Chapter Thirty-Two
Wilder
HE PULLED up in front of the familiar red brick building, a smile gracing his lips when the sound of laughing kids reached his ears.
Growing up here had been a blast despite the circumstances of why each kid came to live here.
They all understood each other, accepted each other for who they were, and that’s what made it home.
He’d been jealous at first when it became clear that Kaz was going home with Jace and Ares.
That Kaz would have a family in a way he never would.
He’d thought for sure Kaz would forget about them, but he’d kept coming back, never wanting to leave them for long.
That’s when he realized that their family hadn’t gotten smaller, only bigger, with the addition of Jace and Ares.
He pulled his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair before dismounting, leaving his helmet on the seat as he headed toward the entrance to the private residence.
He didn’t bother knocking, opening the door, and stepping inside, unsurprised when two kids came barreling down the hallway, mischievous smirks on their faces. His knees hit the ground, and he opened his arms, the two small bodies slamming into him, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
“You’re home,” Aria squealed, the joy in her voice filling his heart with a warmth he recognized as love.
He laughed, half-whispering as he said, “I’m home.”
He held the twins as tight as he had the day he carried them out of a house filled with drug addicts.
He remembered that day as if it were yesterday, remembered how small they had been, how they’d hid their faces in his neck and clung to him.
The twins had barely been two years old then, and now they were a few months away from their seventh birthday.
The click of a tongue had him looking up to find Kai standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his lips pursed as he ran his gaze over Wilder.
“Oh. You’re alive,” Kai said, his droll tone negating the twinkle in his eyes.
Kai crossed his arms and arched a brow at Wilder, drawing his attention to the lines on his face. Those laugh lines had only grown over the years, and though he didn’t know how much he had to do with those, he knew for sure that he was at least partly responsible for the wrinkles on Kai’s forehead.
Wilder lifted Jesse onto his feet and then put his sister on hers as well, watching them run to the front door before he pushed to his feet, a brow arched at the man he considered the closest thing to a parent he’d ever had.
“Are you mad because I haven’t been home in a little while?”
Kai snorted. “Several weeks isn’t a little while.”
“You missed me,” he crooned, stepping closer and laughing when Kai flipped him off.
“Not in front of the kids,” Steel yelled from somewhere inside the house. He had some kind of sixth sense when it came to misbehaving. He’d learned that the hard way as a teen.
He laughed as Kai gave him a cross look before yelling back, “They’re outside.” He lowered his voice. “Probably wreaking havoc, the way their big brother taught them to.”
A smile stretched across Wilder’s face. Coming home had been the right choice.
He needed the grounding it gave him, the comfort his parents offered without even trying.
There was a time when he hadn’t had this.
When he hadn’t had anything or anyone. Losing this, losing his family, was what scared him the most. He knew he wouldn’t survive being alone again. He wouldn’t want to.
Kai turned and walked down the hall into the kitchen, Wilder following a step behind, his smile only growing when he caught a glimpse of salt-and-pepper hair and stark blue eyes. Steel walked toward him with open arms, and he stepped right into his warm embrace, a pent-up breath leaving him.
He dropped his forehead to Steel’s shoulder, the smaller man barely holding his weight, but he knew once those arms were around him, Steel would never be the first to let go.
“I’m glad you’re home, kiddo,” Steel said, hand rubbing up and down Wilder’s back like he’d done so many times over the years. It was still as soothing as it had been when he was a kid.
He pulled back with a sigh and met Steel’s gaze with a smile.
“How is everyone? Kaz? Jane and Sebastian?”
He opened his mouth to correct him on Solo’s name as he always did, but then it all came flashing back, the bitter taste of betrayal hitting his tongue.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re… together. Solo and Jane.”
The words were nearly impossible to get out, and he felt like his throat was closing up, making his chest feel tight as well.
“Haven’t they always been?”
Wilder and Steel turned their heads toward Kai, and he wasn’t sure which of them looked the most outraged.
“What?” Steel exclaimed.
Kai stood with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders moving in a quick shrug. “They’ve always had a thing for each other. You guys never noticed?”
“No, we didn’t fucking notice,” Wilder hissed, jaw clenching and unclenching as he fought the urge to scream. “They were raised like siblings. He’s supposed to protect her, not fuck her.”
Kai shook his head. “He’s always been protective of her, but he’s never seen her as a sister. No matter how hard I know he’s tried.”
“Why the hell didn’t he tell me?” Wilder asked, his voice lowering with each word until he was whispering.
“Ah, so that’s what it boils down to? You’re not mad that they’re together. You’re mad they hid it from you.”
“Obviously,” he mumbled.
“Have you told them as much?”
“What do you think?” Wilder drawled, resisting the urge to roll his eyes because he knew it would only earn him a slap to the back of his head.
Kai’s lips twitched even as Steel aimed a glare his way. Steel crossed his arms and leaned back against the breakfast table, his gaze running across Wilder’s face.
“Have you said it without yelling or arguing with them?”
He snapped his mouth shut, swallowing the tirade of words trying to spring free. He felt the burn of them even as he forced out, “That’s not why I’m here.”
He didn’t know where to look except anywhere but at the two men watching him with rapt attention. His heart was pattering in his chest, his breathing getting shallower. Why was this so hard? Why was it harder than arguing about Solo and Jane?
Steel sighed and pulled out a chair, waving Wilder closer as he said, “Sit down.”
He obeyed because he didn’t know what else to do, and as he watched his fathers take a seat across from him, the tightness in his chest lightened just a little bit.
They both looked at him, not as if he could do no wrong, but as if they were ready to take on the whole fucking world with him if he needed to right a wrong.
“There’s… a guy.”
Not the most eloquent way of putting it, but at least he got the words out despite how fucking scratchy his throat felt as he spoke them.
“There’s a guy?” Kai mocked.
“What do you mean?” Steel asked.
He slowly raised his head. He didn’t know how to find the words, but from the shocked expressions meeting his gaze, he didn’t have to.
“A guy guy?” Kai screeched.
Steel put a hand over his husband’s mouth, staring Wilder down with a strange look in his steely blue eyes. “You mean…?”
“Why do I get the feeling this surprises you more than Jane and Solo?” he drawled, sitting back with a sigh.
Steel pressed his lips together, glancing at Kai, who pulled his husband’s hand off his mouth and threaded their fingers together before putting their hands on his lap.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kai smirked. “Because you don’t do relationships?”
Wilder felt his brows lower.
“What do you feel when you think of him?” Steel asked.
He sat back, trying to think of what those feelings were. What had driven him to not only kill to protect him, but to that burning need in his veins that told him Emmett was his.
“Like my chest is lighter and heavier at the same time. Like I might die if I don’t get to see him smile again, if I don’t hear that laugh.
Like the world didn’t start spinning right before I met him.
Like I―” He almost spoke the word, halting only because it surprised him.
Love. He loved Emmett. He was in love with Emmett.
“There it is,” Steel whispered, his smile soft and a light sheen to his blue eyes.
“Hits you like a brick to the face, doesn’t it?
” Kai said with a grin. “It’s the best and the worst feeling in the world because it comes with so much fear.
” Steel muttered under his breath, stopping when Kai grabbed him by the chin and brought his face up, so they were looking into each other’s eyes as he said, “There is nothing I fear more than losing you.”
It took him a moment to realize that Steel wasn’t arguing or placating Kai because he couldn’t promise Kai that he wouldn’t lose him. He couldn’t promise that the world wouldn’t take him away from Kai.
That realization drove a stake of uncertainty through his heart. Nothing in life was guaranteed, especially when your life was surrounded by the kinds of dangers theirs were.
“You have all of me,” Steel said, leaning toward Kai. Just before their lips met, Wilder looked away, affording them the modicum of privacy he could give them from across the table.
“We’re not sucking face,” Kai teased, earning himself a light slap to his arm from Steel. He laughed, something devious twinkling in his dark eyes. “We’ll save that for when the kids are asleep.”
Steel grunted, muttering under his breath yet again.
Wilder sat back, trying to digest the knowledge, the emotions coursing inside him.
If this was how Jane and Solo felt for each other…
he understood that fear now. Understood it too well.
Still, the bitter bite of betrayal didn’t leave.
It felt like a crushing weight on his chest, and despite his newfound understanding, he still couldn’t remove it.
He’d tried to dig it out, to let it go, but even knowing the root of it, he still wasn’t sure how.
“You know, you came here a broken kid with too many scars no one could see, and still, you protected everyone. You were always the buffer. The one to put things right. Even when you were a menace of a teenager.”
“Thanks.”
Kai shrugged.
“What he’s trying to say is that you always take care of everyone,” Steel said, a hand reaching across the table to squeeze Wilder’s arm. “Maybe it’s time you let someone take care of you?”
Something hard formed in his throat, his swallow painful.
“I don’t know if I can,” he whispered.
A smile tugged at Steel’s lips. “I know you think that, but you have to promise me you’ll try. You deserve that. You deserve to be loved.”
He wasn’t sure if he did. He was, however, completely certain straight into his soul that Emmett deserved to be loved. He deserved to be worshipped. To be told of his worth every day until he knew it was nothing but the truth.
Kai’s palm struck the back of Steel’s head, making him grunt and lift a hand to rub the spot as he glared at his husband.
“What the hell was that for?”
“We’re not gonna see him for months now.”
The petulance in Kai’s voice brought a bubble of laughter to the surface as Wilder watched the two men who’d given him a home and a family when he’d desperately needed one.
They’d given him love, devotion, and direction, even when he hadn’t chosen to take any of it. He was eternally grateful for it now.
His feelings for Emmett were starting to settle inside him, making him feel all the lighter for it. He needed to tell him. To give Emmett that honesty he’d always afforded him. To ask him for more, even if Emmett’s answer terrified him.
He pushed his chair back. “I should―”
“Hell, no. You’re staying the night,” Kai snapped at him.
“But―”
“Love doesn’t disappear overnight. Just spend some time with your family and get your shit together before you go professing your undying love to this man whose name you haven’t even told us,” Kai snarked.
He took a deep breath, and then the words came rushing out. “Emmett. I’m in love with Emmett.”
The smiles on his fathers’ faces had warmth spreading through him.
“I’m in love with Emmett,” he repeated, something settling inside him. Something he’d been looking for. Something he’d thought he’d never find. Right until Emmett walked into his life and changed everything. Changed the way he saw everything. The way he lived and loved.