On a Roll

by Beth Bolden

  “We’re not that bad,” Gabriel said, but he knew that they could be, sometimes. And after this, the likelihood of their relationship improving was not likely.

  “You’re just too much the same,” Ren said.

  “What?” Gabriel couldn’t believe that Ren honestly thought that. “We’re nothing alike.”

  “You’re exactly alike,” Ren said, leaning against the counter. “You both think you’re goddamned right all the time. Both think you know best. And both think you know the best way to express your brotherly affection. In this particular situation, I can tell you that you’re both fucking wrong.”

  Gabriel didn’t say anything for a long moment. “That wasn’t all he was doing . . .” he finally started to say, but Ren held a hand up.

  “Maybe he blundered into this thing between you and Sean, but he didn’t know it was even happening,” Ren said. “He didn’t mean to. And then you bit his head off.”

  “I did not,” Gabriel said sulkily. Except he had.

  “Yeah, alright,” Ren said, clearly not believing him.

  “He just . . .” Gabriel made a frustrated noise. “He just walked in and fucked everything up, you know? Like he usually does.”

  “Except,” Ren said, “at least this time he didn’t do it on purpose?”

  “Fine,” Gabriel grumbled. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “You two love each other,” Ren said sagely. “You just express it in such different ways. Ironic, considering you’re practically the same person.”

  “Is that enough?” Gabriel asked, annoyed that his cousin would not shut up.

  “I think so. So are you really changing the name again?” Ren asked as they began the long task of cleaning up.

  “Yes,” Gabriel said shortly. “I should have done it ages ago. But . . .”

  “But you were too desperate to get Sean to notice you,” Ren finished for him. “I get it. But you know, you could’ve just told him you liked him, instead of continuing to tug on his pigtails.”

  “Maybe.” Gabriel was still not convinced. And he was definitely not convinced that when he went over to Sean’s truck that he would want to see him at all.

  This whole time, he could have taken steps to help Sean preserve the memory of his husband—not because Milo meant anything to him, but because he meant so much to Sean.

  If he was in Sean’s shoes, he’d be pissed as hell at him.

  “You could still tell him,” Ren said speculatively, as he scrubbed down the grill. “You should tell him.”

  “What happened to love is a choice?” Gabriel wondered.

  Ren sighed. “It is, and you made it, and he makes you happy. You make him happy too. I don’t think he really was, before. But you know what? This isn’t always how it works out.”

  Gabriel was dying to ask his cousin how it hadn’t worked out for him, but he didn’t, because if Ren wanted to tell him, he would.

  “I don’t think he was happy, either,” Gabriel pointed out instead. He felt, like he had from the night that Sean had told him about Milo, the pressure to keep Sean’s secret. Because if Sean had wanted any of their friends to know, he’d have told them.

  It didn’t change anything that Gabriel sure as fuck thought that they should have known ages ago. It wasn’t his call.

  “Well, he is now, or he was,” Ren said. He sighed and stood up, giving the edge of the flat-top grill a final wipe. “Which means that you should get your ass over there and start apologizing. Definitely start groveling.”

  “I will.” Gabriel stacked the last of the packed containers away in their fridge. “I’m helping you, first.”

  “No, you’re procrastinating because you’re afraid he’s going to be really fucking mad at you,” Ren said.

  Ren was not wrong. But it wasn’t just that.

  Gabriel didn’t think he could seek out Sean if he was going to see that look of betrayed trust—the one that had sliced him to pieces—on his face again.

  “I don’t know much about love,” Ren continued casually, “but I know that it isn’t always easy. Things aren’t always as simple as you hope they’ll be.”

  “He might not forgive me even if I change the name, now,” Gabriel said.

  “He might not. But,” Ren glanced up at him, a glimmer of a smile on his face, “I think he’ll want to, and that’s what matters.”

  Ren had a lot more faith right now than Gabriel did, and that was a scenario that he’d never imagined, not in a thousand years.

  It was the one that convinced him that he couldn’t hide out any longer, hoping that maybe Sean wouldn’t be quite so pissed, that maybe he might even come seek Gabe out.

  But Ren was right.

  Even if Sean was pissed, he wouldn’t be so pissed that he wouldn’t want, deep down, to forgive him.

  His love might be dented and a bit bruised by what had happened, but Gabriel knew, in his bones and in his blood and in every way that fucking mattered, that Sean did love him.

  That knowledge was what gave him the courage he needed to propel him out of his truck and across the lot towards Sean’s.

  He could see Sean’s face in the window, brow furrowed as he scrubbed at something, cleaning up after a long day. He hadn’t seen Gabriel yet, but Gabe thought he could see the strain of the day on his face.

  Finally, he looked up and a whole range of emotions crossed over it when he saw Gabriel. Longing and frustration and anger and hurt and resignation—but right when Gabe despaired that maybe Sean didn’t love him after all, there it was. Begrudging maybe, but it was there, glowing soft and warm in his eyes.

  He turned and walked down the stairs, coming around the corner of his truck.

  It was late, everyone else had closed up for the night, and he didn’t see anyone else, which was right, because nobody else had the right to hear this conversation.

  “Hey,” Gabriel said, “I came over because I wanted to let you know that Luca is gone.”

  “Good.” Sean’s voice was short, but there was relief in it too. “Does that mean he’s not going to sue me now?”

  Dread rushed through Gabe. He’d known that Luca had made things difficult for Sean before he’d come over to deal with Gabriel, but he hadn’t realized that part of Luca’s threats had included lawyers. God, that must have freaked Sean out.

  “No, no, no,” Gabriel said as quickly as he could, the words spilling over each other in his eagerness to set the record straight. “No, never. That . . . Luca is insane. That was never an option, never.”

  Challenge joined the relief in Sean’s expression. “Good.”

  Gabriel wondered if that was all he was going to say. “And I wanted to apologize. I should have changed the name, way back when, the first night you told me about Milo, and why you didn’t want to change yours. It was the right thing to do, and I just didn’t.”

  “I told you not to,” Sean said. He didn’t sound as angry as Gabriel had expected. “I mean, I suppose I should be pissed as hell at you. You had an out for our problem the whole time and you didn’t tell me. I guess you were probably pretty amused when I told you that I thought about it every day, trying to find a way out of our stalemate.”

  “I . . . no,” Gabriel said, and he reached out for Sean, but he stepped out of his reach. The challenge in his eyes flashed again. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t super pissed, but he also wasn’t quite ready to make up yet. Gabriel could understand that.

  “No,” Gabriel repeated. “I didn’t laugh at you. I wasn’t amused. I was sick, to be honest, because I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You didn’t know what to do?” Sean sounded incredulous. “You had a name change all ready to go!”

  “I know,” Gabriel said, shame washing over him. “But . . .” He took a deep breath. “I know you’re mad about that, and you deserve to be . . .”

  But before Gabriel could get even more of his apology out, could even attempt to grovel a little bit, Sean interrupted him, pacing back and forth in front of
his truck, like his feet couldn’t stay still, not while he unloaded about what he did feel.

  “I’m mad about that, a little, but what I’m really fucking pissed at is that you just stood there and let your brother just roll over you.”

  “I took care of him,” Gabriel inserted. “I told you, I took care of it. He won’t be around again. I don’t owe him another dime, not for his investment, not for anything.”

  “Do you really think I give a fuck if he comes around here again? Yeah, his threats were a little scary, how could they not be? But I knew, knew, you wouldn’t let him sue me, I knew we could work it out, but . . .” Sean shoved a finger into Gabriel’s chest. “But you just let him walk all over you. You let him.”

  That was the last thing Gabriel had expected that Sean would be pissed about. “Luca and I, we have a complicated relationship,” he said carefully. “We always have.”

  “What’s complicated is all of this,” Sean said, gesturing to the air between them, the same air that had crackled with tension the very first time they’d met and continued to crackle still. “And now I’m wondering what we’re even doing, who you even are, this guy that I’m . . . I’m all mixed up about.”

  “Mixed up?” Gabe found that he was the one gaping in shock now. “You’re mixed up?”

  “Yes,” Sean said tightly. “I said we were just going to get naked and I thought that was all it was . . .”

  “It’s not all it was,” Gabriel said. “It was never about that for me.” It was terrifying to continue, especially considering the look on Sean’s face—the utter confusion, like he truly didn’t know what they were doing. “I never just wanted that. I thought you were on the same page I was. I think you are on the same page I am.”

  “What page is that?”

  Gabriel reached for him, and this time Sean didn’t fight him, just tucked himself into his embrace. For a second, he just held him, the man he’d come to love so much. There was a little bit of terror, because how could there not be? But there was hope too, and it was a live thing inside him, blossoming into something incredible. How could Ren have ever said this was a choice? It had never been a choice.

  “I love you,” he said softly. “Maybe that’s too much for you to hear, but I do. I think I might have loved you for a long time. Long before I even knew what this was.”

  For a very long moment, Sean was silent, but the unmistakable feeling of him tensing in Gabriel’s arms was enough of an answer.

  Sean slipped away from his grasp and turned his head. He couldn’t even look at Gabriel. Couldn’t even meet his eyes. “That’s . . .” His voice shook. “That’s never what this was supposed to be about. I told you.”

  “I know you did,” Gabriel said, trying not to let the disappointment and hurt leak into his voice. It wasn’t his fault that Sean didn’t know what he was feeling. And maybe Gabe should’ve been less sure that Sean loved him, but he knew he did. The same way he knew how to make Nonna’s red sauce, and how to make the best meatballs and the best ziti that anyone had ever tasted.

  He’d never been as sure of anything in his whole fucking life.

  “I wasn’t being cute or funny or playing hard to get when I told you,” Sean said, sounding wretched. “It just . . . it felt different with you, than it did with Milo. I loved him, loved him with everything in me and I just don’t know . . .” He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if I can feel that way about you.”

  Maybe even then, Gabriel should have believed what he was telling him. But he also knew about pain and how you could carry it with you, even long after you thought you’d set it down. How it could hold you back, even when you wanted to be set free.

  Maybe Sean thought he didn’t love him, because he didn’t know how to let himself.

  The other option was just not one that Gabriel would accept, because he’d felt the warmth and strength of Sean’s affection and care himself, and he’d known it wasn’t just one-sided. Sean had never pushed him away, not once, he’d only drawn him closer and closer, until it felt like Gabriel’s heart was beating right next to his.

  “You already feel that way about me,” Gabriel said, and yeah, maybe it came out a little cocky. But he was cocky, about this anyway. He’d won Sean’s love, even if Sean didn’t know it, and that was one of the greatest, if not the greatest thing, he’d ever done in his life.

  “I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” Sean said carefully. “I don’t know what I feel.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said, reaching for him again, but Sean took a step back, and then another one.

  “Your feelings and my . . . well, I don’t know what I feel. Not even close. Because of that, at least, maybe we should take a break from each other, at least for a little while,” Sean said, like he wasn’t in the process of trying to burn down Gabriel’s world. All his hope, beginning to crumble, a little bit at a time. Because what if he never realized how he felt? What if he was just as sure as Gabriel was? What if this was the stalemate that ended up killing them?

  He’d been so sure that the stupid fucking name would be the end of them.

  But what if it was something more insidious, something buried a lot deeper, something that Gabriel couldn’t fix as easily as filing new paperwork and ordering a new sign for the truck?

  What if it was Sean’s history with his dead husband that had doomed them before they could ever begin?

  Gabriel already knew he couldn’t fight a memory, which was why he had deliberately never done it. And he wasn’t going to start now.

  Not when Sean had been so fucking clear. He’d even said the words. He’d told Gabriel how much he’d loved Milo, and when Gabriel had given him the opportunity to move on, to tell Gabriel how much he loved him, he’d refused to say it.

  Gabe’s throat closed up.

  How could one person be so fucking right and so completely fucking wrong, all in the same moment, about the exact same thing?

  But Sean was right; what they needed was a break from each other.

  He turned, and without saying a single word, walked away.

  It turned out that, no matter what, he was always going to give Sean what he wanted. Even if it was the totally wrong fucking thing.

  ———

  There was nothing that Sean thought could possibly hurt worse than the moment he’d opened the door of the apartment he’d shared with Milo and the look on the police officer’s face had ruined his life.

  But this felt second to that. Watching Gabriel walk away, the muscles of his back tight and strained as he left.

  Left him.

  Except that Gabriel wouldn’t have, he’d never have left his side, if Sean hadn’t pushed him away. He loved him.

  How did you even respond to a thing like that if you were genuinely sure you didn’t know how you felt? It would have been betrayal of the very worst kind to lie, and say that he knew. It would have been somehow even worse to tell Gabriel that he loved him back.

  He hadn’t known what to say or do, flayed bare by Gabriel’s simple confession. Space had seemed like a very good idea, and something that Sean desperately needed, until he watched Gabe walk away, and then it felt like the very worst.

  Sean picked up his glass and drained his drink in one gulp.

  Shaw, the bartender, shot him a sympathetic look. “Hard day?” he asked.

  It had started out so great. Even after Luca and the sudden shock of finding out that Gabe had had a plan this whole time, it still hadn’t been so bad. The new wrap had sold like crazy, and he’d almost been too busy to agonize. But as the afternoon had worn on, he’d been sure about one thing: he hadn’t really been angry at Gabriel. Surprised, maybe, and dismayed at how easily Luca had pushed him around. But not angry.

  “Weird day,” Sean said instead.

  Shaw began to pour him another drink, even though Sean hadn’t intended to order another. It felt too much like falling into old habits that he’d sworn to himself that he’d never revisit again. But, as
he watched Shaw’s fingers move so confidently through the motions, what would be the harm of it?

  What he really wanted was to talk to someone. Not just someone. One of his friends. Maybe Tony or Lucas or Tate. Even Ash, though he was rarely as sympathetic as the others. But how could he, when they didn’t know the whole story?

  He’d have to lead with, “By the way, I have this dead husband that I’ve never mentioned to any of you,” and Sean wasn’t stupid or even remotely drunk enough to believe that was a great way to start anything.

  Of course, that was exactly how it had started with Gabriel.

  Even thinking his name ached.

  Sean took the glass from Shaw’s hand. “Thanks,” he said.

  Shaw leaned over the bar. “You know, I’ve been told I have a good ear for problems, and you, my man, look like you have a real problem.”

  He couldn’t help but sigh. He did have a problem. “What would you do if you found out that a friend of yours had a whole history that you didn’t know about?”

  “Did this friend lie to me about it?” Shaw asked, straightening and starting to wipe out drying glasses. “Or did they just omit the details?”

  “Isn’t lying by omission a form of lying?” Sean wondered.

  Shaw shrugged. “I think it’s whatever they decide it is,” he said.

  “They?”

  “You’re talking about your friends, aren’t you?” Shaw was smart; Sean had always known this. But he hadn’t realized it until he narrowed in on the thing that he’d only vaguely hinted at. “And you’re the friend who wasn’t honest.”

  “I . . .” Sean took another drink. “I wasn’t. I . . .” It still wasn’t easy talking about this; probably because he didn’t talk about it. Not for years. “I was married, before I came to Los Angeles.”

  “Divorce?” Shaw asked casually, like he already had this pegged. And maybe he thought he did, because no doubt a lot of sad people who passed through this bar had had their hearts broken from a relationship that just hadn’t worked out.

  “He died,” Sean said.

  Shaw’s eyes flew to his. “Oh shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .”