Page 33 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“Wow,” I said, not believing it either.
“In light of the evidence against him, Broadman accepted a plea deal to avoid death row,” Gabe told me. “It’s finally over and Nate Turner, Owen Smithson, Lawrence Robertson, and Rick Spizer will have justice.”
“I’m so sorry about Paul, Gabe.” There was a part of me that was glad he was out of the picture, but it was teeny. “Thank you for trusting me with the story before it was released to the public.”
“Um,” he said softly. “You haven’t had the television on, have you?”
“No, why?”
“It already broke an hour ago on the news. I figured you would’ve seen it while you were watching your segment on the news,” Gabe said with a crooked smile. I pinched him hard enough to make him yelp. “I realized my mistake once I got home,” he said, rubbing his aching skin.
“I don’t watch my segments,” I scoffed. “How much of a diva do you think I am?” Gabe smiled for the first time that night. I was so relieved to see it that I almost let him off the hook. “I can’t believe you acted like I was getting some advance scoop with your ‘I shouldn’t talk about it’ speech.”
“I said that I shouldn’t, not that I couldn’t,” Gabe clarified.
“Oh God!” I exclaimed dramatically. “You know what this means?” I asked. “Another Internal Affairs interrogation if they find out about your fling with Paul! How will I go out in public?”
“It was one time,” Gabe groused, “not a fling.”
Later, I’d fuss over him and do my damnedest to make it all better, but right then he needed to be jerked back to reality. Our reality, where everything was fair game. My IA remark was exactly the wisecrack he needed because, in spite of all the heartache and disappointment he felt, Gabe looked at me like I was the brightest spot in his world, reminding me that I was his sunshine.
IT WAS AMAZING HOWquickly things moved when you had some money and a bit of notoriety—well, Josh had both; I just had some money. He disagreed, of course, and pointed out that several newspapers ran articles about the case and had used my image in the photos. “Above the fold is big shit in the newspaper world,” Josh told me, reminding me of his years working for the local paper while in high school. In addition to print articles, there had been several news broadcasts and even some interviews with me. “I’m not the only one with a face the camera loves,” Josh had said.
I scoffed at him, but I was grateful we got our finances situated to accomplish owning both properties as painlessly as possible. It happened in a matter of weeks. On July 4th, we sat on the balcony of our second-story bedroom and watched the fireworks explode in the night sky. For such a small community, they set off an impressive number of fireworks in a field behind the high school at the edge of town.
The only thing more beautiful than seeing the fireworks burst in the sky was the orgasm face Josh made after I pulled him into our bedroom, pushed him against the wall, and fucked him hard until we had explosions of our own. Afterward, I lowered us to the floor and held him tight, loving the feeling of still being inside of him with his arms and legs still clinging to me like he couldn’t stand to let me go.
We kissed long and tenderly, and I touched him everywhere my hands could reach until my dick hardened again. Josh pushed me to my back and loved me slow and gentle. He never took his eyes from mine, not even when his climax hit him, which was solid proof of how far he’d come in less than a year. He didn’t want to hide his emotions and thoughts from me anymore; he opened his heart, body, and soul to me. I was the luckiest man on the planet to have found him.
During our financial planning meetings, we made sure certain funds would be available to renovate the home and make it truly ours, as well as remodel our former living space into a tranquil spa area for the salon. Within the next month, Josh was hardcore renovating the mansion. In reality, it wasn’t a mansion; it was just a really large house built on three or four plots so that it occupied a large corner of the block.
“We need to call our new home something besides ‘the mansion’ or ‘Georgia’s mansion,’” Josh said one day when we were looking at fabric swatches for curtains. I wasn’t even surprised when he spoke my private thoughts out loud since it happened so frequently. To be clear, Josh was looking at fabric swatches, and I was trying to check my phone for updates on the baseball game discreetly. “Gabe,” Josh said in resignation, “just play the game on the MLB at-bat app so Marty and the Cowboy can keep you posted on what’s going on with the game. I know that you don’t want to look at these curtain swatches, baby. I just want you to feel like this isourhome, which means I don’t want fabrics or furniture that you think are fussy.”
“Can I be honest with you, Sunshine?” I asked. The mildly annoyed look he threw me was comical. “None of that stuff matters to me. Guys have been saying this since the first cavewoman—or caveman,” I added so he knew that I didn’t apply gender roles to decorating, “rearranged rocks to sit on to better see the landscape or dragged in sticks to make their cave more festive. Some guys carea lotand others couldn’t care less what they sit on or where. There’s only one thing I want to see in this home every single day, and that’s you.” I leaned down and dotted his forehead with a kiss. “I know this is important to you, so I’m making the effort like when we went to the Reds game last week.” Of course, Josh spent most of the time staring at the first baseman’s ass the entire game. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice for him.
“And you want to be rewarded handsomely later,” Josh added.
“You wound me, Sunshine. Truly.” I could tell he wasn’t buying it. “Since when do I have to perform parlor tricks to get laid anyway? Whatever happened to ‘you just need to keep breathing, Gabe’? I seem to recall you saying those words to me not that long ago.”
“It’s still very true,” Josh said, but a bit absently as he returned his focus to the swatches. The doorbell rang, and I got up to answer it. “Don’t get shot,” Josh called out from behind me.
“Funny man,” I muttered under my breath before I opened the front door.
“Mr. Roman?” the delivery man asked.
“Not yet, but he’s here too.” I looked over my shoulder and hollered, “Sunshine, you have a furniture delivery.”
“It’s the porch furniture,” he yelled back. “Just have them unwrap it out there, and I’ll set it up when I get done.”
“Okay.” I looked at the sweaty delivery man who looked a little confused that two men were buying furniture together. “You heard the man,” I said, nudging him. “Put it on the porch, unwrap it, and we’ll take it from there.”
The man nodded silently and returned to where his partner was waiting for him at the back of the truck to help unload. They talked amongst themselves for a minute, and I could tell by the other guy’s wide-eyed expression that the guy who came to the door was telling his coworker that they were delivering furniture to a gay couple, although the term used to describe us was probably more colorful, derogatory, or both. In my head, I started thinking of them as Dumb and Dumber because our situation seemed to be more than their simple minds could comprehend. I gave them a cutesy finger wave when they both turned and looked at me once Dumb finished telling Dumber about the situation.
They at least had the decency to at least look embarrassed at being caught. I turned and went back to Josh so the idiots could unload the furniture and get the fuck off my property. “Not Mr. Roman, yet?” Josh asked when I reached him.
“You heard that?” I asked.
“I’m fine-tuning my hearing in preparation to become a father to your heathen kids,” he said, never looking away from his task. “I can’t wait to see what the furniture looks like once it’s set up.” Remodeling progressed at a fast pace once they handed us the keys. There were only a few minor things that needed to be fixed before we moved in. Josh wanted the space completed and ready to go so that we had one place in our lives free of chaos. “I can tell you what it won’t look like; there will be no dark wicker furniture with blue and gray striped cushions,” he said, referencing the furniture Emory described in his premonition.