18. Gideon #3
He kissed me. Hard. Then pulled back. “Starting soon. Part-time.”
“Yeah?”
“I can keep working.”
“That’s amazing.”
“And it says—wait, wait.” He scrambled upright and started reading again while I watched his face. I saw every flicker of disbelief, every flash of joy, his mouth moving silently over the words, his eyes filling. “I’m going to beauty school.”
“You are.”
“I’m actually going.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at me. “I thought they might say no because of the drugs.”
“I know.”
“Or because I’m too old.”
“You’re twenty-three.”
I reached for him. Ryan came willingly, folding himself against me. I held him while his shoulders shook.
“You okay?”
“Happy crying.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to call Dad.”
“You should.”
He sat up, then stopped. “Actually, no.”
“No?”
“I want this for five minutes.”
I understood. Before phone calls, before plans, before tuition and schedules and telling Lyle and everyone at the rink, he wanted five minutes where it belonged only to him.
I brushed my thumb beneath his eye, catching a tear before it could wreck the glitter. “I’m proud of you.”
His face changed. “Yeah?”
“So fucking proud.”
He kissed me, different this time, slow, his hand settling against my cheek and mine finding his waist.
There had been a lot of kissing in this hotel room already: quick kisses before I left for the hospital, goodnight kisses, I’m here kisses, the kiss Ryan had pressed to my forehead at three in the morning when I woke shaking. This was more.
Ryan shifted onto my lap. “You okay?” he whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Today was a lot.”
“I know.”
“We don’t have to do anything.”
“I know.”
His fingers moved into my hair. “I want to.”
Ryan searched my face. “What do you want?”
“You.”
His breath caught. I kissed him again. Slow, no desperation, no trying to shut my brain up. I’d spent years using pain to make everything quiet, hockey until my muscles screamed, cuts until there was something physical to focus on, anything that stopped me thinking. This wasn’t that.
Ryan’s mouth was soft against mine, his hands warm, and I felt everything. I wanted to.
He eased me backward until my head hit the pillows and kissed along my jaw. I slid my hands under his shirt, palms settling against warm skin.
“You’re so handsome. So beautiful,” I murmured. Ryan stilled, then lifted his head. “You know that, right?”
His eyes shone. “Sometimes.” He kissed me again. His mouth moved down my throat, my chest, slow enough that I could stop him, slow enough that he could stop too. When his fingers reached the button of my jeans, he looked up. “Can I?”
“God, yes.”
Ryan kissed the skin just above my waistband then lower. He was watching me as he closed his lips around my cock, glitter around his eyes, red hair mussed from my hands. My Ryan. Pleasure hit me hard enough that my fingers twisted into the hotel sheets.
“Fuck.”
Ryan’s hand found mine. I held on.
That was what stayed with me. Not what he did with his mouth or the way my whole body tightened as pleasure built. His hand in mine. Ryan holding on to me while I let myself have something good, no guilt, no punishment, no voice telling me I hadn’t earned it. Only Ryan.
When I came, his name broke out of me. Ryan finished himself seconds later, still holding my hand. I pulled him close, his head on my chest while my heartbeat slowly returned to something approaching normal.
“Wow,” I managed.
Ryan laughed. “Excellent review.”
“I have more words.”
“I’m sure.”
“Most of them are fuck.”
“Poet.”
I kissed the top of his head. His phone chimed again, and he groaned. “Now that’ll be Dad’s nightly check-in.”
“You should tell him your news.”
“In a minute.”
“You said five minutes about twenty minutes ago.”
“I got distracted.”
“Sorry.”
“You are absolutely not sorry.”
“No.”
He laughed softly. Tomorrow we’d go home.
For years that word had meant Michigan: Dad’s house, Ethan’s photo, the lake, everything I’d lost. Tomorrow I’d leave here with my father expecting me to call him, with Noah expecting to see me again.
Not someday, not at another strained family breakfast. Again.
I’d leave knowing Ethan died. Not because of me, not because of Dad, not even because Noah had said something cruel and stupid.
He died. I hated it, and I always would.
But maybe we should all stop dying with him.
Ryan shifted against me. “I really got in.”
I smiled into his hair. “You really did.”
“Beauty school.”
“Yep.”
“I’m going to be fucking fabulous.”
“You already are.”
He lifted his head, stared at me for a second, then smiled. “You’re getting dangerously good at this boyfriend thing, Tufty.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Never going to stop.”
I rolled him beneath me, and he laughed, arms going around my neck. “I love you, Ryan.”
He blinked at me, and for a second I wondered if I’d gone too far, too fast. Then he smiled so damn hard I knew I’d said something right.
“I love you so much, big man,” he said, and we kissed and repeated it over and over.
Tomorrow we might be going home, but I knew exactly where home really was.
Wherever Ryan was.