Page 38 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)

“Pretty much. It was safer, I think. I mean not safer for my body or my life, but safer for my fucked-up brain. Well, not really that either as it turned out, but at the time, it felt like it made sense. It was routines and orders and sameness. Even when I was deployed and it was yelling and heat and sand and violence and shitty food, it was still safer than having to decide or to come home and try something else, only to fail. Eventually, though, I saw one too many shitty things. Lost one too many friends. Had one too many brushes with death that I shouldn’t have survived, and I came back, even if that made me a failure. ”

Gabriel sighs quietly as he reaches over to rest on my forearm. “Babe. Absolutely nothing about you is a failure. Nothing, okay?”

All I can do is nod. The tightness in my throat and the ache in my chest that have inconveniently shown up in response to his warmth and comfort and support won’t let me speak without breaking down.

“I get it. I mean. Not really, I guess. I had a good enough childhood. Both my parents worked too many hours trying to provide for us because they had too many kids and no education, but everyone was loved and cared for and happy enough. When I moved to the States with my granddad, things were good there too. The two of us were a team until he passed, and I’ve been lucky enough to have dreams to follow since then.

I’ve always known I wanted to perform. I never cared what type of performance, really.

I just like the magic of it. I like getting lost in the beauty and the movement until nothing else exists and hoping that I can offer my audience even the smallest glimpse of what that feels like for me.

I’ve worked hard, and I’m happy with the choices I’ve made, but I get what it’s like to feel overwhelmed to the point of wanting to let go of it all.

To have someone else make my choices for me for a moment so that I can try and turn my brain off for a while.

That’s how I found shibari, actually. I mean, that’s a story for another day when I have a voice.

” He laughs. “But I understand picking something that you thought would offer stability.”

The awe I feel over the way he’s so intentionally cultivated a life that he loves manages to clear the lump in my throat well enough for me to respond without tearing up.

“Looking back, I’m sure there were a lot of other paths I could have taken that would have offered the same type of stability without the residual trauma.

” I grin wryly. “But we don’t get to go back and try again, ya know.

The choices we make are the choices we make, and we just have to learn to live with them once we find ourselves on the other side. ”

He offers a small smile that looks more sad than anything else, and I don’t want that for him.

“Anyway. Once I got home, I struggled a lot, just like a lot of vets do, and eventually, I realized that the last time I had a stable routine that made me happy was at the café. So I moved back in with Mar, even though I was way too old for that, found a job at some dinky little pastry place, and started trying to rebuild my life. I’d only been home a few months when a man in a suit showed up at our door. ”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow in question.

“I know, right? Men in suits definitely don’t show up at Mar’s door.”

“Oh my god, was it the FBI? Are you in some kind of Marine witness protection? Oh, or did you win the lottery?” His bounce and sparkle are back, and his nose crinkles in thought as he tries to come up with even more reasons a mysterious man in a suit might show up out of the blue.

“No to both. He was a lawyer with a letter and a packet from my mom. Apparently, she died two years after I enlisted, but no one bothered to track me down for some reason. I have no idea why. It shouldn’t have been hard to find Aunt Mar at the very least. She still has the same house I moved into at sixteen, and my foster care and adoption records are something any of my mom’s lawyers should have had access to. ”

“Oh, hun. I’m so sorry. My god, I mean…you just can’t seem to catch a break, can you?”

I huff out an attempt at a laugh, trying not to think about the fact that the only break I want to catch is for Gabriel to somehow magically fall in love with me and let me keep him forever. “Not usually, no.”

“Well. I hope that changes for you at some point.” He makes a show of scrubbing the tip of one finger aggressively on the tissue he’s still clutching tightly, and then reaches out to boop my nose with a grin.

“I do too.” Maybe you’ll change that. “Anyway. I don’t know what I expected, really.

Maybe a long heartfelt ‘sorry I was a fuck up, but I always loved you anyway’ type of letter.

I’m not sure that would have actually meant anything, but who knows.

What I got was eight words. ‘I'm sorry, but I hope this helps now.’”

“What the fluff, dude.”

I just laugh. “I don’t know. Honestly, even that was more than I ever really expected.

She left me a tiny bit of money along with the letter.

Apparently, she somehow managed to have a small life insurance policy that fell to me when she passed.

I never asked what happened to her, but given the fact she somehow managed to pay the premiums on a life insurance policy when she couldn’t manage to stay away from drugs for more than a month or so when I was a kid, I don’t really want to know. ”

Gabriel scrunches his nose but says nothing. I’m thankful for that. I don’t like thinking about my past as it is. The last thing I want from him is pity or apologies or sympathy.

“It wasn’t very much, but with the money I had put away from my years in the service, I was able to pull together a down payment and open the bakery, and it’s been good. I mean it’s been a fuck ton of work, of course, but it’s mine, and it’s routine, and it’s safe.”

“Oh hun…”

Gabriel’s tender gaze searches my face in the moonlight, and I can’t help but wonder if one day, he’ll let me hear his story. If the way he’s dropped his walls this evening will stick once morning arrives. If he’ll ever let me see the depths of his soul in the same way I’ve offered him mine.

“I don’t know what I was expecting when I asked how you ended up with a bakery. Maybe that you were some pastry school prodigy or something. Maybe you had a sugar daddy for a while who left it to you.” He grins widely at my snort. “Whatever I expected, it wasn’t that.”

“I’m sorry.” I frown, turning my head a bit further into the pillow, but he doesn’t let me hide.

Long, delicate fingers that seem almost incomplete without stacks of rings trace along my jaw before holding me in place, forcing me to hold his gaze.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as willing to bare their soul as you are, and that’s an amazing thing, hun. Being brave enough not to hide is an astonishing thing.”

His fingers tighten when I try to shake my head. “I’m not brave. I’m scared all the time these days.”

Warm brown eyes search my face for a long moment before he releases my jaw and, without any warning whatsoever, slides close and tucks his head under my chin.

“You’re brave, Liam. Far braver than I am.”

I want to ask what he means by that. I want to know what he’s scared of and what’s stopping him from thinking of himself as brave.

I want to tell him that hiding in my bakery kitchen and my sad beige apartment isn’t bravery.

That sitting at the shore for hours, listening to the sound of the tide and escaping into the mer-tunnels where I don’t have to be myself for a little while, isn’t bravery.

I want to tell him that the way he lives, bright and vibrant and unashamed to be exactly who he is no matter what, is what true bravery looks like.

There are so many, many things I want to say…

but he’s breathing small puffs of warm air against my throat, and his hands have settled between us, pressed tightly up against my chest, and the scent of coconut in his hair is so thick and overwhelming and wonderful that I can’t find any words at all.

When he shifts in my arms, curling into my shoulder with a sigh, it’s too late to try and say anything anyway because his breath is slow and his heartbeat steady, and for these few, precious early morning hours, I get to know what it’s like for Gabriel to sleep in my arms.

Somehow, I know that next time I see him, he’ll have put this sleepy, vulnerable version of himself away again.

He’ll be hiding behind his light and color and laughter just like he always does.

I don’t think those things are fake. I think that he really does love life and celebrations and wonder as much as he appears to.

But tonight, there have been glimpses of a man who’s lonelier than I think people realize.

The way he followed me into the kitchen to watch me cook, just so he wouldn’t be in the front room alone.

The pure awe that he didn’t even try to hide when I brought him cold pills and made him soup.

Even the way he hid how vulnerable he felt behind teasing and jokes about flooding the place when he asked me to stay the night.

Why hasn’t anyone in his life noticed how lonely he is?

I know that I’m alone. I don’t really have friends or family to speak of aside from Mar, but I’m okay with that.

Sure, it would be nice to be a bit less anxious and afraid of the world.

Maybe once in a while, when Hazel and James invite me out, it would be nice to actually be excited to go rather than feeling like I have to, even though I’d rather be in the bakery or at the beach or curled up at home on the couch, but really, I don’t mind being alone most of the time.

That’s not who Gabriel is though. He's social and vibrant and loves being the life of the party. Why hasn’t anyone noticed that the love and joy and kindness he puts out into the world are things he wishes he’d receive in return?

Why hasn’t anyone seen how easy he is to love, scooped him up, and promised to care for him forever?

I wish I could ask him to take care of me and make me feel safe and let me do the same for him.

I don’t think anyone has ever actually taken the time to make him feel safe.

I wish I could be that man for him. I wish I wasn’t scared and broken.

I wish I really was as brave as he thinks I am.

If I was as strong as he seems to think I am, I’d be able to tell him what I want.

I wish I were brave enough to ask him to be mine.