Page 152 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

Dinner was as loud and messy as the car ride to the house. Only Dean had successfully waylaid Shawna by asking her how her dancing lessons were going.

When dinner ended, his mother stood up. “Shawna, Diana. Put the leftovers away and gather the dishes.”

Diana eyed her sister. “She only told us to gather the stuff, not wash it. If you don’t stop, we’ll end up doing both and still not get any hot chocolate. If we miss that, I’m coming for you.”

“I can help,” Dean told her.

Ana snorted. “Sloane, take Dean into the living room. Tie him down if you have to.”

She walked back into the kitchen but wasn’t far enough that Sloane didn’t hear her finish with, “If he hasn’t already experienced that.”

“Mom!” Sloane barked, scowling when he heard her laugh.

“I guess you’re my escort,” Dean told him, pushing back from the table.

“C’mon,” Sloane said, taking Dean by the elbow and leading him into the living room.

Dean wasted no time sinking down on one end of the couch. Sloane flopped beside him, propping his feet on the coffee table.

“Don’t tell Mom,” Sloane said, crossing his feet at the ankles.

“I’ll be sure to keep your filthy secret,” Dean promised, watching Sloane closely.

Sloane snorted, raising the arm nearest Dean. “I know that look. Come cuddle.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Dean said with mock piety, which didn’t stop him from sliding to Sloane’s side and leaning against him.

“Sure you don’t,” Sloane chuckled, wrapping an arm around him. “You giant cuddle whore.”

Dean wriggled into him, a sure sign that he was happy.

It was strange, the things he’d come to learn about Dean he’d never known before.

Like his wriggling when he was being cuddled and pleased about it.

Or when he was having one of his dreams, all Sloane needed to do was curl around him in the middle of the night.

Dean had always been physically affectionate, but with their new relationship, that had increased to a whole new level.

Dean fed off physical contact, though Sloane wouldn’t complain.

He loved the feel of Dean’s body against his.

“You don’t have to hold back just because we’re here,” Sloane told him softly.

Dean shrugged. “I wasn’t.”

“Uh-huh, since when do you hold off on cuddling instead of demanding it like you normally do?”

“Okay, maybe I was holding back a little.”

“You know they won’t care, right?”

Dean nodded. “I know. It’s just...I don’t know, it’s weird, is all. Being here, being around them.”

“You’ve been here before,” Sloane said, frowning down at him.

“I know. But that was different. I was just the awkward best friend you’d told them about. Now I’m the boyfriend,” Dean muttered.

Sloane cocked his head. “And that’s a big deal?”

Dean looked up. “It’s not for you?”

Sloane squinted. “Is this one of those traps everyone keeps telling me I need to look out for?”

Dean stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “Oh God, I didn’t even realize how that question sounded.”

Sloane grimaced. “You know that you and I are a big deal. You’ve always been a big deal to me. Just so happens that now I’m paying better attention. You still mean everything to me, but now everything covers more ground than before.”

“Doesn’t everything mean it was already covered?”

“Alright, smartass, throw it back in my face.”

Dean grinned, pressing his lips to Sloane’s jaw. “I know what you mean, and I can never explain how happy it makes me to hear it. I just want to make sure that I?—”

Dean fell silent, and Sloane let him wrestle with his thoughts.

As much as he wished he could take Dean’s problems from him, Sloane knew it was impossible.

Just as he knew he couldn't take back how much pain Dean had endured, wanting what he never thought he’d have.

Dean refused to talk about what it had been like when they’d been best friends, and he’d craved something else.

Sloane could only imagine how hard that had to be, especially when he’d seen how great it was being with Dean.

His mother’s voice interrupted. “Sorry, but I have your hot chocolate.”

Dean brightened immediately, taking one of the steaming mugs with childish delight. “Thank you. God, that smells amazing.”

“She makes it herself, none of that powder stuff,” Sloane told him. “And with her own recipe.”

“It…” his mother began, but Sloane cut her off before she could spoil the surprise.

Dean made a soft noise of happiness as he breathed deeply and took a drink. The noise he made next made Sloane wish his mother wasn’t standing behind them. A few seconds later, Dean’s eyes widened, and he stared down at the steaming chocolate.

“Is there chili in here?” Dean asked in a soft voice.

Sloane smirked. “Chili she grows, dries, and treats herself.”

Dean turned to her, a slow smile spreading over his face. “This is absolutely delicious. Maybe you should adopt me.”

Sloane winked at his mother. “White boy he might be, but he can eat spicier things than me.”

His mother swatted him. “Just for that, you can help me do the dishes. Dean, you stay right there, and after you’re done, Shawna wants to give you a few lessons. Best to get her to teach you while she remembers.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Dean told her.

Sloane sighed, extracting himself from the couch. “I should probably go do the slave labor I’ve been volunteered for.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder to make sure she had retreated. “The labor she totally didn’t plan to have you help her with from the start.”

Sloane winked, appreciating Dean’s perceptiveness as always.

It was one of the biggest reasons he was regarded as such an apt medic, both on and off the field.

Dean could suss out a person’s motivations with an ease that Sloane envied and respected, and he was adept at reading another person’s moods.

Then again, considering he was a military doctor, there was the fact that Dean brooked no shit, which was a convenient skill to have sometimes.

“Alright, I’m here,” Sloane announced as he entered the kitchen. “Put me to work, o’ great master.”

His mother shoved a dishtowel into his hand. “You dry and put away.”

“If I can remember where everything goes,” Sloane said, looking around the kitchen now twice the size it had been when he’d been growing up.

“I’m sure you can figure it out,” she told him, taking the first plate from the soapy water and scrubbing.

“I’ll manage,” he said, waiting until she was done before taking it.

“He’s a little shier than he was the last time he was here,” his mother noted.

“Is he?” Sloane asked casually.

She nodded. “He’s more at ease with you but doesn’t seem to know what to do with us.”

“We were talking about that when you came in, actually,” Sloane said with a frown.

“Ah, my excellent timing as ever.”

Sloane laughed softly, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine. I wasn’t getting anywhere with him on it anyway. He says it’s different because we’re together now, but he can’t explain how.”

“He seems rather well-spoken for someone at a loss for words,” she mused.

Sloane snorted. “That’s just Dean. No one gets to see him when he doesn’t know what to say.”

“Except you.”

“Except me.”

And oh, how the thought warmed him but also made him a little sad.

Dean was careful to ensure no one caught him off-guard or vulnerable, a product of his childhood.

While Dean had cast away so much of what his parents had taught him, no one could escape their past, their childhood.

Dean still tried to present to the world what he thought was proper and strong.

It was Sloane who’d been invited to see the doubt and the vulnerability.

Dean’s heart was rife with both, even though it pained him to admit it.

Sloane suspected Dean believed it made him weak, but Sloane thought it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Dean was among the toughest people he had ever known, stronger even than him.

He could walk through fire, sorrow, and despair and still come out the other side.

If he needed to break down and feel what he’d endured, then so be it.

That would never detract from the strong man Sloane knew him to be.

“So,” his mother said, bumping him with her hip.

“What?” Sloane asked, realizing he’d been stacking dishes diligently while lost in thought.

She laughed. “How are things? You’ve been with him for six months, and I’ve barely heard anything from you.”

“I mean, we’re here. Shouldn’t that say something?” Sloane asked.

“Not in the slightest. Honestly, if I didn’t know you as I do, I’d suspect you were getting cold feet,” his mother told him slyly.

Sloane scowled at her. “That’s for weddings. And I’m not getting cold feet.”

“Well, you did live a very straight lifestyle before,” she told him casually.

“Before Dean, you mean.”

“You did know him before.”

Sloane took the pot from her hands, rubbing it vigorously with the dishtowel. “I’m not getting cold feet. I’m not worried. I know what I feel.”

“And what is it you feel?” she asked, handing him the next dish far more gently.

From somewhere in the house, he heard a deep bray of laughter.

It wasn’t a laugh Sloane got to hear often, much as he would like to.

Dean was more prone to chuckles and soft laughter, but when he was well and truly pleased, his laugh would come from deep in his stomach, booming through the room and catching the attention of all within earshot.

The first time he’d ever done it, Sloane had been taken aback.

Dean had immediately flushed and covered his mouth as though embarrassed.

Sloane still couldn’t remember what he’d said that had brought it about, but he’d quickly told Dean there was no reason to be embarrassed.

Even then, he had loved Dean’s laughter, drawn to it without knowing why.

Though looking back, Sloane wondered if some part of him had known.

The same part of him that had warmed to Dean almost instantly.

The same part that had allowed Dean’s affection and gestures of intimacy in their early friendship without doubting it.

Through the eyes of the present, Sloane couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been in denial all along, if only because it didn’t fit what he believed about himself.

And how blind he had been to believe that when Dean had been staring him in the face the whole time.

He would never know how he could have missed the flush of warmth that filled him whenever Dean lay his head in Sloane’s lap, or the slight fluttery feeling whenever he made the man smile genuinely.

Now, he lived for those moments, devouring them like a starved man unleashed on a buffet of his favorite foods.

“Ah,” his mother said.

Sloane’s head snapped toward her, realizing she had been watching him closely. “What?”

“You love him,” she said, returning to the dishes.

“Of course I love him,” he said gruffly.

“There’s love, and then there’s love . I honestly can’t believe I never saw it before, but maybe you needed to realize it before the rest of us could.”

“Which sounds like a nice way of calling me dense.”

His mother laughed, leaning against him and laying her head on his arm.

“Sloane, honey, your heart has always been in the right place, even if you try to cover it up by being as grumpy and surly as possible. That doesn’t mean you’re always going to know what your heart contains.

No one does. But now that you do, it’s obvious how much you love that man waiting for you in the living room. ”

“Doesn’t sound much like waiting,” Sloane said, taking the last pan from her.

“He’s always waiting for you. He knows you, inside and out, parts of you that your sisters and I will never get to see, let alone understand.

But he knows them. And he still waits to catch sight of you.

I’ve seen how his eyes track you whenever you move, and now I can see you do the same.

My son has found someone he loves as much as he is loved, and that, above all else, makes this a Christmas to be remembered,” she told him.

“Mom,” Sloane managed, not sure what to say.

She waved at him. “Go on, go see what he’s up to, and make sure your sisters haven’t terrorized him completely yet.”

Sloane shook his head, knowing his job wasn’t done yet but that there was no arguing with his mother. He handed her the damp dishtowel and stepped out of the kitchen, met with laughter and loud conversation.

He found Dean, eyes wide and confused, as Shawna practically flung him around a space they’d made in the living room.

He looked completely out of his element and unsure of himself, but there was a broad smile on his face as Sloane’s sister showed him the steps.

Without seeing Sloane, Dean threw his head back and laughed when he stepped on Shawna’s feet, earning him a half-hearted curse from the woman.

Yeah, there was no question. He loved this man with every inch of his being and was content to watch him and his sisters for as long as he could.