Epilogue
Ian took a drink of his beer, leaning against the counter while Sam chopped vegetables. He surveyed the array of ingredients sitting out. “What are you making, chicken stew?”
“Coq au vin,” Sam said absently, seemingly concentrating on cutting his carrots into perfectly cubed icons of vegetable-hood.
So, chicken stew.
Ian stifled a sigh. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Sam to learn how to cook, it was that he didn’t give a damn.
He didn’t care if Sam became a gourmet chef, and he’d hoped when he came home tonight, Sam would be doing something Ian could tear his attention away from, like reading or writing or watching TV.
Tearing Sam’s attention away from cooking was rough going. Ian suspected it was because Sam sucked at it, and he wasn’t getting better with practice. The worse he got at cooking, the harder he tried. That part Ian did care about, because he kept having to pretend to like increasingly bad food.
“Why don’t you make it tomorrow, and tonight I’ll take you out for coq au vin instead?” he suggested.
“Coq au vin two nights in a row? Besides, I already chopped the onions,” Sam said, leaning closer to his chopping board, tilting his head to one side then the other, poking at a triangular chunk of carrot with his knife, then frowning at it. “I’m not stopping now. I cried over the onions.”
“Everyone cries when they chop onions.”
“It wasn’t that kind of crying. I cut myself.” Sam held up a hand, showing off a bandaged finger.
This time Ian let the sigh out. He tried again. “What did you do today?”
“I went with Nik to see Miller in rehab.” Sam stood up straight, turning to the sink and pulling celery out of the colander he had it sitting in.
Hell, that was all such a mess. Ian took another swig of his beer. “How’s Miller doing? He better?”
Sam poked at the end of a stalk of celery with a knife, sort of digging at it.
“He might be able to go home soon. Well, to Nik and Jurgen’s, I mean.
” For a few seconds, Sam actually made direct eye contact with him.
Then he went back to his celery. “Until he can be on his own and go back to his place.” He managed to get whatever he was digging for, pulling on one of those strings in the stalk.
God this was becoming a worse and worse time to talk about serious stuff. Well, serious stuff between them. Miller getting ostracized by his family after being beaten half to death for being gay was pretty freaking serious. “His parents still won’t talk to him?”
“No,” Sam said. His second string broke, and he frowned at the celery. “Can we not talk about it right now? I’m trying to concentrate.”
On pulling the veins out of celery?
Well, hell. If Sam was only half paying attention, maybe Ian could get some information out of him. He took a fortifying gulp from his beer, then picked at the bottle’s label and asked, “How long do you have to date someone before you can ask him to move in with you?”
Sam dropped the knife on the counter. Ian looked up to see him frozen and paling.
That got his attention.
Sam swallowed and turned back to his celery, slowly picking up his knife and staring at it. “How would I know?” he asked.
Ian shrugged. “Well, you lived with Marley, right? So, when did he ask you? Or, I guess you could have asked him,” he added in a mutter. He hated that idea.
Sam slowly started shoveling oddly shaped bits of carrot into a bowl. “Um, he never really asked me. There wasn’t any asking at all. I just realized one day he was living there.”
“Yeah? So when did that happen?”
“Um, the second time we hooked up, maybe?” Sam suddenly dropped his handful of vegetables on the cutting board and turned to Ian, wiping his hands on his jeans. Over and over. “Why do you want to know?” He sounded nervous. It was cute.
It helped settle some of Ian’s own nerves, as a bonus. He carefully set his beer bottle on the counter and stepped up to Sam, smoothing back his shaggy hair. “I was wondering if we’d been seeing each other long enough for me to ask you. I mean, to move in here with me.”
Sam opened his mouth, but it just hung there. Ian gave him a few seconds, but nothing came out.
Hell.
He fisted Sam’s hair, trying to be gentle and not demanding.
“If you count the first time we hooked up at Nik and Jurgen’s, we’ve been seeing each other about three months.
Almost two and a half if you count from that time on that little linoleum square at your place.
That seems like long enough to me,” Ian finished uncertainly. Why wasn’t Sam saying anything?
“You’ve been keeping track?” Sam whispered.
“Of course I have.” Fuck, hadn’t Sam been? Ian had just assumed he was.
“What’s today?” Sam asked quickly.
Fuck. No pain no gain. “Eight weeks ago today I waited by your door for you to come home from work, and then I . . .”
“You said you wanted to see me,” Sam finished for him, his hands slipping around Ian’s waist.
Thank fuck, Sam knew what today was. “Yeah.”
“I love you,” Sam said, yanking Ian close and kissing him. Ian tried to let him have control, because this was Sam’s kiss, but he already had that hand in Sam’s hair, and he had the hardest time not losing it when he felt Sam’s lips against his.
“Is that a yes?” Ian asked when Sam let him go.
“If I move in with you, can I stop learning how to cook?”
“You don’t know how happy that would make me.”
“Then yes, I’ll move in with you. Um, most of the stuff I own is already here.”
“Good. That was easy.” Ian grabbed the backs of Sam’s thighs and lifted until Sam got the message and wrapped his legs around Ian’s hips. “So you’re all moved in?”
Sam grinned at him, wrapping his arms around his neck. “Almost.”
Ian turned and set him on a clear spot on the counter. “And you already have a key.”
Sam nodded, and Ian kissed him. “Are we—” Ian interrupted him with another kiss, then started nuzzling his whiskers up and down Sam’s neck so he could ask whatever he’d been going to.
Sam seemed to have lost his focus, though. Ian loved making him mindless like that. He bit Sam’s ear. “Are we what?”
Sam startled. “Oh. Uh, are we going to make love in the kitchen?” He tilted his head, exposing more of his neck.
“Kiddo,” Ian said against it, “we’re going to make love in every room in the house.”
Sam sucked in a breath. “Tonight?” he squeaked.
Ian thought about it while sucking on the base of Sam’s throat. “Probably only two tonight. We’ll do the rest later.”
Sam cupped the back of his head. “Oh, yeah,” he sighed. “We have time.”
Ian pulled back, holding Sam’s face in between his hands. Sam’s pupils were huge, and he was breathing faster. Ian gave him a fast kiss before telling him, “Plenty of time. We have the rest of our lives.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “We do?”
Ian swallowed. “If you want to spend that long with me.”
Sam’s hands threaded into Ian’s hair, pulling him closer until their lips were touching. “Oh. Then yeah, we have the rest of our lives.”
“And no more of that Too Stupid to Live stuff,” Ian whispered against his mouth.
He felt Sam smile against his lips. “Being TSTL isn’t so bad. I forgot one thing about it.”
Ian kissed him quickly, tired of waiting, but wanting to know. “Yeah? What’s that?”
Sam kissed him back. “The TSTL character always gets their man and their happily ever after.” He pulled back to grin at Ian.
One of those weird balls of emotion welled up inside him, the kind Sam was always finding and teasing out of him. He had to breathe deep before he could speak. “As long as I get my happily ever after with you, that works for me.”
Sam wrapped his arms around Ian’s neck, pulling him close again. “Always. You’re my perfect hero. Nothing but happy endings for us.”
Ian grabbed Sam’s chin and held him still for another quick kiss. “You’re my perfect hero, too.” Then he palmed Sam’s ass and yanked him closer, close enough that he could feel the kid’s hard dick through their clothes. “And we’re about to have our next happy ending all over this counter.”