by Kilby Blades
“Because I bought your father’s house, and there’s a 70/30 chance you’ll take it the wrong way.”
Levi forced himself to take a long breath before answering. “And just what would be the right way to take it?”
“I wanted the house,” Adam said simply. “You don’t want the house anymore. I bought it at fair market value.”
Nothing could have irritated Levi more than Adam’s calm, controlled voice, especially when Levi felt so close to losing his.
“You went behind my back,” Levi seethed. “What do you have to do to get it through your head that I don’t want your money?” Levi practically growled.
“When you get it through your head that half the things you think are about money aren’t about money at all. Some things are about family, and loyalty and duty and holding on to what’s important,” Adam shot back.
The heat of Levi’s temper rose up his neck to his ears. “What the hell does that have to do with buying my father’s house?”
“Because it felt like my house too.” Adam’s growl was better. “Just like the hotels feel like yours. Hanging out at your house, with you and your normal family, was the best part of my childhood. You were selling it so quickly… I didn’t want to never see it or walk into it again. And with you selling it from all the way across the country—presumably to the highest bidder or the first person to make a good offer—I didn’t like the idea that someone terrible could buy it.”
Not having expected this response at all, Levi was stunned into momentary silence—but something inside him was still riled up. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he exclaimed, repeating his hurt over Adam having gone behind his back. Had Adam honestly thought he wouldn’t find out?
“Because you’re nuts about anything that involves money—anything that makes you feel like you’re accepting my help, even though you help me all the fucking time.” Adam’s voice was still heated as he explained. “So I bought it at exactly its asking price. That way you couldn’t accuse me of charity or any of the other things you like to accuse me of. Yet here we are, and you’re still pissed.”
Levi was breathing harder now. “It’s never been about the money,” he spat. “It’s about the control. It’s about you getting to decide how things will turn out—and never bothering to ask me what I want. And when you already know what I’d want, treating it like dirt.”
“That’s not—” Adam tried to interject. Levi didn’t let him—could no longer staunch the flow of everything he’d kept at bay. Everything he’d held his tongue about when Adam had been in San Francisco—every topic he’d steered clear of for the sake of staying in their bubble and keeping the peace—was coming back in full force now.
“What happens when I tell you I’ll do your photo shoot pro bono? $750,000 shows up in my account. You find out I’m selling my father’s house? You don’t like that, so you buy it. I tell you I’m moving to San Francisco permanently? You choose that convenient moment to tell me about your father’s ultimatum when you want a trump card to get me to move back to New York.
“I don’t get you, Adam. You give me some big speech on getting past our bullshit… and a bunch of talk about us telling one another the truth… but you’re always working behind the scenes, pulling the marionette strings, doing something without me knowing. I’m always the last person to find out. I mean, shit—you still haven’t even told me what happened with you and Leila.
“That’s why I’m mad, Adam. That’s half of why I decided to move to San Francisco in the first place: I needed something of my own. Because when you’re not with me, I miss you so much it hurts, but when I let you into my life, everything’s all about you. You say all this shit to distance yourself from your father, but you pull the same shit on me as he pulled on you. When are you gonna get that all I’ve ever wanted was to be with you without losing myself?”
Levi’s voice had steadily risen. He was out of breath from his diatribe. Bax watched him with some alarm but remained on her bed in her corner.
“You moved to San Francisco to get away from me?” Adam’s voice sounded smaller than Levi had ever heard it.
“Yes,” Levi admitted miserably.
“Because I was controlling you, just like my father controlled me?” Adam asked.
Levi sighed. “It’s more complicated than that.”
But Levi’s thoughts were jumbled, and he could scarcely explain his other reasons.
“I’ll rescind my offer on the house,” Adam said quietly. “I shouldn’t have it if you don’t want me to.”
“Thank you,” Levi said, but it didn’t feel like relief.
Levi was halfway to saying something—anything—that might soothe words he was starting to realize had truly injured Adam, when Adam asked for the one thing he never had before: space.
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Studio
BEING enlisted as Adam’s preferred photographer didn’t mean that Levi had been hired by Adam directly. Levi’s contracts were with news outlets and magazines. His job now was to pare down—to throw away the bad shots and leave them only with those worth considering for the final—then to hand over the photos, which belonged to them.
Levi was rarely precious about his work at this stage. He’d learned to be proud of his work but still let it go. But this wasn’t just any client, and letting go of the photos felt like letting go of Adam. He’d already let go of more of Adam than he could handle. But he couldn’t avoid finishing the job forever.
On the days when they’d been shooting, Levi had done some initial choosing at the end of each day. It hadn’t hurt as much. Adam had still been in San Francisco then. But, man, did it hurt now. Because it made him relive every single day—from standing on the tailor block in Perry’s studio being fitted for suits, to sunrise shots among dewy vines in Sonoma. From the whimsical shot of Adam on a Lombard street filled only with a fleet of cars from the Kerr, to highly engineered studio shots that took themselves more seriously.
Yet before there would be any presenting of choices to the magazines, there would be previewing choices for Adam. Why had he hired Levi at all if not to ensure it would be done right? Hazel had worked diligently through Adam’s assistant in New York to make sure Adam could join in person for their call with the PR agency the next day. The meeting had been planned for weeks, which made it particularly unfortunate and inconvenient that Adam and Levi had just fought.
I guess I don’t have to worry about seeing him after all.
Levi would have gone into this feeling vulnerable either way. Would Adam like what he’d done? Would he see the magic in himself? Anticipating the meeting was unnerving. That was why, as soon as he awoke the morning after the day he’d moped at home after fighting with Adam, Levi grabbed his keys, grabbed his coffee, and grabbed his dog and headed to his studio, intending to be early and well-prepared.
“EASY, girl,” Levi scolded Baxter as he typed in the security PIN onto his studio door. For some reason Bax was going crazy. Levi wracked his brain to figure out what treat or diversion of hers had been interrupted last time they were there, but drew a blank. The second it opened wide enough to let her in, Bax raced through the door and disappeared toward the back—toward Levi’s desk.
But something was amiss—for one, the lights. The last time Levi had been there, it had been daylight and he hadn’t needed the overheads at all. Something else was amiss: a heightened glow at the end of his room led Levi to spy a figure at his computer desk. Bax licking said someone’s face could mean only that it was Adam.
He came.
Levi stood stock-still, unsure how to apologize. He hadn’t expected to be confronted with the dilemma of exactly how to do that, so soon. Wasn’t it Adam who had said he wanted space?
And then there were the other parts—the parts of Adam that Levi couldn’t help but drink in, even looking troubled as he did. He looked exhausted but freshly showered—he was effortlessly beautiful and made jeans and a sweater look like a million bucks. Levi wanted to smell
Adam’s skin, to look into his eyes, to touch his still-wet hair. He wanted to go to him—to kiss his lips—to say he hadn’t meant what he’d said. Adam Kerr was nothing like his father.
Busy dealing with a very excited Baxter, whose face kisses he was taking like a champ, Adam still hadn’t turned to Levi as he gave her a good rub. It wasn’t until Adam leaned forward in response to Bax’s paws on his lap that Levi saw what Adam must have seen—saw what photo sat open on his desktop.
No.
It was the photo. The one that put Levi’s feelings front and center. The one he’d taken of Adam when they were fifteen in the park. It was a photo that fifteen-year-old Adam would never have remembered or understood at the time, but that thirty-year-old Adam would see for what it was. And if Adam had found that photo, he’d found all the photos in the secret Adam file.
Levi’s horrified gaze snapped from the picture to Adam, who stood slowly—tentatively—as if fearful that reminding Levi of his very presence would make Levi tear him a new one again.
“I wasn’t snooping,” Adam explained quickly. “The folder was called ‘Adam.’ I thought it was the pictures we were gonna go over today… from all the shoots.”
It was obvious Adam hadn’t been snooping. Well, at least he hadn’t been snooping for what he found. When Levi didn’t admonish him, he relaxed, just a bit.
And there they were, in silent conversation, as they had been so many times before, speaking volumes through their faces and their stances and their breath. How would yesterday’s conversation have gone had they only been able to stand in the same room—to look into one another’s eyes?
I’m sorry.
I was wrong.
I’m in agony over this.
We need to stop hurting each other.
I hate fighting with you.
How do we make things right?
Levi had no idea how they were supposed to make up with one another—probably because they had never fought like this, never been so honest about their grievances. And the things that had been said the day before couldn’t be unsaid.
“You’re right,” Adam began slowly, his voice low and hoarse. “I am like my father. I compensate for the things I can’t control. And if I’m honest, I do some of it through manipulation. And it doesn’t feel malicious or overbearing when I do it—it feels like I’ve solved a problem. But solving what feel like problems to me—just because I can—isn’t worth shit if it creates more problems for you.”
Levi’s eye twitched and something in his stomach untwisted as Adam spoke the words—sentiments Levi had lost hope years before that Adam would ever understand. What did it mean that he understood now? Self-awareness and actions were two different things. Could Adam change? Did it even matter if Levi couldn’t live without him?
“I love you, Lev,” Adam breathed.
The words Levi had waited a lifetime to hear weren’t delivered with the ferocity he’d always imagined, but with a raw vulnerability that touched him deep. It sent breath from his lungs and killed words on his lips and swiped coherent thoughts from his head. It vindicated him completely, for however much he might have already known.
“I’ve always loved you. But I don’t want to be my father,” Adam continued, firm conviction now seeping in. “I don’t want my love to have conditions and strings. I don’t want it to be about power. And I think, right now, it is.”
A bolt of cold terror struck up Levi’s spine. What was Adam saying? That they were right to be apart? Had Levi holding up a mirror driven Adam away? Had the karma of his own hypocrisy come back to haunt him? Levi couldn’t formulate a coherent thought, let alone a coherent sentence.
“I needed you so much, Lev…. When I was in Tehran, you were what was missing. Then, you staying in San Francisco made it feel like I was losing you again. I lost my dad. I lost my mom. In some ways I even lost Elle this year when she had a kid. Then I felt like I was losing one of the only places that held happy memories of my childhood—your parents’ house. So I did something stupid out of desperation.”
Adam looked truly miserable by then. His eyes shone with unshed tears, and he paused only as emotion choked his voice. When it returned, it was a whisper. “I came here to apologize. I’m sorry I went too far. It’s not the first time and it probably won’t be the last. And if it means I have to work twice as hard to figure out all my psychological bullshit, I’ll do it, if it means not losing you.”
“Twice as hard?” Of course it took an inelegant question to make Levi find his voice.
Adam shrugged. “I’ve been in therapy for a while.”
Levi was quiet, thinking about this, wondering what to make of it all. Adam wanted to keep him, but how? Had he shown up to salvage their friendship? To apologize for buying Levi’s house? It was obvious that they loved each other. But that had never been enough.
“What about Leila?”
For once Adam didn’t look away. He looked Levi straight in the eye. “I was on a plane to come to your opening. She didn’t want me to go. She was so jealous of you….” Adam said the word with emphasis and stopped for a minute, just like Levi’s heart. “…she made up a fire drill so big, I had to divert the plane. By the time I landed in New York and got to the office and figured it out, your opening was over. So was my relationship with her.”
Levi retreated to some recess of his mind as he processed this information. Levi read Adam’s emotions clearly as he came back to himself.
I was too ashamed to tell you.
I know I’ve made mistakes.
I don’t know where we stand.
“I forgive you,” Levi blurted again, realizing that, through overthinking, he’d forgotten to say what mattered most. “Of course I forgive you. You’re my….” But Levi trailed off, just short of finishing with my best fucking friend.
Adam took a shuddering breath, hearing the thought that hadn’t been spoken. “Yeah… we need to figure that out.”
They stood quietly, awkwardly, a few paces from one another that didn’t feel normal but still felt better than being apart. Levi couldn’t decide whether their fight was a blessing or a curse. If Adam hadn’t bought his father’s house—or had bought it a day later—Levi would have gone through with yesterday’s plan to confess his love. But what had happened had happened. Sure, everything was all fucked-up. But he’d told the truth and Adam hadn’t turned a deaf ear. Adam had come—for him.
“You don’t trust me,” Adam said out of the blue—or at least that was how it felt for how deeply Levi had been in his thoughts. “That’s one thing I figured out in therapy. But some of the things you hide, I just don’t understand.” Adam jutted his chin to the screen. “I’ve never understood why you always lied about the pictures.”
“You knew?” Levi was shocked.
Adam rolled his eyes. “You think I can’t tell a Levi Cossio original? I could pick photos you’ve taken out of a lineup. And you have literally shot nearly everyone we know.”
Levi felt a pang of shame. “Why didn’t you call me out?”
Adam’s gaze remained fixed on Levi’s screen. “I figured you had your reasons. But these… I never expected this.”
“So now you have your answer,” Levi replied, finally finding his voice. “Not photographing you was the only thing that kept my secret a secret. In every shot of you I’ve ever taken, any idiot can see that I’m in love with you.”
Levi’s hands found their way into the pockets of his jeans, and he joined Adam in regarding the photo. “It’s always been that way… so I made my excuses. And I shot you when I was sure you weren’t looking.” Levi took a shaky deep breath. “And I looked at the pictures when not being able to have you hurt so bad, I needed some piece of you to get through. And I built you a creepy digital shrine.
“And I was wrong to compare you to your father. You’re a hundred times the man he was. I could’ve told you what beef I had with you without bringing him into the mix.”
“But?” Adam winced.
&nb
sp; “But here’s the thing,” Levi continued. “Sometimes you try to hold on so tightly, the thing I think I want from you is to be set free. But I don’t want to be free of you. What I really want is for you to not hold me so tight. You know… when we try this again.”
“Again?” Adam choked out, having looked on the verge of great emotion. “You would take me back? And before you answer that question, I’d like to help my own chances by mentioning that I’m available to move to San Francisco.”
Levi’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Really? How did you pull that off?”
Adam shrugged. “I got my priorities straight. Told Elle that if I had to choose between doing the job and being in San Francisco, I choose you.” He took a tentative step toward Levi. “Only I’m not sure you’ll even have me with the way that I’ve been. The only person I’ve ever wanted to love is you… and I’ve never known how to do it right.” He said it in a voice as vulnerable as Levi had ever heard. “How do I love you without pushing you away?”
Levi took a step toward Adam. The few feet that separated them at that moment felt farther than the miles Adam had flown to get to San Francisco. The ache he’d felt at being apart from Adam once their bodies had told the truth had only gotten worse with the passing days. And Levi didn’t want distance anymore.
“Just include me,” Levi said simply, stepping into Adam’s space. “Stop deciding everything for both of us.” Levi took his hands. “When I draw a boundary, respect it.” Levi angled his head until their foreheads were touching. “And don’t go crazy with the money.”
“So, basically, quit being bossy, be less bossy, let you be the boss, and don’t spend any money on you.” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating.
“Basically, yes,” Levi confirmed, sliding his arms around Adam’s waist, his body magnetized to be even closer.
“I think I can do the first four, but Lev….” Adam shook his head. “I’m always going to be a billionaire. And hospitality is in my blood. Anticipating what would make people happy is what I do. Especially for the man I love….” Adam brought his hand up to caress the scruff of Levi’s neck, and it melted Levi from his core. “Don’t I get to spoil you every once in a while?”