Lawson asks, brows drawn together.
I meet Laura’s gaze, some fire in her eyes that wasn’t there when she first walked in. “You’re talking about when you were still married, aren’t you? You think he knew then.”
She doesn’t say a word, but Lawson’s head whips her way.
“He didn’t,” I tell her, trying to control my anger, even as I can feel it welling fiercely inside my chest. “It was never like that, Laura. Not once. Not even close.”
“You…” Lawson’s voice cuts out before starting again. “You thought I was cheating on you?”
“Not sexually,” she says, arms crossing, as if daring Lawson to come to his own rescue.
“Emotionally?” he asks her, sounding shocked.
She shrugs, the silence heavy between us.
Lawson’s hand flexes in my own, his voice coming out like steel. “I was always faithful to you, Laura. Maybe I wasn’t the best husband. But I tried. I loved you as well as I knew how. My failing in that regard doesn’t mean my intentions weren’t pure.”
“It wasn’t a failure,” I interject, not wanting Lawson to think that way. But he’s still watching his ex.
Laura’s voice is choked, real emotion there. Hurt. “Are you really going to tell me you never thought about it? About him? All those times you asked me to—”
She cuts off, but it’s not hard to guess what she was going to say. All those times she pegged him.
I’ve officially had enough. “You need to leave, Laura. This isn’t the place for this.”
She doesn’t argue, only looks from me to Lawson one more time before heading out the door, cheeks bright red.
“Excuse me,” I say to Lawson.
“Oak.”
I lean down to kiss his forehead before jogging out the door. I catch Laura in the hallway next to a nurses’ station, thankfully empty of people. She hears me coming and stops, unshed tears in her eyes that she doesn’t bother wiping away.
“What?” she says, tone flat.
I work to steady my breathing, my anger still far too close to the surface. Despite my best efforts, it still bleeds into my voice. “How long did you suspect something?”
She pulls in a breath, looking off to the side as she shrugs. “I don’t know. Years? It was obvious, Oakley, once I could accept the signs. I mean, what straight or even bi man wouldn’t enjoy fucking his wife?”
My inhale is a shuddering thing. I don’t bother telling Laura it’s so much more complicated than that.
That not all men, regardless of who they’re interested in, crave sex.
That people can be allosexual or ace or any number of varying things.
That just because a man enjoys being fucked, that doesn’t automatically make him queer.
But I don’t say any of that. Like I told Laura, this isn’t the place.
There’s one thing, however, that I can’t let slide. It’s been boiling inside of me from the moment Laura said she suspected.
I keep my voice low, even as every part of me wants to rage. “The moment you figured it out, you should have let him go.”
Laura pulls in a short breath, even as she meets my gaze.
“But you didn’t do that, did you?” I ask, no more than a whisper. “You kept that man by your side because you knew he’d stay.”
“Tell me,” she says, just as quiet. “How was I supposed to let go of the man I loved?”
“Selflessly,” I bite out, turning away.
“I did let him go, Oakley,” she calls at my back. “You don’t get to judge me for what happened during my relationship with my husband.”
“And you don’t get to interject yourself into ours.”
Laura says nothing to that, and I walk down the hall toward Lawson’s room. I pace outside of it for a moment, not wanting to go inside while my anger is still broadcast across my face.
I used to have sympathy for Laura. And I still do, to some degree.
But she knew. She knew Lawson was gay, and she held on to him anyways.
I don’t think I can forgive her for that.
Once I’m feeling calm enough, I crack open Lawson’s door. His head turns my way, his gaze skipping behind me as if expecting Laura to return.
“She left,” I tell him, walking over to the man who’s spent so much of his life living for others.
I don’t want him to sacrifice a single thing for me.
I want him to have everything he’s ever wanted.
I want him happy. Loved. I want every dream of his to come true, no matter how big or how small.
There’s not a thing I would deny him. “Beef stew, you said?”
His head cocks. “Yes?”
“I’ll make you beef stew.”
Lawson reaches for me, a soft smile settling on his face amidst the exhaustion of this day. “You’ll need to get me home first. Your place? Or…”
“If you want,” I say quickly, my heart thumping at the idea of Lawson coming home with me. Staying, maybe.
He nods, letting out a sigh. His eyes trace down my face, stopping at my mouth. My breath hitches when his gaze rises back to my eyes. “Oak.”
“Not here,” I say, my voice sounding like gravel. “My first time kissing you isn’t going to be in a hospital room after you flipped your truck.”
“Rolled it,” he mutters, even as his lips twitch.
“Semantics.”
“But you will?” he checks, eyes on my mouth again.
Fuck.
I clear my throat. “Oh, I will. Many, many times.”
“Is that a promise?” he asks, longing mixed in with that cheekiness I so love.
In answer, I hold out my pinkie. My friend of forty-three years stares at it for only a beat before looping his pinkie with mine. I bring his hand up to kiss the side of his little finger, whiskey eyes staring at me all the while.
“It’s a promise.”
Lawson is released from the hospital the following day with a prescription for extra-strength pain relievers he doesn’t bother filling—because “Christ, Oak, I can just take four regular pills. Why do I need to pay more for a horse pill I don’t wanna swallow?
”—as well as a good dozen text messages and voicemails from his family members checking in.
“I’m fine,” I hear Lawson telling Marigold over the phone, his voice exasperated.
I head to the back door, unlocking it for Bell, unsurprised when she wanders in to see us.
“Yeah, I’m at Oakley’s,” Lawson says. “Yes, I have clothes. Jesus, what is this? I was in a car crash. I didn’t fall back in time.”
I chuckle, earning a glare from the man. “Just invite them over.”
Lawson tells his mom to hold on for a second before pulling his phone away from his ear. “What?”
“Tell them to come over for beef stew. They’ll see you’re fine, you’ll deal with the lot of them for an hour or two, and then you’ll be done with it.”
Lawson’s brow remains pinched.
“There will be plenty of stew,” I assure him. “I’ll make a triple batch.”
Sighing, Lawson nods. “Ma? Y’all wanna come over for dinner? Yes, to Oakley’s. Of course Noah’s uncle is welcome. Yeah, okay. Six-thirty?”
I realize Lawson is asking me and nod.
“Six-thirty,” he tells his mom. “Yep. See ya soon.”
Lawson drops his phone on the couch with a deep sigh. Bell takes the opportunity to stick her face against his, startling Lawson. He rubs behind her ears, a line of drool on his cheek that has me smirking. I walk over with a washcloth and wipe it away.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, eyes soft as he looks at me. “Once they go, I’m sleeping for ten years.”
“I’ll join you.”
“Tell me again what I did to deserve a family like that?”
I drop the washcloth in the sink. “You’re an amazing son, brother, and father?”
His head rolls on the back of the couch to see me better. “Was that my mistake?”
I bark a laugh, and Lawson looks pleased.
His expression shifts, though, into something more pensive. “What’d you talk to Laura about?”
I heave out a breath, not surprised by his question, even as I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask. “If I ask you to let it go, would you?”
He looks at me for a long time. “You want me to?”
“Please,” I tell him, not wanting to dredge up bad memories from a past none of us can change.
Lawson said himself, thinking about that time he tried so hard to fit with a woman he never could fit with is painful for him.
It wasn’t at the time, and I believe him in that.
But that doesn’t mean he’d do it again given the chance.
Maybe he should know Laura suspected he was gay and said nothing. Or maybe it’d only hurt him worse. Given the choice, I know Lawson would do anything he could to protect the people he loves.
I want to do the same for him.
“I’ll let it go,” Lawson says. “But if it’s ever something that involves Wendy—”
“I’ll tell you right away,” I cut in. “I promise.”
“Lots of promises lately.”
“And I intend to keep them.”
“Is that so?” he asks, watching me move around my kitchen. I check the crisper to see how many carrots I’ll need to buy.
“You doubt me?” I ask, checking the pantry for potatoes next.
“No,” he says simply. “Just wondering.”
“About?”
“When things changed.”
That has me pausing. Lawson and I haven’t had a chance to talk about the phone call. Not really. There hasn’t been time for it, what with him at the hospital and now a whole host of Darlings to feed in mere hours. But I don’t doubt the conversation is one we’ll be having soon.
“I think,” I say slowly, “you asking me to dick you down might’ve been a turning point in our friendship.”
Lawson laughs so hard Bell startles, her cowbell tinkling as the disgruntled bovine lifts her head off Lawson’s lap and stomps away. “It is a very nice dick.”
“Oh, Lord. What have I done?”
“I mean, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of comparison… None, really. But you sure know what you’re doing with it.”
“Ah, fuck. Law.”
“What?” he asks, trying to look innocent.
I point an accusing finger his way, hiding my crotch behind the kitchen counter. “You can’t get me hard right now. I needa buy beef for your family, all of whom will be here very fucking soon.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Yours,” I declare. “All of it, yours.”
He huffs a laugh, smile warm as he stretches his arm along the back of the couch, the bandages on his hand making my chest clench tight. “Not everything has changed, has it?”
“No, it hasn’t,” I agree, my throat hoarse.
“I’m glad for it, Oak.”
Well, fuck.
“Groceries,” I say again, grabbing my keys. “Take a quick nap if you can. I’ll be back soon to make the stew. And Law? For God’s sake, don’t let my cow up on the furniture while I’m gone.”
He sends me a salute.
As I close the front door behind me, the man I’m closer to than anyone tucked inside with my damn cow, I realize this is it. Isn’t it?
This is the one that’s going to stick.