Chapter 10 The Life Between Us
My Dream Too
Riley had learned that falling in love could make ordinary things feel important.
A shared breakfast.
A message during a difficult day.
A hand reaching across the sofa.
A quiet evening when neither person needed to say anything.
But there was another kind of intimacy he had not expected.
Talking about the future.
Not the vague kind of future people mentioned because it sounded reassuring, but the real one.
The kind that required choices.
The kind that forced you to admit what you wanted and what you feared losing.
For Riley, that conversation began with a notebook.
He had been carrying the notebook for years.
Its cover was worn, the corners softened from being handled too often. Inside were sketches, business ideas, room layouts, notes about child-friendly spaces, lists of art materials, and pages filled with ideas for activities designed to help children express emotions through creativity.
He had never shown most of it to anyone.
That evening, he placed the notebook on the dining table.
Adrian looked at it.
“What is that?”
Riley smiled.
“My dream.”
Adrian sat beside him.
“I’ve heard you talk about your work at the art center.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
Riley opened the notebook.
The first page contained a rough drawing of a small building.
There were large windows.
A garden.
A quiet reading corner.
An art room.
A space filled with shelves of paper, paints, clay, colored pencils, and children’s books.
Adrian studied the drawing.
“You designed this?”
“Years ago.”
Riley turned the page.
Another sketch.
Then another.
“I’ve always wanted to create a children’s creative therapy studio.”
Adrian looked at him.
Riley continued before he could interrupt.
“Not just an art center. Something more personal. A place where children who struggle to explain what they’re feeling can use art as another way to communicate.”
He pointed to the drawing.
“This room would be for painting. That one would be for clay and sensory work. I’d have a quiet space for children who become overwhelmed easily.”
Adrian listened carefully.
Riley smiled as he turned another page.
“There would be a garden too. Nothing complicated. Just somewhere they could sit outside when they need a break.”
“You’ve thought about this for a long time.”
“Since college.”
Adrian looked surprised.
“Why didn’t you do it?”
Riley closed the notebook.
“Money.”
Adrian nodded.
“Experience?”
“That too.”
Riley hesitated.
“Fear.”
Adrian looked at him.
“I’ve always been afraid that maybe the dream was too big.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know if I can make it work.”
Adrian reached for the notebook.
“You already designed half of it.”
Riley smiled.
“Designing is easier than building.”
“That’s true.”
Riley looked at him.
“I’ve also had another fear lately.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“What?”
Riley took a slow breath.
“That loving you will eventually make me give it up.”
Adrian became very still.
Riley immediately regretted saying it.
“Not because you’ve asked me to.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you would.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
Riley looked down.
“Because your life is already so demanding.”
He closed the notebook.
“You have the hospital. Your patients. Your career. Your responsibilities.”
Adrian waited.
“And I’m scared that if we become more serious, I’ll start adjusting everything around your schedule until my own dreams disappear.”
Adrian’s expression softened.
“Riley.”
“I know it sounds dramatic.”
“It doesn’t.”
Riley looked at him.
“I’ve watched people do it.”
“Do what?”
“Build their entire lives around someone else’s career. They tell themselves it’s temporary. Then years pass.”
He looked at his hands.
“One day they realize they don’t know what they wanted anymore.”
Adrian reached across the table.
“I don’t want that for you.”
Riley looked up.
“I know.”
“No.”
Adrian’s voice was firm.
“I need you to hear me.”
Riley waited.
“I don’t want a partner who disappears inside my life.”
The words landed with unexpected force.
Adrian continued.
“I don’t want you to become someone who only exists around my schedule.”
Riley’s eyes softened.
“I want you to have your own work.”
Adrian touched the notebook.
“Your own goals.”
He looked at Riley.
“Your own success.”
Riley swallowed.
“And if my dream takes more time than yours?”
“Then we make room for it.”
“What if I have to work late?”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“What if I have to travel?”
“I’ll manage.”
“What if the studio becomes more successful than I expect?”
Adrian smiled.
“Then I’ll be the person bragging about you.”
Riley laughed softly.
Adrian squeezed his hand.
“I don’t want you beside me because you fit into my life.”
Riley looked at him.
“I want you beside me because you have a life of your own and you choose to share it with me.”
Riley’s eyes filled with emotion.
He blinked quickly.
“You make it sound easy.”
“It won’t be.”
Adrian was honest.
“Your dream will require work. My career requires work. We’ll have conflicts.”
Riley smiled.
“But?”
“But we’ll solve them together.”
Riley looked at the sketches again.
For years, the studio had existed only on paper.
A dream he had protected by never trying.
Because if he never failed, he could never prove that he wasn’t capable.
Adrian seemed to understand that.
“You should do it.”
Riley laughed.
“That’s your professional opinion?”
“No.”
Adrian smiled.
“It’s my opinion as the man who loves you.”
Riley went still.
Adrian seemed to realize what he had said.
Neither moved.
Riley’s heart raced.
“The man who loves me?”
Adrian looked directly at him.
“Yes.”
Riley’s eyes stung.
“You love me?”
“I do.”
There was no dramatic speech.
No perfect setting.
Just Adrian sitting across the dining table with Riley’s old notebook between them.
Riley smiled through his tears.
“I love you too.”
Adrian reached across the table.
Riley took his hand.
They remained like that for a while.
Then Riley opened the notebook again.
“What do you think of this room?”
Adrian studied the sketch.
“The windows are too small.”
Riley stared at him.
“Seriously?”
“Children need natural light.”
Riley laughed.
“You really can’t stop being a doctor.”
“I’m helping.”
“You are.”
Riley leaned against his shoulder.
“Maybe we should design it together.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Your studio?”
“Our future.”
Riley smiled.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because I might actually let you help.”
Adrian kissed the top of his head.
“I’ll try not to interfere.”
“You’ll fail.”
“Probably.”
They spent the next hour discussing ideas.
Adrian asked about costs.
Riley explained the therapeutic philosophy.
They discussed location, staffing, accessibility, and how many children Riley could realistically support without burning himself out.
At one point, Riley stopped.
“This is strange.”
“What?”
“I’ve had this dream for years.”
Adrian looked at him.
“And now?”
“Now it feels real.”
Adrian smiled.
“Good.”
Riley closed the notebook.
He looked around the apartment.
His paintings hung on the walls.
His books were mixed with Adrian’s.
His clothes were in the closet.
His dreams were now being discussed at the same table where they shared breakfast.
He realized something important.
Love did not have to mean becoming smaller.
It didn’t have to mean choosing between the person he loved and the person he wanted to become.
Maybe love could mean having someone beside him who wanted to see him grow.
Adrian squeezed his hand.
“I want you to build this.”
Riley smiled.
“I will.”
“And when you do, I’ll be there.”
Riley looked at him.
“Promise?”
Adrian nodded.
“Promise.”
Riley leaned forward and kissed him softly.
It wasn’t a kiss filled with uncertainty.
It was gratitude.
Trust.
And the beginning of something bigger than either of them had imagined.
Riley looked down at his old notebook.
For years, it had represented a dream he was afraid to pursue.
Now it represented something else.
Possibility.
He had Adrian beside him.
Not in front of him.
Not pulling him backward.
Beside him.
And for the first time, Riley understood exactly what he wanted from their future.
He didn’t want to disappear into Adrian’s life.
He wanted to build his own life and invite Adrian into it.
A life that belonged to both of them, without belonging entirely to either one.
Adrian looked at the sketches again.
“Where do we start?”
Riley smiled.
“With a better floor plan.”
Adrian laughed.
“Of course.”
Riley closed the notebook.
“Then let’s build it.”
And this time, the dream didn’t feel like something he was carrying alone.
Chosen
By the following weekend, Riley had stopped pretending that the changes in their relationship were temporary.
There was no point anymore.
The kisses had become natural. So had the way Adrian reached for his hand while they walked through the apartment, the way Riley leaned against him while reading, and the quiet habit of saying goodnight before they went to sleep.
Nothing about them felt accidental now.
They were together.
More importantly, they were learning how to be together without either man disappearing into the other.
Riley’s conversation with Adrian about the studio had changed something inside him. He had expected love to demand compromise, perhaps even sacrifice. Instead, Adrian had made it clear that he wanted Riley’s dreams to remain his own.
That mattered.
It made Riley feel chosen rather than needed.
There was a difference.
Being needed could be temporary.
Being chosen was deliberate.
Riley was beginning to understand that Adrian wasn’t keeping him close because he had once needed help recovering from exhaustion. He was keeping him close because he wanted Riley in his life.
That distinction gave Riley the courage to take another step.
It began with a storage unit.
Most of Riley’s belongings had been packed there after the storm damaged his apartment. He had kept telling himself he would retrieve everything once the repairs were finished.
Now the repairs were nearly complete.
The building manager had sent another message that morning.
The apartment would be ready within the week.
Riley stared at the message for several minutes.
Adrian noticed.
“What’s wrong?”