TWENTY-FOUR WYATT
TWENTY-FOUR
WYATT
Ididn’t realize how liberating it’d feel to talk about me, about Dare, about my life. Speaking to Ari was like a weight being lifted off my shoulder. I’d never told anyone these things. Not even Dare. I’d kept them inside for so long they’d become a part of me, as if embedded in me.
Speaking about it with Ari felt…safe. It felt non-judgmental. Maybe it was the doctor in him or the fact he’d grown up somewhere else and yet could still relate. There was an ugly comfort in knowing there were other people struggling with these feelings as much as I did.
“What was Evan like? How did you meet?” I asked, feeling more comfortable than I had my whole life discussing these things.
Wasn’t that funny? How one could spend a lifetime with a person and never feel like they could talk to them, but one stranger from a foreign land could feel like the most trusted friend and confidante?
“How we met?” he sighed and slid further down the pillow with a smile drawn on his lips. “It was so long ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.”
I snuggled in closer and wrapped my arm around his stomach but kept my gaze firmly on him. On his beautiful eyes as they focused toward the light and toward the memories of the past.
“He was on vacation with his squad while on leave, and they got wasted. He ended up in my emergency room with a banged-up head. I took him in to examine him, and he wouldn’t stop flirting with me.
He was so drunk he thought he was asleep and having some sort of wet dream.
Or at least that’s what he told me later on. ”
I chuckled. “I could see that,” I told him, and he smirked at me. “What happened next?”
There was something so special about hearing his love story with another man. I felt like I was living it through his eyes, his words, his heart, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Well, he was fine, it was just a scratch, so I sent him off. He turned up the next night claiming he was having headaches.”
“He wanted to see you,” I said.
Ari pursed his lips and nodded. “Yeah.”
“That’s sweet.”
“It didn’t feel sweet at the time. I fucking panicked. I thought I’d missed a concussion. I was so stressed. And then as soon as I got the fucker in the examination room, he started flirting again.”
“Again, can’t say I blame him,” I said.
Ari looked out the window again. “Yeah. He was sweet. And so blatant. Need I remind you that was fourteen…no, fifteen years ago. And being openly gay back then, in my small town, was not a thing. So you can imagine my shock. But he was too handsome for his own good and a sweet talker, so he got away with a lollipop and a new band-aid.”
“Lollipop, you say?” I all but purred.
“Oh God.” Ari rolled his eyes. “You’re even making the same joke as he did. No. It was an actual lollipop. I didn’t suck him dry in the examination room. I mean, I wanted to, but I’m a professional.”
“Professional sucker. Yeah, I know,” I said, slapping his chest gently.
“Anyway…” he hummed, ignoring me. “He kept coming back, night after night. Even on my day off, but I was expecting him, so I turned up at the hospital in my civies and we went out for a drink.”
“Just a drink?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes and formed an O with his lips. “Well…”
I smiled and took a deep breath, holding him even closer to me if that was even possible.
“He kept coming back night after night until the vacation was over. On the last night, he gave me his number, and we stayed in touch.”
“Then what happened? How did you end up together?”
“Aren’t you impatient!” he said.
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m invested.”
Ari chuckled, but he continued.
“I thought that was it, to be honest. There was a whole continent and an ocean between us. Like, what were the chances he’d keep in touch?
But he did. He messaged me as soon as he landed.
And we started texting. Then we started video-calling, and that Christmas, I went to California to meet him and spend Christmas with him. I kinda never went back.”
“You didn’t?”
He shook his head. “I took my chance. I didn’t think I’d ever meet anyone like him, so I stayed with him, and he supported me through the process of getting my medical degree recognized here.
We got married quite quickly so I wouldn’t have a problem with my visa.
It was a long process, but I never looked back. ”
I looked at him, studied his eyes, the peace in them as he talked about Evan, and I felt my own heart race.
“It sounds like the kind of story you read about in romance novels.”
Ari laughed, though there was a sadness in his face as he did. “Yeah, because famously all romance novels end in tragedy.”
“Still,” I said. “I could never compete with that. I’m not even out.”
Ari put his hand on my face and stroked my cheek as he said, “I never asked you to compete with anyone.”
“No?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Do you want to compete? For me, I mean? Do you want a relationship or…or just a…”
“I don’t want a hookup if that’s what you’re about to suggest. I thought I’d made myself clear.”
“Good. I’m not looking for a hookup either. Despite what has happened two nights in a row.”
I chuckled but turned serious after a moment as I gazed into his eyes. “I want you. You’re a beautiful human. You deserve all the happiness in the world, and I don’t know if…if I can give you that.”
Ari stroked my cheek, my cheekbone, my temple, his lips pressed together before he spoke. “You’re talking as if you’re not a beautiful human too. As if you don’t deserve happiness too.”
“I don’t know that I do. Look at all the pain I’ve caused.” I turned away from his penetrating gaze and tried to breathe, but my throat tightened and my chest felt constricted.
“You didn’t cause anything. Everything you’ve done, you’ve done because you care.
Because you love your island and your people.
Because you didn’t want to let evil take over.
That…” he said and pressed his hand on my face so that I turned my head and looked at him again.
“That is a good man. You are a good man. I know you think you don’t deserve good things, Wyatt.
I know you think you ruin everything, but I’m going to prove to you that you don’t.
That you do deserve the same happiness, the same love, the same affection that everyone else does. ”
My heart beat so loud it threatened to rip out of my chest, and when I looked into those gorgeous brown eyes, I almost believed him.
“You’re incredible,” I said.
I wanted him. I wanted this. I wanted all of us, but…
If I didn’t ruin everything with my secrecy and fear, then Wilson would. If he found out how much Ari meant to me—how much more he could mean to me—there was no telling what he might do.
“That I do know.” Ari smirked and leaned forward to trap my lips with his, and for a fleeting moment, I forgot about Wilson. It was easy when Ari was holding me so tight. When we were so close, our bodies might as well be melded together, and I kissed him back.
I never wanted to let go of him. I never wanted out of his bedroom, hell, I never wanted out of this bed. If we could stay here forever, in Warren’s and Ari’s apartment where we were safe and happy, I would.
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed, realization hitting me like a truck, and I pulled away with a grimace that terrified Ari.
“What?” he asked.
“I just realized we’ve been defiling my brother’s bed,” I said.
That was one way to get my brother to never talk to me again. And all this time I thought it’d be the gay thing.
Then again, I didn’t know why I’d ever thought that.
It wasn’t as if Warren had ever shown a homophobic bone in his body.
Not that it mattered. I couldn’t tell a soul no matter how accepting.
Not even Autumn who, if anything, encouraged all my men to follow their queer little hearts to their happily ever after.
“Oh, we’ve done more than defile it,” Ari said, bringing my attention back to him. “It’s okay. He can burn it later. For now, what do you say we defile it again?”
I smiled and kissed him again. “Sounds good to me,” I grumbled and let Ari claim my mouth, my ass, my cock, every inch of my body all over again.
It was easy to forget the world when I was in his arms, fucked into oblivion, gazing into his eyes.
It was easy to let go of the rest of the world, and I’d never felt that before.
Not even with Dare. There had always been something holding me back.
I didn’t know what that was. I didn’t know why I didn’t feel it now, but the more time I spent in Ari’s embrace, the more certain I was of one thing.
I was falling in love with him.
I was falling in love with him fast and hard, and that was the scariest realization I ever could have made.