Page 8 of Heart of the Race
EIGHT
T he walk in the summer night soothed me after a long day at work, and I realized how happy I was that it was Friday. I loved the gentle ocean breeze and the smells of people grilling mixing in the night air. It was good to be on my way home and even better knowing Varro was there, back after three weeks in Burma on some stretch of road that was, apparently, as Aidric assured me, a right bourach . Varro translated mess for me and promised to come home in one piece. I was appreciative, because I worried.
An onslaught of concern about everything had filled me.
Varro’s parents, Nico, Archer Del Toro, Varro’s team… all of it, everyone. I made myself sick contemplating the worst.
Varro was right: if worrying were an Olympic event, I could easily medal.
It turned out the family, though surprised, did not have a problem. They knew me, loved me, and when I could finally say Mom and Dad to Mr. and Mrs. Dacien and mean it, their happiness was unexpected. It turned out they wanted to keep me even if I was sleeping with their son. Varro being mine was greeted with the same acceptance I had received a decade earlier, along with a pat on my shoulder from his mother. She knew. Of course she knew. Mothers knew. Nico was simply glad everything was settled. He had missed having both his brothers in the picture. I had been overwhelmed, and Varro had squeezed me tight until I looked, he said, like me again.
The Isle of Man TT was run without incident. And while he didn’t win, Varro wasn’t last, either. Mr. Del Toro saw what he needed to, Varro as a more than capable expert. The new motorcycle designer ended up hiring Varro’s whole team, not just Aidric, absorbing them into his organization in various capacities.
I didn’t make the trip back to the British Isles with Varro; he didn’t need me to. He actually liked the idea of me at home, waiting, better. The man with the nomadic soul turned out to be as much in love with the idea of permanency as I was.
“Brian!”
Turning, jolted from thinking about the past six months, I found myself facing a smiling Mr. Sandoval, my next-door neighbor.
“Hello, sir,” I greeted him hesitantly.
He was pleased with me, which was a change. The smile told me so. “Varro is home,” he said, making the love of my life’s name sound even more dashing than usual, the roll of the R very sexy-sounding. “He cut back the bougainvillea so it’s not shading my pool anymore.”
“Oh, good,” I said with a smile. “I promise you I was going to call someone next week.”
“I know, you’re a good neighbor, Brian. And now that Varro’s here, you’re even better.”
I threw up my hands because he was right. Who knew that the man who’d been on the road forever would enjoy having a home to work on. Slowly, the grounds had been transformed so that now it was an oasis. Landscaping was another of Varro’s gifts, and he’d so enjoyed discovering that about himself.
As I watched my neighbor go, loving that a man who originally had no time for me now glanced back and waved, I was thankful, again, that everyone on our street loved Varro. It turned out the community I wanted had been achieved when he moved in. He was, as always, irresistible to practically everyone.
When I reached my front gate and opened it, I took a minute to look at my home. The lights blazed, the windows facing the street and front door were open, and a glass pitcher of sangria with two empty glasses sat on the porch railing. Our German shepherd wagged her tail as she came trotting up the path to greet me, and my beautiful man lay asleep in the hammock on the porch. I petted Archer, named after Varro’s boss, so christened because Varro found that funny on so many levels, and she trailed after me to the steps.
Varro’s T-shirt was old and faded, the threadbare jeans were worse and both simply… perfect. Lying there sleeping, he was the picture of ease, barefoot, his thick black hair tousled on the pillow, one hand behind his head and the other, his left, resting over his heart. I noticed, as I always did, his ring.
I had adamantly maintained that a wedding wasn’t necessary, but because he knew me, he understood that I was lying. I needed the vows, his promise to stand by me forever, the bedrock foundation something I could, and would, build my life on. It was a beautiful celebration, and with it came a wedding ring. He had commissioned two huge, thick, heavy pieces of platinum that could not be missed. Varro Dacien was married now, and the band proclaimed that.
Not that the ring was the only change; the biggest one was in Varro himself. He was content, grounded, and the wild, dangerous daredevil, though still there, was now layered in a desire to be home, on his porch, in the hammock, waiting for me to come home from work.
I crossed to him quietly, smiling when I heard the Nick Drake album I had bought him on our first anniversary playing softly in the background. Gently, I ran my knuckles under the arch of his foot to wake him.
His eyes fluttered open a little, and I was gifted with the glow of warm brown and the curl of his lip when he realized it was me. The smile never failed to make my heart skip a beat. He didn’t give that one away; it was only for me, had only ever been mine, and would belong only to me for the rest of my life.
“Welcome home, baby,” he rumbled, lifting his arms for me.
It was a magic word, home , and he chuckled when he saw my happy shiver.
“Come kiss me.”
As I sank down over him, I thought how strange it was to imagine a time when I didn’t believe in happily ever afters.
Varro had given me mine.