by A. E. Wasp
David pointed to Dakota. “He makes you happy. Though by the look in his eyes I don’t think he was ready for the whole Lowery experience.”
“No one ever is,” Andy said. “It’s a bit overwhelming, right, Dakota? It feels like you’re not even quite sure where the two of you stand yet, and these lunatics are already planning which holidays they’re going to have at your house.”
Dakota burst out laughing. “Yeah. Kind of. But I love it,” he said truthfully. “It means a lot to me. I don’t have much family.”
“You do now, sweetie,” Connie told him. “Whether you want us or not. Even if you get enough of Bryce and kick him to the curb, we’ll still be there for you. Ask Nikki.” She smiled at him.
“Yeah, it was close when they got divorced,” Julie added. “We almost decided to keep Nikki and kick Bryce out, but then he looked all sad, so we said we’d keep them both.”
Dakota didn’t know what to say to that. He loved the family’s easy acceptance, but it was way too soon for him to count on anything.
“Just give into it, Dakota. You can’t beat them. The Lowery siblings are a force of nature. They always get what they want.”
Amy reached over and smacked her husband on the back of his head. “And we’re not that bad.”
“Yeah, you are,” David, Andy, and Kelly said at the same time.
“Why do you think I haven’t brought my girlfriend to meet you guys yet? You’d have us married by Christmas.”
During the cries of surprise and rapid-fire questions thrown her way, Kelly shot a glance at Dakota and winked. She’d sensed his discomfort with being the center of attention, and successfully distracted her family. He owed her one.
The focus of the conversation shifted to Kelly and her surprise announcement. Bryce caught Dakota’s eye and tilted his head to the door.
Dakota definitely wanted to get out. As he was getting ready to tell Atticus he had to get up, Lori burst into the house, Lu and Beezy hot at her heels.
Maggie dragged herself up with an excited yap, her heavy tail smacking against Dakota’s leg.
“Okay, Lowerys,” Lori said holding out a hand. “Pay up. Told you they wouldn’t make it through the game.”
Lori helped herself to some coffee as people dug through their wallets to pay her off.
Dakota kind of wanted to remind her that this wasn’t their house anymore and that she just couldn’t barge in and make herself at home. But looking around the room, it seemed like he might be the only one who thought that.
Bryce snuck over to Dakota’s chair. “Your family is part of my family now,” he said as if reading Dakota’s mind. “I’m sorry they are like that. It can be a little overwhelming.”
He didn’t sound sorry. There was love and pride in his voice as he looked at his family. When Bryce dropped his hand onto Dakota’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world, Dakota had to bury his face in Atticus’ hair while he struggled to get his emotions under control.
“Oh, you know what?” Kelly said. “I just had the greatest thought. If you two ever what to have kids, I would absolutely be a surrogate for you. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be pregnant. But I don’t really want kids. No offense,” she said to her nieces and nephews.
“That’s brilliant,” Lori agreed. “I would do it, too. We could do it together! How fun would that be?”
“Okay,” Dakota stood up as quickly as he could, sliding Atticus carefully to his feet. “On that note, I’m going to,” he searched for something that would get him out of the house and work off some the nerves he was starting to feel. “I’m going to chop some wood.”
“I’ll help,” Bryce added.
They rushed out the door together.
“Should we been leaving them alone together?” Bryce asked as they practically jumped down the stairs.
Dakota shook his head. “I don’t know. Lori will probably be married to Keith or Kelly or possibly both of them by the time we get back in.”
Bryce grabbed Dakota and pulled him into his arms. “Are you okay? I know they can be overwhelming. And don’t let them make you feel pressured, okay? I know things moved really fast, and it was my fault.”
“You know what?” Dakota asked, sliding his hands around. “It really is.”
Bryce smiled against Dakota’s mouth and gently pushed him around the steps, putting his back to the wall of the house.
Bryce’s hands pushed under Dakota’s shirt, feeling up his ribs and then dipping under the waist of his pants. Dakota was just about to suggest moving to his house when he heard the sound of a truck speeding up the driveway.
Kyle’s truck screeched to halt at the front of the house, sending up a plume of gravel and dust.
“Fuck,” Dakota cursed, pushing Bryce away an inch.
Bryce frowned. “Who is?”
Dakota looked at Bryce and grimaced.
“Really? That’s Kyle?” Bryce took a step forward and turned around, standing between Dakota and the truck.
Kyle leaped out of the truck and stormed over to Dakota, he had some papers clutched in his hand. Dakota had a sinking feeling in his stomach that he knew what they were.
“I can’t believe you, Dakota,” Kyle growled, slapping the papers against his thigh. “Already fucking the new guy to keep a roof over your head? It what you do, isn’t it?” He kept his eyes locked on Dakota, as he tried to brush past Bryce.
Bryce stopped him easily with a hand on his shoulder. “What’s your problem?”
“You’re my problem. So get the fuck out of my way.” He tried to pull Bryce’s hand off him, but it was like trying to move a tree.
“I think you need to get off my property,” Bryce said. His voice was even, but Dakota could see the fire in his eyes.
Kyle sneered at him, disgust evident on his face.
It was such an evil expression, Dakota couldn’t believe he’d ever thought Kyle was good-looking.
“It’s not your property, big guy.” He waved the papers in Bryce’s face.
The front door slammed, and Lori stood on the top of the steps, a shotgun in her hand. “I told you to stay the fuck away, asshole.”
Dakota saw the rest of Bryce’s family staring from inside the screened in porch.
“Shut up, you stupid bitch,” Kyle snarled.
“Lori, don’t!” Dakota yelled as Lori racked the shotgun.
Bryce pulled his arm back, cocked his hips, and slammed his fist into Kyle’s jaw.
Kyle dropped like a stone.
“Oh, my God!” Connie yelled as Ophelia and Joshua cheered.
Lori ran down the stairs and stood over Kyle, shotgun pointed at him. The Lowery family followed on her heels.
Bryce pulled the papers out of his hand and handed them to Dakota.
“Holy shit,” Dakota said, starting at Bryce. “That was amazing.”
On the ground, Kyle groaned. Lori put her foot on his chest.
“Is it the will?” Bryce asked?
Dakota tore his eyes away from Bryce and forced himself to look at the papers. Yeah. It was the will. Two page, a page and a half of text, dated after he’d been admitted to the hospital, leaving everything to Dakota. There was a handwritten note underneath his signature.
Dakota got through the first sentence before the tears started.
Dakota, Tommy had written, I’m leaving this place to you, but I don’t want you to stay here. Sell it, take the money, and go live your life. You’re too young to be tied down. You and your family were the joys of my life. You’ve been so sad for so long, and I want you to be happy. I’ve wanted to tell you to leave so many times, but I knew you’d take it the wrong way. I’m sorry I’m leaving you. Be happy. Do it for me, in memory of me. I love you like a grandson, you must know that by now.
He signed it Love Tommy.
Uncaring of the tears streaking down his face, Dakota handed the papers back to Bryce.
Bryce scanned them quickly. “So all this really belong
s to you, not me.”
Someone gasped.
Dakota nodded. He could sense Bryce waiting for him to say something else.
Kyle moaned again and tried to sit up. Lori kept him pinned to the ground. “It’s your, Dakota,” he mumbled. “Sell it like the old man said, and we can be together again. I’ll take care of you again.”
“You’re delusional,” Lori said in awe. “You’re really crazy.”
Suddenly the whole thing felt so ludicrous. The laughter he couldn’t hold back burst out of Dakota’s mouth. He knew everyone was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, but he didn’t care. Tears of laughter mixed with the tears of love and loss.
“It’s yours,” Bryce said again, expression neutral. “We can go to the lawyer first thing Monday morning and get everything switched over.”
Dakota wiped his face and laughed again. “I don’t want it,” he said barely believing it himself. “Not even a little.”
“Yeah?” Bryce asked with the beginning of a smile. “Are you sure?”
Dakota looked at Lori. “Are you okay with this?”
She shrugged without moving the gun off of Kyle’s chest. “Why would I care? I’ve been telling you to go live your life for years now. Go. Take tall, dark, and deadly here and go to fucking Mexico for all I care.”
“Marry me?” Julie said to Lori.
“I’ll fight you for her,” Kelly said.
Lori flashed them both her brightest smile.
“Okay, then,” Bryce said. He reached down and pulled Kyle up to his feet.
Dakota pulled the shotgun out of Lori’s hand. “I can’t believe you had a shotgun in the house.”
“It’s not loaded,” she said as if he were an idiot. “There are kids around!”
“I’m gonna call the police on you,” Kyle threatened. “You assaulted me.”
“Good,” Bryce said. “Bring them. And I’ll hand over all the evidence we have of your embezzling. That’s a federal crime.”
Kyle blanched, his eyes darting between Lori and Bryce.
“I tell you what. You leave and never come back, and I won’t have you arrested. I see you again, and I’ll let her shoot you.”
He shoved Kyle away, and the man stumbled. With a final attempt at a glare, he walked on unsteady legs back to his truck.
“You might want to go to the ER, get that head checked out,” Lori suggested.
The family watched in silence. Dakota looked at them, then Lori, and finally to Bryce. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked Bryce.
“Absolutely.”
Dakota grabbed his hand, and they ran down the drive like school kids.
“Bryce!” his mother called.
“Lori will explain! Right, Lore?” Dakota yelled over his shoulder.
“You got it, big brother. See you later?”
“We’ll be back for dinner.”
They were both laughing breathlessly as they hit the gate of Dakota’s house.
“Truck or motorcycle?” Dakota asked.
“Oh, bike for sure,” Bryce said.
“It will be cold.”
“I’ll wrap my arms around you to keep warm.” Bryce matched action to words and grabbed Dakota.
“Okay. Your funeral.”
A few minutes later they were on the road. As Dakota turned his bike towards the mountains, he realized it had all been worth it. All the pain and loss and growth, worth it for this moment. And none of would have happened if Kyle hadn’t gotten his hands on Tommy’s will.
“I have to send Kyle a thank you card,” Dakota yelled back to Bryce as they waited at a stoplight.
“For what?” Bryce said. His hands gripped Dakota tightly as the bike sped forward.
“For everything.”
Chapter Forty-Two
BRYCE
Dakota hadn’t been exaggerating. It was freezing on the back of his bike. Bryce loved every second of it; the feel of Dakota’s hips under his hands, the sway of the bike, and the landscape whipping by.
He recognized the road up the mountain as soon as Dakota turned onto it.
If he’d thought it had been scary from inside his 4Runner, it was downright exhilarating on a motorcycle. As they sped up the curving road, following the path of the silver river, Bryce laughed when he realized how frustrated Dakota must have been trapped behind Bryce’s nervous, slow driving.
He hadn’t let any of it show when he’d stopped to help Bryce. The amount of choices and decisions that had to have happened to bring Dakota and Bryce together and that particular point in their lives, on that particular stretch of road, boggled Bryce’s mind.
It seemed like a lifetime ago. In a way, it was another life. Bryce wanted to send a thank you card to Goodyear for their defective tire.
He hadn’t ever thought about fate or destiny before meeting Dakota, but it was hard not to now. All it would have taken was Bryce spending three minutes longer over breakfast that morning, or Dakota getting caught at one more stoplight, or Bryce buying the blue 4Runner, and they never would have met like they did.
There were all of these places where if something had happened differently, the world would be a different place.
If Tommy’s family had accepted him. If Bryce’s father hadn’t been a deadbeat. If Dakota’s birth parents had loved their child the way they should have.
Bryce trembled with the awareness of how miraculous it was for two people to find each other amongst an infinity of possibilities. And yet it happened every day. Like birth. Each time a child arrived safe and whole into the world, it was a miracle; no less wondrous for its familiarity.
Dakota pulled onto the shoulder of the road, stopping where Bryce’s SUV had skidded off only one short month ago.
Unclenching his frozen fingers, Bryce couldn’t help grinning as he dismounted. When Dakota pulled off his helmet, Bryce could see the gleam in his eye. Bryce tugged him in for a long kiss. “That was amazing.”
“Wait until summer, and we can go right up and over the continental divide.”
“I’m going to get my own motorcycle by then. Can we go on a camping trip?” Ever since Bryce had picked Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance off of Dakota’s bookshelf, he’d been taken with the idea of a cross-country motorcycle trip.
“Sure.” Dakota hooked a finger into Bryce’s waistband. “So I thought we could check out how well my lock repair held up. I’d feel bad if anyone could just break into this cabin.”
“It would be a shame,” Bryce agreed. He slid his cold hands up under the back of Dakota’s jacket.
Dakota arched away from the touch. “Forget it. I changed my mind. You’re not touching me with those ice cubes.”
“Lies. You know you want me.” Bryce turned Dakota around and pushed him towards good old cabin number three.
No one had touched the lock since Dakota had replaced it, so it was easy enough to unfix it and force their way in again.
The cabin looked the same as before, and Bryce felt a deep gratitude for this small, plain room, with its metal bedframe.
They took off their jackets, draping them over the armchair wedged into a corner, and stripped off their shoes. Bryce hoped they wouldn’t have to make a quick getaway.
Taking Bryce by the hand, Dakota led him the few steps towards the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress and tugged Bryce into place between his spread knees. He wrapped his arms around Bryce’s hips and rested his head against Bryce’s stomach.
Bryce cupped his hand around Dakota’s neck, rubbing along his jawline with his thumb. Dakota looked up at him, and Bryce pushed his hair away from his face.
“Hi,” he said, inanely.
Dakota’s smile was gorgeous. “Hi. Come here often?”
Bryce laughed. “More than you’d expect. So, what should we do now?”
“I have an idea,” Dakota said. “Tell me your darkest secret, and I’ll tell you mine.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Bryce said.
“It could be.�
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“Hmm. Well. In that case.” He ran his thumb across Dakota’s lips. Dakota had the most beautiful mouth; Bryce could never get enough of it. “I think I might be gay.”
Dakota raised his eyebrows as he flicked his tongue across the pad of Bryce’s thumb. “Oh, what makes you think that? Did you kiss a boy and like it?”
“I liked it very much.” Bryce pushed Dakota down onto the bed and crawled over him. Trapping Dakota’s hands against the mattress, he bent down and kissed him to show him exactly how much he liked it.
He loved the contrast between the softness of Dakota’s lips and the roughness of the stubble against his mouth as he kissed his way up Dakota’s jaw. Already breathing heavily, Dakota tilted his chin to give Bryce better access.
“But it’s more than that,” Bryce said into Dakota’s ear. He sat up straddling Dakota’s legs, his ass resting over Dakota’s cock.
Dakota ran his hands up and down Bryce’s denim-covered thighs. “More than kissing? Tell me.”
Bryce slid his hands under Dakota’s shirt, pushing it up with his wrists as he dragged his thumbs up the slope of his ribcage.
“I met the most amazing guy.” He watched his hands moving up Dakota’s torso. His hands were dark against Dakota’s chest, his olive-toned skin contrasting with Dakota’s paler pink tones.
He looked up, right into Dakota’s eyes. “And I fell in love with him.”
“Oh,” Dakota said, face serious. “That does sound pretty gay.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Keep him around, I guess.”
Dakota lifted his chest off the bed using only his abs and pulled his shirt off over his head. “That sounds like an excellent plan,” he said tossing his shirt off to the side. “But you should probably kiss him some more, possibly even have sex a few times, just to make sure you’re really, really gay.”
“You make a strong argument.” Bryce grabbed the hem of his shirt with both hands and pulled it up slowly.
“Jesus,” Dakota whispered under his breath, hands flying up to press against Bryce’s muscles.
Bryce hid his grin behind the material of his shirt.
Dakota ran his hands over the speedbumps of Bryce’s abs. “Not to sounds shallow, but your body drives me insane. When we’re finally alone, I’m going to keep you naked for days.”