Chapter 16 #2
“I can think of one,” Ren said. “Pineapple on pizza?”
Seth laughed, and slung an arm around Ren, and they started walking again towards the loft. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re too much of a traditionalist to want anything but cheese and sauce and pepperoni on your pizza,” Ren said.
“Maybe if I’m getting a little wild, some mushrooms,” Seth confirmed. “And you’re the opposite. The wilder the better.”
“Don’t you dare tell Gabriel about the pineapple,” Ren said seriously. “He would probably disown me. But truthfully, it’s delicious. I like that sweet and salty combo.”
“Yeah, I just bet you do. I can’t imagine that at all,” Seth said, chuckling.
“I like you, don’t I?” Ren said impudently. But he heard the uncertainty in his voice. Seth probably heard it too, but didn’t remark on it.
He only retorted, “So is that your biggest, deepest, darkest secret, then? That even though you’re a good Italian boy, you like pineapple on your pizza?”
It’s not. It’s not at all. I’m afraid of what my biggest, deepest, darkest secret is. And I think it might be you.
But Ren felt unmoored, still, from the bout of jealousy earlier, and from Seth’s heartfelt confession. He hadn’t said he loved Ren but he’d come damn close.
Knowing Seth, he felt it too, he just hadn’t said it out loud because he’d been afraid of scaring Ren away.
After all, he’d freaked when confronted with one of Seth’s hookups.
Ren couldn’t blame him for not saying the words.
Even though there was a part of him that really wanted to hear them.
“Yes,” Ren finally said. “Now you know the worst of me.”
“Nah, I think I know the best too,” Seth said.
Ren left Seth sleeping in his bed, and got ready for work, beating Gabe there by twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes during which he cut up an entire bag of onions, chopped garlic, his knife flashing in the early morning sunshine, and started in on the day’s meatballs.
“You’re here early . . . and you’re . . .” Gabe’s forehead creased as he took in what Ren had accomplished already. “You’re busy. Is everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” Ren said.
But it wasn’t okay.
After he and Seth had fucked—okay, even Ren had to admit that it wasn’t just straight fucking anymore, there were way too many feelings involved, but every time he thought the words, making love, his brain freaked out—he’d lain awake, and tried not to freak out some more.
He’d failed.
Seth had fallen asleep, and he’d stayed up most of the night, only sleeping in fits and starts, with weird, terrible dreams.
Which all ended the same way: with him losing Seth.
Logically, Ren knew he wasn’t going to lose Seth to a shark attack or in a terrible LA earthquake, being swallowed either by a set of jaws or a gaping maw in the earth, but he’d woken both breathless and terrified.
The last time he’d woken, before his alarm, he’d known he needed to talk to someone.
The obvious person was his cousin.
He also happened to be the most annoying, and also the most smug.
And he was going to get even smugger after this conversation, but Ren was desperate enough that he’d decided that didn’t matter.
“Did something happen with you and Seth?” Gabe asked carefully as he tied his apron on.
“No,” Ren said resolutely. Something hadn’t just happened. Something had been happening this whole damn time.
“Then what’s this all about,” Gabe wondered as he got the big pot out, ready to start the red sauce for the day. “You’re dedicated, yeah, but I’ve never seen you here this early, or this preoccupied.”
“I’m . . .” Ren took a deep breath, feeling his throat close up. Don’t panic, don’t panic. “I’m thinking that maybe Seth and I should start dating.”
His confession was met with a wall of silence.
Gabe just stared at him. Was he confused? Shocked? Afraid that his cousin had been abducted by a race of shape-shifting aliens?
“Are you saying . . .” Gabe finally said, the words coming out slow and enunciated, like he didn’t want there to be any mistake. “Are you saying that you don’t think you’re already dating?”
“Well, we’ve been on dates, sure,” Ren said. “But . . . we’ve never talked about it. Not exactly. Not precisely.” He had told Seth after they’d run into Carl that the trivia night had been a date. But they hadn’t been dating, like the verb. Those had been strictly nouns.
Gabe set down his wooden spoon. “Let me be absolutely clear about this because sometimes you are so far up your own ass that you don’t even see what you’re doing even though you are very obviously doing it.”
“Fine,” Ren grumbled. “What is it?”
“You’re already dating Seth. You’ve been on dates. You’re sleeping over at his place, he’s sleeping over at ours. You see him all the time. You. Are. Dating.”
“Okay,” Ren said. “That makes sense.”
Gabe shot him a look like maybe he had been abducted by those shape-shifting aliens. “Yes, it does,” he agreed.
“Well, how about this. Maybe I should suggest to Seth that we make this a little more official.”
“Like he’s your boyfriend?” Gabe raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, exactly like that. Like he’s my boyfriend,” Ren said. He’d even said the word without stumbling over it. He was proud of this fact. Very proud.
Until Gabe threw his head back and laughed so hard it was a wonder he didn’t have an aneurysm.
“Oh,” he said between gasps for air, “this is too good. I knew I was in for something, but wow, this is better than I ever imagined it could be.”
“What,” Ren said coldly, crossing his arms over his chest, “my ignorance is that amusing?”
“No, because you’re behind the curve on that one too. Seth’s already your boyfriend.”
“What?”
“You are his boyfriend. And he’s yours.”
“But,” Ren objected, “we’ve never talked about it. Not once! How can you acquire a boyfriend without a single conversation?”
“It’s actually not very difficult,” Gabe said with an exaggerated patience. “You hang out with him all the time, right?”
Ren nodded.
“And you’re sleeping together.”
“Regularly,” Ren said.
“And you aren’t sleeping with anyone else?”
“Nope.”
“Finally, you already admitted you were going on dates with him. I . . .” Gabe winced. “I think you passed right by that conversation and didn’t have it, but . . . the end result is the same.”
“I’m a boyfriend,” Ren said. Not like he’d always imagined he’d say it, with despair and possibly rending his garments and gnashing his teeth, but with wonder. Like it was the greatest fucking thing to ever happen to him. “I’m Seth’s boyfriend.”
“If you were someone else’s boyfriend, I’d be pretty surprised,” Gabe said, clearly still amused by this entire conversation.
“Well, if I’m already dating him, and he’s my boyfriend, there’s . . . there’s nothing else. It’s not like I’m in love with him.”
Ren froze.
Gabriel froze.
“You’re . . . you’re not?” Gabe wondered into the silence.
Ren stared at him. “You think I am?”
Gabriel rested a hip against the stove. “What do you think you are?”
Ren thought of all the things he’d tried not to think about, all the feelings that he’d shoved into a box labeled, Do Not Understand and Do Not Open. Everything he’d avoided looking at too closely.
Yeah, the dating and the boyfriend things were both puzzle pieces that had now fallen nicely and neatly into place. But this was . . . this was way more than that.
“I think he’s in love with me,” Ren said, and this time he tested out the word. Love. He’d always believed that it would feel like the end, like a dead fucking end, but instead, when he said it, it felt like a horizon opening up, a future expanding, a new life beginning.
Not better or worse than before, but different.
But also, totally fucking better because Seth was in it and Ren wasn’t going to lose him.
He ripped off his apron. Like actually totally ripped it.
And here Ren had been surprised that he hadn’t torn any garments in his sudden, painful realization.
“I have to go,” he said, grabbing his keys.
“I figured as much.” Gabe was still laughing under his breath. “Be back for the lunch rush, okay?”
“No promises,” Ren said, and took the stairs out of the truck faster than he ever had before, and when he hit flat ground, he broke out into a run.
No promises, because he’d never actually loved someone before, and now he did, and every single bet he’d ever made was fucking off, because this was for real.
By the time he made it to the loft building, he felt slightly ridiculous.
Ridiculous, sweaty, and also out of breath.
But also determined.
Except when he unlocked the front door and did a thorough search of the interior, Seth wasn’t there anymore.
He’d left, too.
Ren felt so dumb. Why hadn’t he said anything last night?
The moment had been right. Sure, a sidewalk in a semi-decent Los Angeles neighborhood wasn’t the epitome of romance, but that was okay, because it was them.
It was Ren and Seth and they were epic and destined and written in the fucking stars.
No extra romance was needed, because they had plenty of it to go around, just between the two of them.
He stood in the middle of the living room, still panting from his desperate run, and tried to think. Where had Seth said he was going to be today?
The most obvious answer was that he’d be at the office.
Of course he could also be at the gym, or at his house, or at a client’s. All of those were possibilities.
The closest one was the office. He’d try there first.
Ren bypassed the elevator, and took the stairs at a fast, jogging pace. At this rate, he wouldn’t need to work out for the next week, but that was okay. He could arrive a mess, because Seth loved him, and he loved Seth right back. His heart sang with the knowledge of it.
And it wasn’t because he was hot or charming or gave the best blowjob in Los Angeles. It was because they fit together, like they were made for each other. Because Ren cared about what happened to him, because Ren made him laugh, because Ren made him feel less alone in the world.
And most importantly, because Ren was never going to let him go.