Page 57 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)
I expected Gabriel to bolt from the car and run the forty miles home when the words “I love you” slipped out, but he didn’t.
He pulled me close and told me he loved me too.
Then he smiled and joked and held my hand tightly all day.
We watched chainsaw carvers and visited art booths and ate more fried food than I’ve had in the past two years combined, and even though the venue was new and crowded and terrifying, I was okay.
There were a few moments when a loud noise would startle me, or someone would bump into me just a bit too hard as they walked past, and my anxiety would threaten to take over, but Gabriel would notice.
He’d slip his arm around my waist and pull me into a quiet corner to inspect an interesting piece of art or kiss my jaw or tell me yet another funny story until the panic faded.
We spent nearly eight hours laughing and wandering and simply enjoying one another’s company before we finally tapped out.
The drive home was quiet but in the best of ways.
He held my hand on the center console, his thumb sliding along the side of my palm idly while we watched the tarmac twist and curve through dense forests.
Stray beams of faded sunset light made their way through the evergreens, casting dappled stripes of rust across the solid black road.
Nearly twenty minutes pass before Gabriel breaks the peaceful silence.
“I never fit in with my family back home.” He sounds sentimental, maybe even sad. I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t want to risk him shutting me out, so I just squeeze his hand to let him know that I’m listening and wait for him to continue.
“They’re all good people. At least they were when I was a kid, but honestly, I don’t really know now.
We send holiday cards, and I talk to my parents on the phone a few times a year and text one of my brothers every few months or so.
I guess things could have changed, and one could be an axe murderer or something. ”
“I doubt that.” I snort with a quick glance his way.
He offers a tentative half smile before shifting his gaze back to the road.
“Yeah, I do too. I just always got along best with my grandfather. I always felt like I had to hide so much of who I was from the rest of them. From them, from friends, at school, in public. He was literally the only person I felt safe talking to and being myself around. Everyone else’s love or friendship or time felt…
conditional. Like if I said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing, I wouldn’t be enough.
God knows it happened plenty of times when I was a kid.
I was too outgoing in school, too flamboyant, too chatty.
I was just always…too much. Eventually, I learned that if I only showed them the parts they wanted to see, they’d stick around.
I guess feeling that way just…stuck, didn’t it? ”
While I can’t look away from the dark, twisty road, and I have no idea what to say to make him feel better, what I can do is bring our hands up and press a lingering kiss to the back of his knuckles.
He sighs in response and shifts so that he’s leaning close enough to lay his cheek on my shoulder. It has to be miserably uncomfortable with the center console digging into his ribs.
“For the few years when it was just Granddad and me in California, things were really good.” He laughs, but the sound is filled with sarcasm or pain.
“Okay, things were a bit hard. We both worked full time and shared a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and there were definitely days we questioned whether we’d made the right choice in moving.
But he and my grandmother had spent four years there when they were in their early twenties, while she went to college, and it was always his dream to retire there.
He said retire, anyway, but I think we all knew he’d never be able to afford to actually retire.
He just wanted to spend a bit of time in a place that was nothing but joyful, colorful memories before the end. ”
He turns his head slightly, and I know without looking that he’s tried to surreptitiously wipe a tear on my shirt.
“He always said I reminded him of her.”
I turn and kiss his head the best I can without taking my eyes off the road.
“Even through it all, they were a good few years, and the two of us were happy together before he passed. I found performance art and gay clubs and made a few loose friends at the cafés I bounced around working at, and it got to a point where I started thinking maybe I’d found my place.
Maybe I’d find my person. So I started dating and going out with friends a bit more, and in the end…
nothing stuck. It was different than when I was a kid.
Subtler. A lot of ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ type shiz, but in the end, everyone left. ”
“Gabriel…I…”
He cuts me off with a kiss to the cheek before shifting back to his seat.
“I don’t really want to talk about it or anything, if that’s okay.
I’ve done some therapy and spent the past year learning to be happy on my own without worrying so much about what people think or feeling like I needed to find the other half of my soul to be whole.
I know that I’m sort of fluffed up from it all, and I’m not sure why it’s always affected me so much, but I just wanted you to know…
that’s all. I need you to know that this whole time I’ve been trying to keep you at arm’s length, I’m sure it’s felt like I don’t trust you.
That’s not it at all. It’s not you…” He snorts. “It really is me.”
I glance over with a smile and hold up my palm in offering, and when he laces his fingers through mine once more, it feels like he’s sealing our fate. He finally let down his walls, and he’s already seen the darkness behind mine, and we’re both still here. We’re both choosing to stay.
“I never thought you were trying to get rid of me for any reason other than you were scared to let me in.” I pause and chuckle, “Well, once I realized I hadn’t spent months lusting after you while you thought of me as nothing more than a colleague anyway.”
Gabriel’s laugh is light and love, the weight of his heavy self-built cage having fallen away.
“Have you seen you? You’re way too hot for me to have ever thought of you as nothing more than a colleague.
” I walk Gabriel to the door, just like I have on our previous three dates, but it feels different tonight.
Tonight, I’m not worried that this will be the last time.
That I’ll wake up in the morning and he’ll have sent me a text that just says “I’m sorry” or “Fuck off,” or that he’ll randomly ghost me completely.
Tonight, I don’t worry when I back him slowly up against the door and trail the tip of my tongue along his jaw.
This won’t be the last time I get to taste him.
I don’t worry when his fingers dig into my back when our hips grind together, and I slip my tongue between his lips and swallow his moan.
It won’t be the last time I hear it. Tonight, when I let our kiss linger and slow, and step back with a contented smile, I know that this is just the start of us.
“Stay the night.” His voice is rough and breathless, and he sounds just like he did the last time I got to see him naked. He sounds the way he did when he crawled onto my lap and stroked us until the world fell away and nothing existed outside of his ropes and touch and heavy panted whimpers.
My brow furrows at the request before I can stop it.
I want to stay the night more than anything.
I want to stay every night. I never want to let Gabriel out of my sight or my arms or my bed.
I want to be with him every moment of every day, but I’ve been so careful not to press him, and so far, it seems to be working.
There have only been a couple of fleeting moments when he’s seemed nervous or concerned, but I don’t want to give him any reason to regret me or panic or change his mind.
I want him to be as sure of us as I am. Today was clearly a big day for us, with the declarations of love and all, but he could still worry that I might change my mind and leave.
He continues before I can organize my thoughts enough to respond.
“I want to be done dating.”
“WHAT? Gabriel, I…”
He shakes his head as he presses his palm over my mouth.
“Oh my god, no. Not like that. What I mean is I never want to be done dating. I don’t want to be scared, and I don’t want to worry anymore.
I know that it’s not really that simple, but I trust you to stop me if I try to run.
I trust that you’ll hold my hand and help me through, the way I’ll always be there when your anxiety takes over.
I want us to go on so many more dates, years and years of dates.
I want to bring home too much pizza and eat on the couch and find a club that’s safe enough that you can come with us on Friday Night Friends Nights once in a while.
I want to be here to comfort you when you wake up with nightmares and have you watch me practice my silks while you play with Cupcake.
I want you in my bed. Like…holy buckets, I want you in my bed.
All the time. All the time, all the time.
I want to tell you I love you all the time too.
It is brutally terrifying because you still might leave. But I want it anyway.”
I close the distance between us in an instant, bending to slip my hands under Gabriel’s thighs and lifting him to press him up against the door.
His legs wrap around my hips, and his arms around my neck just as quickly, and then there is nothing other than the sound of his moans and the taste of his lips and the way he rocks his hips, grinding his hard cock against my belly.