Page 155 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

Sloane looked over his shoulder, grinning at his family. “I see you guys had fun.”

“Is he smiling?” Diana asked in a quiet voice.

“He is,” Shawna said, sounding unnerved. “It’s weird. Why are you smiling?”

Sloane’s expression immediately fell to a heavy frown. “Fine, I hope your trip sucked. Assholes.”

“Language,” Ana called from the kitchen. “Girls, leave your brother alone and let him be happy. Get in here and help me unpack.”

Dean chuckled when they were out of sight, burying his face into Sloane’s stomach. “I think they’re onto us.”

“They will be once they see what’s in the dryer,” Sloane said with a shrug. “I don’t care. Does it bother you that they might know?”

“I mean, we are dating. I imagine they guessed we might be sexually active,” Dean said.

“This from the man who thought it was weird being a couple around them,” Sloane said, eyebrow raised.

Dean snorted, closing his eyes. “Your mom and I talked last night.”

“Oh? About what?”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

“Okay, Mr. Mysterious.”

“We talked about you,” Dean said, watching Sloane’s face carefully. “The family, my being here. Your dad.”

Sure enough, a shadow passed over Sloane’s face. “And why would you want to know about him .”

“Because I want to know about you ,” Dean told him. “He’s always been the one subject you won’t talk about.”

“So you asked her,” Sloane said, glancing over his shoulder.

“She started talking about him.”

“You can know about me without needing to know about him.”

“Maybe. But curiosity has always been one of my greater sins.”

Sloane snorted, running a hand through Dean’s hair. “I wouldn’t call it a sin. She showed you the album, didn’t she?”

Dean smiled. “She did.”

“I look like him.”

“You do.”

“I hate it.”

“I know,” Dean murmured, turning his head to kiss Sloane’s hand. “It’s strange how a man could have given you so much of your looks and yet is nothing like you.”

“He used to laugh a lot,” Sloane said quietly. “When was the last time you heard me laugh?”

“You laughed at my bedhead this morning,” Dean pointed out.

“You look like a hedgehog when you wake up. I can’t help it.”

“My point,” Dean said, twisting around to kneel beside Sloane and face him, “is that you might look like that man, but you’re a far better man than he ever was.

He took off, but you’ve never left your family behind.

You never left me behind. Maybe you don’t laugh and play like he did, but you know how to be kind, you care, and you give with all your being.

If I have to choose between a man who knows how to laugh easily but will take off whenever the party is over or a man who’s as likely to scowl as he is to growl but will be there by my side throughout everything life throws at us, then I know which I’m picking. Hell, I did pick him.”

Sloane’s eyes darted over Dean’s face, searching.

For what? Dean didn’t know. He hoped he found it, whatever it was.

He figured Sloane had, though, when the man reached out, cupping Dean’s face and gently pulling him in for a kiss.

Dean smiled against his lips, curling his fingers in his short hair and holding him tight.

“Aww, that’s the cutest damn thing in existence,” came Shawna’s voice in a horrible cooing tone.

“And there goes the moment,” Sloane grumbled.

Dean glanced over, sighing when he spotted not just Shawna but Diana and Ana. All three women were still red-faced from the cold, wearing what Dean noticed were almost identical Christmas sweaters, and all three had the same wide grin.

“I’ll forgive you for the language,” Ana told Shawna. “Only because you’re right, that was cute.”

“I hate all of you,” Sloane grumbled, hunkering down on the couch as though he could somehow hide his bulk.

“You know,” Diana added thoughtfully. “I never thought of you being with a guy.”

“Neither did I,” Sloane said.

“Or me,” Dean threw in.

Sloane shot him a knowing smirk, and Dean shrugged.

Oh sure, he had wanted Sloane to be with a man, specifically him.

And while he’d wanted it more than he could bear sometimes, he had never allowed himself to believe it was possible.

Sometimes, he still found it hard to believe despite the reality of their relationship.

“I just think you’re sweet together,” Diana said.

Sloane huffed. “Thank you for making things awkward again, guys. What do you want?”

It was Dean’s turn to give Sloane a knowing smirk. Sloane chose to ignore him, but Dean knew him just as well as Sloane knew Dean. Huff and puff all he liked, Sloane loved his family, he loved Dean, and he was privately loving that they were so happy for them.

“The girls have done their duty,” Ana told them. “And now you must do yours. Come help me get dinner ready.”

“A slave’s work is never done,” Sloane grunted, pushing himself up.

“Like you’ve been doing any hard work today,” Shawna told him.

“I have, thank you very much,” Sloane informed her.

“Ew,” she muttered, stalking off.

Dean snorted. “I’ll help too.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Dean. Sloane can help just fine,” Ana informed him.

Dean shook his head. “I like doing things. If I sit around much longer, I might start climbing walls.”

“He’s not joking,” Sloane informed his mother. “Last year, when he came down with some nasty bronchitis and was forced to take medical leave, I came over to his apartment. And the man who should have been taking it easy was instead almost literally climbing the walls.”

“I was dusting. The corners were filthy,” Dean protested.

“All he had was a hand duster and a dining room chair,” Sloane added.

Ana chuckled. “Well, as much as I wouldn’t argue with a good dusting through here, why don’t you come with us? I can’t afford to have any injuries on Christmas Eve.”

After dinner, Dean found himself growing sleepy and ready for bed.

He’d passed out, slumped on the couch, as everyone gathered in the living room.

The sounds of the family, remarkably quiet despite Shawna being there, were a wonderful backdrop to the soft Christmas music Ana had turned on.

Add the warmth of Sloane’s body against him, and Dean found himself dozing off for almost an hour.

Inevitably, it had been Sloane who’d woken him up.

Dean had peered around, realizing only he and Sloane were left in the living room.

Grunting, Dean allowed himself to be pulled from the couch and into the bedroom.

He undressed wordlessly, collapsing beside Sloane, sighing contentedly as the man curled around him.

That little rest, though, had taken the edge off his sleepiness.

Or rather, it was enough for him to realize that Sloane wasn’t going to sleep.

The man was still, his breathing even, but it didn’t deepen, and while he wasn’t quite stiff, he wasn’t relaxed either.

Dean waited, watching the nearby clock on the table and listening to Sloane’s breathing, wondering what was going on.

Eventually, his worry got the better of him. He rolled over, not surprised to find Sloane’s eyes open and looking at him.

“Something wrong?” Dean asked, worry fluttering in his gut.

Sloane glanced at the clock. “I’m trying to wait.”

“For what?”

“To talk to you.”

That did nothing to alleviate his worry. “About what?”

Sloane grunted, pushing up from the bed and flopping to the edge of the mattress. “Okay, not talk to you. And I should wait till tomorrow morning, but I can’t.”

Dean cocked his head, no more sure of what was happening than before.

When Sloane rolled back over, he held a package in his hand.

Sloane reached out, turning the bedside light to its lowest setting, letting their eyes adjust. Dean watched the light sparkle off the shiny paper, gold and red among the green streaks.

“What is that?” Dean asked.

Sloane held it out carefully, afraid it would break, or Dean might reject it. “Your Christmas gift.”

Dean took it, smiling at the crinkle of the paper and the wariness in Sloane’s eyes. “You were waiting to give me this?”

“Yeah. I should’ve waited, but I can’t. Damn thing showed up at the last second and now I can’t wait for you to open it,” Sloane grumbled, looking at his lap.

“So, I should wait to open this then?” Dean asked, holding the box up.

“Dean,” Sloane growled in warning.

“God, I love when you do that,” Dean grinned, peeling back the corner of the paper.

He peeled the paper away, laying it to the side gently.

He didn’t have to ask if Sloane had wrapped it himself because, of course, he had.

He would have insisted. Opening the thin box, Dean pulled out another simple wooden box with a hinged lid.

Glancing up at Sloane, Dean laid the box in his lap and opened it, breath catching as he stared down at the velvet interior and what it contained.

“I know you like shiny things,” Sloane said suddenly. “But you hate anything around your neck or wrist. And I know what they say about giving people you’re dating rings that aren’t engagement rings, but I?—”

Dean shook his head, unable to find the words, as he plucked the ring from the interior.

The entire ring comprised three bands, artfully twisting around one another.

A brown, shiny metal made up one of the bands, a pale, porous surface made up another, and finally, the third was a soft white gemstone that bore a faint light blue hue when it caught the light.

“Copper,” Dean realized as he stared at the shiny brown metal.

“I remember you telling me you used to look for copper when you were a kid because it was apparently supposed to be everywhere in Arizona,” Sloane said.

He’d never found any, but boy, had he looked. It was also a good excuse to get out of the house, a home that had looked so nice but felt so sterile, even as a boy. But the search for copper, now that had been a bright, warm memory he could pull from his childhood.