KEVIN TOOK Wyatt home and was glad of it. It was a fairly big house, and he had to figure out how to set his cub up. There was only one bathroom in the house, and it was upstairs. And getting him up there was a bit of a deal—the staircase was narrow, and he wasn’t excited about Wyatt trying it himself, at least for a few days. An older lady several doors down offered to loan them her portable commode, and Wyatt paled at the idea.
“Poop in that?” Wyatt pointed at it, horrified, when Kevin brought it into the house. “I dar’st not!” he exclaimed dramatically, spreading fingers across his chest. “And then I would have to drag it upstairs by myself anyway, because there is no way I’d let you!”
“I don’t mind,” Kevin said. “It’s just p—”
“Tch! Tch! Tch!” Wyatt tch’ed, raising a finger imperiously. “I have spoken! The plastic urinal thing I’ll use. It’s almost fun. Sticking my dick in there and all. I can’t remember who it was—it should have been me—who said one of the best things about being a man is making the world your urinal! But I will not—” He pointed at the plastic and metal cheap-man’s throne and shuddered. “—use that. I’ll wear Depends first. Or stay upstairs.”
“Okay, okay,” Kevin said, laughing hard enough that he had to wipe tears from his eyes. Then, changing the subject: “By the way, your front yard. Is that a garden?”
Wyatt nodded. “It sure is. Spectacular too. You should see the daffodils! It was Sloan’s mother’s garden, and he’s afraid to sell this place because he’s afraid the new owner will just rototill it over and roll out some sod.”
Kevin gasped—his turn to be horrified. “That would be terrible!”
Wyatt nodded and shrugged, somehow at the same time. “But it’s a lot of work, and I think that Sloan was hoping maybe I’d take care of it, but gods. All that dirt under my nails? I pay to get these done.”
“There are gloves, you know,” Kevin said, laughing again, and then reflected on how often he’d wished he had a garden, but living in the big city—especially in a condo—made that pretty difficult.
Wyatt didn’t respond right away, but there was a twinkling in his eyes.
All of Wyatt’s friends had been there the day Wyatt got home, even Asher, who luckily had finished his pickup shots in LA just a few days before.
There was tons of food, and Wyatt had even gotten Asher to make piña coladas for his mother, and of course the bartender par excellence had come through, even finding a pineapple vodka to sweeten the alcoholic deal. He himself only had a sip, though. “They’re for your mother, after all,” he said, and then had not so much as a beer.
But of course Wyatt wouldn’t let his mother so much as taste them until he had sung the infamous piña colada song.
“Whew!” Wyatt’s mother cried after one sip. “So that’s rum!” She switched to water partially through her second drink when she found herself plopping down in an easy chair and unwilling to get up. “I don’t know how you boys put these away like you do!”
Wyatt was in high spirits and had even tried to dance to the famously corny song, but by the time he’d reached the first chorus—about liking piña coladas and hating yoga and having half a brain—it was clear to all, even him, that he had to sit down.
The doctors had warned Wyatt that he might never get back to the way he was—what had happened to his gallbladder and what it did was very traumatic to his body—but Kevin wasn’t about to remind him of that. Thoughts became things after all.
And he had thanked that emergency room nurse named Doris who had gotten Wyatt a room and might have saved his love’s life.
No one stayed late, much to Wyatt’s objections, but all could see even he didn’t totally mean it.
They didn’t make love that night, even though they both wanted to. Wyatt’s spirit was willing but his body wasn’t, and Kevin was afraid he’d hurt him. There were a hell of a lot of stitches involved in the creation of a “pretty scar” and while Wyatt refused to even peek under the bandages, Kevin had and saw it was healing beautifully. One day—and he could almost see Wyatt in his mind’s eye—he was sure his lover would be proud of his life’s battle scar.
Two weeks passed, and each day Wyatt got a little stronger. It would be weeks before he could go back to work, but his boss made sure he knew his job would be waiting for him. There had even been a collection by his coworkers of food and necessities to stock his cupboard. It had made Wyatt cry and made Kevin proud that so many people cared so much for his lover.
Lover.
The word made his skin tingle.
And any fears he might have had that he was just some rebound were eased not only by the way that Wyatt looked at him, those gorgeous deep brown eyes aglow, but by friends and Katherine, Wyatt’s boss, and even Wyatt’s mother.
“Don’t you hurt my boy, or you’ll hear about it from me,” she warned him, but one time only. One time was all he needed—not that he ever planned on doing anything of the sort.
They grew closer every day, sharing stories and experience and laughter and pain and music and passages from books.
Wyatt’s mother stayed for only a few days—long enough to finish reading Wish You Well—and after reading enough to catch up while Wyatt took one of his frequent naps, Kevin found himself loving to be read to by the woman as well.
“You are wonderful,” he told her many times through his days of getting to know her from hospital to home. “Wyatt is so lucky to have a mother like you.”
She shook her head. “I’m trying to make up for a lot of lost time,” she replied, looking at her son thoughtfully. “And so grateful Wyatt’s letting me. I’m so sorry your mother doesn’t know what she has in you.”
Kevin didn’t know what to say about that. “They never really treated me badly,” he said, banishing memories of being asked if he couldn’t please shut up for just one single solitary goddamned second. “I think they just didn’t know what to make of me.”
Wyatt’s eyes cracked open.
“I was like a changeling or something to them. I just plopped down in front of their eyes. I was a total mistake—”
“You’re no mistake,” Wyatt said, and the way he said it made Kevin’s knees go weak.
“I was not expected,” Kevin said. “I was that 1 percent chance that the pill didn’t work. My mom and dad had never planned on being parents. I think they would have put me up for adoption if they hadn’t been such prominent members of their community. They were both professors at Columbia University in New York. So they didn’t really have a choice, not and keep their standing with their peers. They never beat me or anything like that. They were just really bad parents.” And sometimes that made him really sad.
“Oh, darlin’,” Wyatt’s mother said and reached out and touched his hand.
But today?
“Then I’ll be your mother.”
Today not so much.
“If you’ll let me call you son.”
Kevin’s breath caught. “That…. That would be really nice.”
“But you have to stop calling me Mrs. Dolan. I want you to call me Mom.”
Today not so much at all.
“I will,” he told her. Then he sighed. Returned to his story. “You know, in point of fact, they weren’t even good at being married. My dad cheated all the time, and I mean a lot.” He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw and remembered his mother crying in the early years. “And then after a while, she just didn’t care anymore.” And sometimes that made him sad too.
Wyatt sat up and reached out for him.
“Which is why,” Kevin said, “I decided I could never be in a relationship like that. My way or the highway. Monogamy or nothing.”
Wyatt dropped his hands, pain sparking in his eyes.
“Total love, or nothing.”
KEVIN WENT with Wyatt when it came time to take care of the stitches, which were actually staples. Tiny ones. The stitches were all internal.
He held Wyatt’s hand, and Wyatt tried really hard not to whimper, but he was Wyatt, after all, and there were a lot of them.
But when all was done, he was finally willing to look, and red as it was….
“Pretty scar?” asked Dr. Lyons, who had insisted on doing the work himself instead of letting one of his students do it.
“Pretty scar,” Wyatt agreed with a weak little smile.
And then the days turned into even more weeks, and time seemed to have frozen.
Until Kevin got the phone call.
Wyatt was shocked when Kevin told him about it.
Somehow Wyatt had just let himself pretend that forever was going to be about him recovering and Kevin being there to help.
“I’ve got to go to New York,” Kevin said. “I’ve got to take care of Cauley’s estate. I’ve just totally ignored it. And SAFE wants to take it over. I’ve put them off too long.”
“You’re going?” But what am I going to do? he wondered, filled with dread and sorrow.
“And I was wondering, Wyatt. Would you go with me?”
What? What had he said? “Go with?” he asked.
“Oh yes, Wyatt. Because I can’t stand the idea of being without you for a single day.”
Gosh! Go to New York?
“For how long?” he asked, glancing around the room. A room—a house—he’d actually begun to think of as his.
“Well, I was thinking of to live,” Kevin said. He came to Wyatt then and got down on the floor next to the couch where Wyatt was resting. “And I was wondering—and God I know this is not romantic and you deserve romantic—if… if you’d marry me.”
Wyatt gasped. “Marry you?” Marry him?
“I thought what a good idea it would be. If you married me, I could carry you under my insurance and really be able to take care of you.”
Wyatt could hardly believe what he was hearing. Marry him? Marry Kevin?
“We’ve only been together for weeks,” Wyatt said. “What if you change your mind? What if I fuck up? What if it doesn’t work out? What if I fuck up? I mean, what if….” He gulped. “I’ve been around the block quite a few times, Kevin. What if I get cocktailed up at Festival and find myself in somebody’s tent?”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” Kevin said.
“But you said total monogamy or nothing.”
“I didn’t say that I’d throw away the love of my life for a mistake, though. Working through things is what being married is all about.”
Wyatt gave another little gasp.
And Kevin said he wasn’t being romantic?
“You know that I love you, right?”
“You do?”
Kevin looked at him sternly. “Surely you do, right? After all we’ve been through? I wouldn’t do all that for just anyone.” But then his firm look melted. “Oh God, Wyatt. You’re giving me your Bambi eyes. I can’t deal with those sweet Bambi eyes!”
Wyatt sighed happily.
“I love you so much, Wyatt. I wish I could tell you how much.”
Wyatt’s heart began to pound and the words flew out before he knew it. “I love you too, Kevin.”
And by Eros, Venus, and Clíodhna, he did.
“So will you?” Kevin asked.
“I will,” Wyatt said.
And what do you know. There was no cosmic scale keeping him from getting love, was there?
After all, he was going to be the first of the Fabulous Four to get married.