Dane found the brochure that had caught his eye and been filed away until he needed it. He placed it on the desk in front of Russo.
“Mr. Archer”—Dane couldn’t help the grin at calling Gideon that—“has changed his mind about the urn. We’d like one of these.” He pointed.
“The New Journey Biodegradable Urn in Purple Passion?”
It looked like a large postal mailer, albeit in a velvety plum. In addition to being something that would melt away once stuffed in the ground, the urn was less than a third of the cost of the walnut box.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“As you wish.”
As the disappointed Mr. Russo turned and began a new form, Dane tapped out a text to Gideon.
Stick him on a fire escape, and he’ll be gone by spring.
Gideon glanced down at his phone and made a choking sound. Russo handed him a tissue without looking up to see Gideon’s laughing eyes.
Chapter 20
DR. FUENTES got right to the point. “Based on the result of your PET scan, you would appear to be in remission.”
Relief left Gideon lightheaded, and he was afraid he squeezed Dane’s hand a little too hard.
“I’m cured?”
“Well, no, there’s no cure exactly. What we can say is the scans show that your lymph nodes have normalized. We’ll do another one in four weeks. But the protocol seems to have been effective.”
Gideon understood the legal need for appear and seem, but Dane didn’t look like the good news was sinking in.
Gideon tried boiling it down for him. “No more chemo, right?”
“As long as the next scan continues to show no evidence of abnormality, there’s no further need for treatment.”
He was all right. Dane was all right. An irrational urge to go light a candle in church had Gideon drawing deep breaths and fighting a need to drop to his knees.
“So what happens now?” Dane’s voice was low.
“We’ll schedule the follow-up scan and an appointment to remove the port.”
“And I’m going to… live?”
Dr. Fuentes’s face showed a trace of unexpected humor. “No one can guarantee that, of course, but as far as the lymphoma, you appear to be in good shape. Given that you only had two rounds of chemotherapy, the long-term risks and side effects from that should be minimal as well.”
Gideon stood. “Thank you, Dr. Fuentes.”
The doctor shook his hand. Dane, still looking bemused, stood and offered his.
“Congratulations,” Dr. Fuentes offered.
“Thank you.”
As they left the office, Gideon said, “What do you want to do first? Who do you want to call?”
Dane shook his head. “No one. Can you take me—? I want to go to the beach.”
Gideon drove him to Coney Island, parking near the Cyclone. It wasn’t a bad day for December. Sunny and no wind, forty-eight degrees according to his dashboard. Dane left the boardwalk for the sand, staring out across the water.
Gideon felt like turning cartwheels, which he’d never done in his life. The thought of it made him almost laugh. Unfamiliar, light, fizzy happiness bubbled through him. They’d have champagne. And fuck. And wake up and do it again.
But something was very wrong with this picture. He, whom his friends had been known to call the most miserable person on the planet, was vibrating with relief, and the guy who’d just beaten cancer was staring out into the water like he’d lost everything.
“Dane?”
Dane’s hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket. His shoulders moved, an indecipherable expression.
Gideon walked around to face him. “What the fuck is going on?”
“It’s over.”
“Yeah. That’s the good news.” Gideon sucked in his lips for a minute. “Maybe it’s because I’m not really familiar with the feeling, but you don’t look particularly happy.”
“I thought I would be.”
“Yes. Me too.” Gideon caught Dane’s face in his hands. “But you’re scaring me.”
“There’s no cure.”
“We knew that going in. But this is the optimal situation. Statistically, you live long enough to tell Jax’s grandkids about that three-way we did so he can die of embarrassment.”
“Even better. Now you can take your vacation.”
“Yes.” Gideon let him go. Let him go completely. “Oh. We can file—start on the divorce whenever you want.” He looked at his hand, at the band on his left ring finger. He hadn’t really believed it would work out any other way.
“What if I don’t want?”
That happy feeling condensed, sharpened to one incredibly bright point and then blinked out. Power off. “I know I’ve wasted a lot of time in pissed-off reaction to—well, everything. I don’t want to waste any more. I’m always going to love you, Dane. But I can’t live with having you halfway.” The last two months had taught Gideon that. He’d never be able to go back to the causal fuck-you-when-I-see-you way things had been.
“I haven’t been fucking around.” For some reason, Dane was looking for an argument instead of celebrating the fact that he’d already won.
“You haven’t had the energy.”
“I haven’t wanted to.”
Yeah, for two months. Almost as long as they’d made it in college. “That wasn’t what I meant.” Gideon didn’t want to do this now. That happy, fizzing feeling was long gone.
“I know. You’re in love with me, and I’m not in love with you, right?”
The story of his life, right there.
Gideon put his hands in his pockets. It was a hell of a lot colder than forty-eight next to the water. “Yes.”
“Bullshit. You’re in love with taking care of me. With fixing me. With me needing you. And now that I don’t, you’re going to be all noble and walk away.” Dane stepped forward. “I see right through you like always, DeLuca.”
Gideon was too stunned to argue the name. He took a step back.
“That’s right,” Dane went on. “I’ve been loving you. You finally let me take care of you, and I loved that too. I love your Family Feud addiction and your taste in takeout and the way you always choke at Final Jeopardy! I loved you enough to let you watch me lose all my hair.”
Gideon’s knees buckled. It would be so easy to believe him. To believe that wave of Dane enthusiasm would last, but he’d let himself hope too many times. Charlie Brown on his back, the spiral of shame and failure spinning around his bald head.
“I know I owe you time,” Dane rushed on. “You’ve been waiting for me to buy a clue for years, and I get that now. So you go on your vacation and you come back with a tan or some sexy cabana boy, and I’ll still love you.”
That stiffened Gideon’s spine. Exactly. Nothing had changed. Dane couldn’t change. And neither could Gideon.
“You want me to leave?”
That stopped him, leaving Dane with his jaw hanging. “Huh?”
“I go on my vacation, fuck around, whatever, while you….” Gideon offered Dane the rope.
Dane took it. “I’ll wait. I can wait. I’ve got time now.” He smiled.
“Uh-huh.”
“What?” Dane’s mouth tightened, sharp lines forming from his nose to the corner of his lips. As much weight as he’d lost, no matter how miserable he’d looked, he’d kept that same big, kissable mouth.
“You say you finally understand that you’re in love with me, but you don’t have a problem with me leaving.”
“I would never ask you to stay somewhere you didn’t want to be.”
“Of course not. Gotta have that escape hatch. Wouldn’t want to be committed to anything.”
“What the fuck is this? I’m not the one leaving.”
“No. You’re the one making sure there are no pesky responsibilities attached to anything you say or do.”
Dane grabbed Gideon’s face, the palms dry and rough from the salt and wind. So very Dane. Tell him he couldn’t have it and it
was all he wanted.
“I love you. I’m in love with you.” Dane’s thumb brushed Gideon’s lips, and he always had, always would, feel that touch deeper than skin. “I get it. Believe me. Facing mortality gave me a whole new perspective.” Dane moved closer, resting his forehead against Gideon’s, sealing them in a tiny shelter of warmth, protection from the wind. “I’m probably going to fuck it up, but I want this with you. No escape clauses, all in. Please give me a chance to prove it.”
Hypnosis, that explained it. Dane’s breathing, the waves breaking and dragging against the sand. Because Gideon felt himself giving in. The way he always had. Old patterns.
He put his hands over Dane’s and drew them away. The wind cut into their little huddle of warmth. Dane shivered, and Gideon fought the instinct to hug him.
“Any decent lawyer could get you out of a contract signed today. Extreme emotional stress. You learn your cancer is in remission, your father-in-law’s funeral service is tomorrow.”
Dane’s eyes went wide. “Oh shit, I forgot. Gods, Gideon, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. We’ve both had other stuff on our minds.” He squeezed Dane’s fingers and stepped back from the danger zone.
Dane’s face had the hollow expression Gideon had seen so often after chemo. He shifted his gaze to the horizon, took a deep breath of the frigid air, and used it to push everything safely down.
“C’mon. Your immunity is still compromised. We need to get you someplace warm.”
Chapter 21
“THANK YOU very much for coming.” The tone was sincere, the handshake firm.
After the fifteenth identical repetition of this, Bek was shooting her brother concerned looks.
Unfortunately, Dane was already familiar with it. Gideon had been using the same polite patience on Dane since they left the beach.
Dane knew Gideon. Dane had seen him pissed off enough to put a hole through a wall, hiding his feelings under a sarcastic bastard mask, or wearing his “get out of my way so I can fix this” stare. Dane knew the leers and the too-rare, genuine smiles. This Gideon was a stranger.
If he’d shut down like he had when they met with the funeral director, Dane might have known what to do. But for two hours, Gideon responded to the sympathy of coworkers—his father’s, Bek’s, and his own—with smooth grace. When Loretta, his father’s sister, demanded to know where in the almost empty room the floral tributes from her brother’s children were, Gideon steered her swiftly to the funeral director, who was able to verify a substantial memorial donation. Whether he revealed that the money was going to a domestic violence hotline, Dane didn’t know. The memory of the triumphant flourish with which Gideon had signed that check would be making Dane smile for a long time.
At the moment, he didn’t have much else to smile about.
With half an hour left, Dane ducked out to take a piss. Theo intercepted him in the hall.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Hi, Theo. Nice to see you. Yes, the cancer remission is good news.”
Theo reddened and looked down. They’d shared the news when they got back to the car from the beach, Gideon dialing Theo while Dane called Jax.
“Sorry. Jesus, what a couple of days.” Theo hugged him, holding tight as he went on, “But Gideon, I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like—I’d have expected this more if”—he squeezed and his voice dropped to a whisper—“your news had been different.”
Dane hugged him back. “I told him I loved him.”
Theo stepped back, eyes searching Dane’s face.
“Yeah, like that.” Dane swallowed. “The whole messy ‘you complete me, let’s live happily ever after’ speech.”
“What did he say?”
Dane wanted to shrug, do his imitation of Gideon stoic. But hey, it was a funeral home, right? There were tissues everywhere. Dane shook his head. “I think I’m too late.” No, he was, no need to think about it. He’d wasted the chance, seventeen years of believing he was running toward a future instead of running away from it. He wiped an eye on the shoulder of his sweater. “No one to blame but me, right? I mean it’s not like I don’t deserve it.”
“Deserve what?” Jax came up behind Theo. “Don’t disappear like that, Thee. Gideon’s resting-bitch-face aunt is starting to seriously scare me. You say leave the husbands at home so it’s just us and—God, Dane? You said you were in remission.”
“I am.” Though he’d sign up for another round, take all that physical sickness if it gave him back things like they were before. No, he didn’t want that. If it gave him back Gideon.
He wiped the other eye, and Jax grabbed a tissue off a nearby table. Dane took it, but he was hoping things were only going to go as far as snot.
Jax opened his arms. “Blow and give me a hug.”
Dane got the tissue up in time to catch a mix of laughter and mucus. “He already sounds like a daddy. Not the sexy leather kind either,” he said to Theo.
Theo shuddered.
Jax grinned. “Was that for leather or fatherhood?”
“Both.”
Jax wrapped Dane in those chiseled arms. “God, I’m so glad you’re gonna be okay.”
Dane choked.
“What’s wrong?” Jax rubbed Dane’s back.
Theo sighed. “He’s in love with Gideon.”
“Well, duh.” Jax let Dane go so he could watch a very expressive eye roll.
“And he thinks he’s figured it out too late,” Theo went on.
Dane didn’t even have the energy to snark that he was capable of doing his own whining, thank you so much.
“You’re still alive.” Jax held Dane’s biceps. “So it’s not too late.”
Dane nodded.
“But try not to fuck it up.” Jax’s grip tightened enough to draw a wince.
Theo threw his arm around Dane’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Yeah, we’d hate to have to kill you.”
Dane wiped his face on Jax’s sport coat. “With that in mind, would either of you be able to lend me your still-beating hearts?”
Jax’s lip curled in disgust. “What freaky new kinky thing did I miss now?”
THAT NIGHT, Dane snuggled into the recliner, under the fluffy, cream-colored blanket. He was going to miss this when he moved out.
Gideon stepped out of the bathroom and pulled the toothbrush from his mouth. “Are you coming to bed?”
“I said I’d give you time.” Dane had thought of spending the night at Theo’s, but Dane wasn’t running anymore.
“What does that have to do with coming to bed?”
Dane brought the recliner halfway down. “You want to fuck?”
“No. I want to sleep. I need to go in to work tomorrow to take care of some things before I leave on Sunday.”
“Sunday?” Dane kicked the recliner closed.
Gideon hadn’t mentioned a date before. Sunday was forty-nine hours away. Giving Gideon time was hard when it felt like there was a deadline.
Gideon ducked back into the bathroom, and when he came out, he sat on the couch. “I’m not punishing you, Dane.”
But when he spoke in the same patient tone he’d been using during the calling hours, it sure as hell felt like it.
“I’m fine here.” Dane pushed the recliner back open and tucked the blanket up to his chin.
“Space isn’t the same thing as time.”
Dane lowered the blanket. Obviously Gideon wasn’t conducting a physics lesson, but the idea of him asking—needing—Dane to come sleep with him seemed equally unlikely. He scrambled out of the recliner and reached the bed just as Gideon was taking off his shoes. The shoes he’d worn to the funeral home. Dane was still the same selfish bastard, nursing hurt feelings instead of remembering what Gideon had gone through.
Dane slid into the bed, peeled the cover down, and scooted over to Gideon’s side, arms wide.
After tossing his trousers over a chair, Gideon swung his legs up into the bed and faced away from Dane. Dane draped hims
elf around Gideon’s rigid back, and after a few breaths, Gideon relaxed into Dane’s embrace.
He could do this. If Gideon would just give Dane more than forty-nine hours, maybe he could prove it.
THE NEXT afternoon, Dane stood on Gideon’s desk. From there, Dane could just see the Hudson cold and gray under a matching sky. He pressed the phone closer. “Theo, he’s leaving on Sunday.”
“So stop him.”
“Stop him? Assuming I even wanted to stop him from taking a vacation when we all know how much he needs one, how am I supposed to do that?”
“What exactly did you say to him?”
Dane had no trouble accessing his words verbatim, and he didn’t see how he could have been more clear. He repeated it, leaving out the game-show references for Gideon’s sake, and finished up with, “I said I knew I owed him time, but that I loved him and I’d wait.”
“And he said?”
“That I was emotional because of the remission and we needed to get ready for the funeral.”
“God, that really sounds like him.” Theo sighed.
“You think I don’t know that?” Dane realized he’d snapped the words. “Sorry.”
“Okay. Show him. Corner him at work, chase him to the airport.”
“Sing to him in the middle of Times Square?”
Theo cleared his throat.
“Gideon wouldn’t like that any more than Kieran did.”
“True,” Theo agreed. “Have you asked him not to go?”
“Like I’m a child who needs him to hold my hand?”
“No, like you love him and don’t want to be away from him.”
Dane had been stretched on tiptoe to see more of the river and the birds swooping over it, but that wasn’t what made him dizzy enough to grab the wall. It was picturing himself doing what Theo made sound so simple.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Theo continued.
“He could say no.”
Chapter 22
SIX HOURS after his unhelpful phone call with Theo, Dane paced until his legs ached. He hadn’t been this nauseous since four days after his last chemo. He’d even gotten out the stainless-steel bowl just in case. What if Gideon went to another ACOA meeting? What if he didn’t come home?
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