Page 76 of Merry & Bright

“Happy New Year!”the radio announcer yelled.

The clock struck again and Cam raised a hand, brushing his thumb across Rob’s cheek. He leaned down and touched his mouth to Rob’s in a tender kiss that was very different from the passionate ones of before. There was still heat and excitement, but this time it was contained. This time it held the promise of future passion coupled with all the time in the world.

Again, the bells tolled and Rob slid his arms round Cam’s waist, drawing him closer, deepening the kiss, loving the moan that Cam made in his throat as he did so.

And after that, Rob didn’t hear any more bells, or any of the invisible fireworks, or the announcer’s excited chatter. He was entirely too caught up in that perfect kiss to notice.

When they finally broke apart, the closing bars ofAuld Lang Synewere playing and hundreds of tuneless, drunken voices were singing along. That song, so well-known for looking back, wasn’t being sung like a looking-back song at all. The band on the radio was playing it at a hundred miles an hour, and the people singing it were gabbling to keep up, laughing along. Whatever the words, the real words, actually were, what it was saying to Rob right now was, something good is coming,something really good is coming.

And that was when Rob realised—he realised that, as much as he’d loved Andrew,thiswas the first time in his life he’d felt like he was exactly where he wanted to be.

His rolling-stone days were over.

It was funny really, because he was standing in a house that had been a millstone round his neck for years, with a man who had been his enemy for months.

But somehow this house—this place—had becomehome. And Cam? Well, who knew what Cam might become, in time?

Rob lifted his glass, offering it in a toast and Cam clinked his own against it. They drank together, gazes meeting over the rims of their glasses, and it seemed to Rob that the fine bubbles that exploded in his mouth were better than any fireworks.

Cam smiled. “Happy New Year,” he murmured.

“Happy New Year,” Rob replied.

And the words were a promise, to himself, and to Cam.

**

The End