A Bluewater Bay Collection

by Witt, L. A.

  Jesse laughed and held me tighter. “You’re a dork.”

  “Birds of a feather.”

  “Okay, fair enough.” He kissed me softly. “That was insanely hot, by the way.”

  “What? Falling asleep?”

  He snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yes, Garrett. Falling asleep.”

  I laughed and smoothed his messed-up hair. “And yes, it was hot. Crazy hot. Which is not exactly a surprise when you’re involved.”

  He grinned, but there was a sudden hint of shyness in his expression. Or maybe it had been there before and I just hadn’t noticed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I . . .” He chewed his lip. His eyes lost focus for a moment, but finally flicked up to meet mine again. “It really doesn’t faze you, does it? The test results?”

  I cupped his cheek. “Why would it?”

  “I guess I was worried you wouldn’t want to . . . you know, while my count was up.”

  “We’re being as safe as I was during the days before the meds you’re on were even invented.”

  That eased some tension in his features and his shoulders. “That’s true. I don’t know.” His cheeks colored as he avoided my gaze. “I guess it’s a good thing we hadn’t started going bareback, right?”

  “I don’t think it would’ve made much difference, would it?” I tipped his chin up. “We’d just start using condoms again. No big deal.”

  Jesse swallowed hard.

  “Does that bother you? Needing to use them?”

  “No. In fact, I’ve, um . . .” He sighed. “I don’t even know why I’m making such a big deal out of it. I’ve never even gone bareback with anyone. Not since my first.” He cringed. “The one who . . .”

  “The one who infected you?”

  Jesse nodded. He met my gaze, his eyes full of shyness and uncertainty. “But I want to with you. Once my tests come back again, and as long as you feel safe doing it.”

  I laced our fingers together and kissed the backs of his. “I don’t see why not. As long as it’s just us.”

  He held my gaze, his expression so full of sweetness and hope. “I haven’t even looked at anyone since we started doing this.”

  “Neither have I.”

  Some playfulness crept in, and the hopeful smile became a devilish smirk. “Don’t lie, Garrett.”

  “Huh?”

  He cupped the back of my neck and kissed me before he whispered, “I saw you looking at Levi.”

  I snorted. “Okay. Guilty.” I wrapped my arms around him. “But I saw you checking out Hunter. So.”

  “Fair, fair.” He met my gaze, grinning. “We’re allowed to look, right?”

  “Of course. To be serious, though, I’m only interested in you.”

  “Same.” He sobered. “So, we’ll talk about it when the results come back?”

  I nodded. “Definitely.”

  And I couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 27

  Jesse

  Things were better after that. Clearing the air and tangling up my sheets had brought us back to that easy place we’d been in before I’d gotten sick.

  I still caught myself marveling at how his mind worked. It was weird how he could simultaneously worry himself crazy over me being positive, but then be completely chill about it. Not all guys were hung up on my status, but the ones who were always worried about getting infected. If Garrett had any concerns about that, he’d never let on. In bed, he gave a hundred percent. Never shied away from kissing me. Never freaked out if any of my cum got on him. Bottomed for me with no shortage of enthusiasm.

  And besides, we were still using condoms. On top of that, my viral load was (usually) undetectable. We both knew that while the chances of me infecting him weren’t quite zero, they were slimmer than a flea’s dick.

  No, his worries were about me. One sneeze, and I could still almost feel him having visions of me on my deathbed. I didn’t like that, but I reminded myself now that it wasn’t him genuinely thinking I was dying so much as his own PTSD about losing his husband. That would get better with time. He was trying. He really was. The next time some bug knocked me on my ass, I was confident we’d both handle it better.

  So yeah, things were better now.

  Except . . .

  Garrett was distant tonight.

  It had been almost a week since the night we’d talked and fucked things through, and everything had been fine right up until tonight. Ever since he’d come over after work, he’d been distant. Hell, distant didn’t begin to describe it. He was in another world entirely. We were on my sofa, both ignoring a TV show I couldn’t even name. I watched him. He was . . . God knew where.

  I gave his arm a gentle nudge. “Garrett?”

  He jumped, shook himself, and turned to me. “Hmm? What?”

  “You okay tonight? You don’t seem like you’re really”—I waved a hand in front of my own face—“here.”

  “Sorry.” He put a hand on my knee. “Just . . . a lot on my mind.”

  I lifted my eyebrows, not sure if I should pry.

  He stared down at his hand, watching his thumb trace the seam of my jeans. “I need to go out of town for a few days. The week after next.”

  I tried to read his face. His expression didn’t offer much, but he didn’t look or sound happy about the trip. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I need to go back to Seattle.” He kept his eyes down as he took in a deep breath. “The thing is, that Friday is a year. Since Sean . . .”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” That sounded so useless, but I didn’t know what else to say. I put a hand on his knee, hoping the contact provided some comfort.

  Garrett covered my hand with his. “I’m leaving on Thursday. Staying with my sister for a couple of nights. I, um . . .” Another breath, and then he turned to me. “I need to go visit him. I already feel guilty for being away as long as I have.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I understand.” I paused. “Do you want me to come with you?” I’d blurted the question before I could stop myself, and now I felt like a fucking jackass. Really? A grieving widower wanting to take his new boyfriend to—

  “Would you want to go?” His tone suggested he wasn’t against the idea. “It might be a bit, uh, emotional for me and weird for you.”

  I swallowed. “If you need me to, yeah. If you want to go alone, I can definitely understand, but if you need me . . .” I slipped my hand into his. “If you need someone with you, just say so.”

  His lips parted. “You’re serious.”

  “Of course.” I smiled cautiously. “You took care of me when I needed it.”

  That got a soft laugh out of him. “To a fault, maybe.”

  “Eh, who’s keeping score?”

  He laughed again, but sobered pretty fast. “It’s going to be rough. At the cemetery.”

  “I know. I’m not expecting a party.”

  His eyes lost focus, and I wondered if he was considering my offer or trying to figure out how to gently say no. I was on the verge of giving him an out when he exhaled slowly, curling his fingers between mine. “Thank you. I could definitely use some company.”

  I brought our hands up and kissed the backs of his fingers. “Anything you need. Just say so.”

  He met my gaze, and though his smile was slow to form, it was sweet and sincere. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for you.

  That thought was terrifying in ways I wasn’t ready to unpack, so I pushed it to the far corners of my mind and lifted my chin to kiss him softly. “Will your sister mind me staying? Or should we—”

  “She won’t mind.” He smoothed my hair, the tender gesture making my heart flutter. “I’ll double-check with her tomorrow, but I know her. She’ll be fine. Especially since she likes you.”

  “Well, I would hope so,” I said as haughtily as I could. Buffing my nails on my shirt, I added, “I’m fucking awesome.”

  Garrett laughed with feeling this time.
“Yes, you are. Now get over here . . .”

  Chapter 28

  Garrett

  The carefully manicured lawn was wet beneath our feet. Last night’s rain gleamed in the late-morning sun, on the grass and the polished headstones, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky now. Typical Seattle.

  I hadn’t been back here since just before I’d moved to Bluewater Bay, and it was surreal to follow these familiar paths again. Like I’d been gone forever and not long enough and too long and . . . fuck, but grief messed with my sense of time. Why not? It messed with everything else.

  Beside me, Jesse was silent. He followed me as I followed the path, and I didn’t have to think to find the plot I was looking for. My feet knew the way.

  Like most of the stones in this cemetery, the headstone was flat, nearly flush with the grass around it. Raindrops beaded on the polished granite and pooled inside some of the engraved letters. And just like always, my breath hitched as I read the words.

  Sean David Maillet-Blaine

  Loving husband, brother, son, & friend.

  Eternally a fabulous queen.

  “‘Eternally a fabulous queen’?” Jesse eyed me incredulously.

  I laughed despite the tightness in my throat. “He made his mother and me swear on our lives we’d put that on his headstone.”

  “That’s . . .” Jesse gave a soft, cautious laugh. “That’s kind of awesome.”

  “It’s very Sean, believe me.” I crouched in front of the headstone, and Jesse did the same.

  “It’s still kind of weird seeing our names like that,” I said. “Hyphenated, I mean.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah.” I glanced at him and realized he didn’t know the story. “Sean didn’t take my name until after his diagnosis. He said . . .” The air was suddenly thick, threatening to choke me.

  Jesse put a hand between my shoulders. The mix of sympathy in his touch and the curiosity in his expression were soothing in a way I’d never felt before. Not in a way that made my eyes stop stinging or my voice stop shaking. Instead, it was like unspoken permission to break if I needed to. And I didn’t know if I needed to or not, but it was profoundly comforting to feel like I was with someone who’d let me.

  My voice wavered as I tried again. “He wanted both of our names on his headstone. So that no matter what . . .” I cleared my throat. “It didn’t mean we’d always be together. He insisted, time and again, that he didn’t want me moping around until I died too. But he wanted some piece of us to last forever.” I trailed my fingers over our hyphenated names. “So there it is.”

  “Wow,” Jesse breathed. “He really put a lot of thought into this.”

  “That was his way.” I smiled despite the sting in my eyes. “People thought he was flighty and ditzy because he was so boisterous, but he was really the opposite. As much as people gave me the side-eye for wanting to be with someone so young and immature, believe me—he was the mature one.”

  “Is this where I’m supposed to make a joke about not being surprised?”

  He didn’t laugh until I did. And from both of us, it was a quiet sound. Not uneasy, just not raucous.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I mean, it wasn’t one-sided. When we traveled, I was the one who had everything booked and organized, and being an accountant, I did our taxes. But he was the kind of guy who’d make a dentist appointment six months in advance, and remember it without needing one of those reminder postcards. He didn’t even put it on the damn calendar.”

  “Bastard,” Jesse muttered.

  I laughed. “Seriously.” Humor fading, I traced my finger along the sharp edge of the headstone. A memory tried to surface of Sean’s steel-trap mind becoming less so. When the chemo brain had started to kick in, and later when it was more than just the drugs, but I forced it away. Even here by his grave, I wanted to hold on to the good parts. “He was something else, let me tell you. Once he got his head around being terminally ill, he focused almost all his energy on making sure the rest of us were ready for him to go.”

  Jesse turned to me. “Really?”

  I nodded. “To be honest, I think he needed something to distract himself. Focusing on us and how we’d grieve for him and remember him—that was a lot easier than thinking about his own death.” I released a ragged breath, my chest hurting at the memory. “He was scared. He knew he was going to die, and he made peace with it faster than I thought he would, but . . .” I chewed the inside of my cheek, struggling to find the words. “He made peace with the fact that his life was being cut short. It was the actual death that scared him.”

  “So, suffering.”

  “Exactly. I mean, none of us wanted to think about it. I’m pretty sure his family and I were all hoping for the same thing—either he’d go in his sleep, or we’d all be there with him, and he’d say goodbye before he went to sleep and didn’t wake up.” A weight started lifting off my shoulders. Had I never actually said any of these words out loud? “I don’t think any of us actually believed that would happen, but you kind of hold on to whatever hope you can at that point.”

  Jesse nodded silently.

  I absently ran my thumb along the edge of the headstone, the wet granite cool and sharp under my touch. “He was terrified that he’d be in horrible pain at the end. I can’t even tell you how many times he begged me to do whatever I had to do if it got really bad.”

  Jesse was quiet for a few seconds, but then he tensed as if the pieces had come together in his mind. “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.” More weight came off my shoulders. I didn’t ask, and Jesse didn’t say, but I felt like he didn’t judge me or Sean for that. Like he knew that, yes, I would have done what my husband had asked, and he wasn’t horrified by that. Or maybe I was reading too much into it, but the fact that I could say out loud what Sean had made me promise, and I didn’t feel the need to defend making that promise? Fuck. What a relief. I exhaled and focused on the headstone again. “I think he poured all his energy into the rest of us because of that. He really did care about all of us, and he was worried about how we were going to cope, but at least part of it was because he was scared.”

  “I’ll bet he was.” Jesse shifted a little, glancing at me like he wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure how. I had a feeling I knew what was on his mind.

  “He went peacefully at the end,” I said. “He was in a lot of pain there for a while, but once the doctors declared him terminal and shifted the focus to palliative care, he didn’t feel much of it. The last few days, he was pretty much unconscious.” I wiped my eyes and shakily added, “And then he just . . . slipped away.”

  Jesse put a hand on my bent knee. “Were you with him?”

  I nodded, resting my hand on top of his. “Yeah. And I’m glad I was. And that he didn’t suffer. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, but given the circumstances, it was probably the best outcome any of us could have asked for.”

  Jesse didn’t speak. For a moment, the only sound was his thumb brushing back and forth on my jeans.

  After a while, I spoke again. “He used to—” I choked on a sound that was mostly a laugh but kind of wanted to be a sob too. Clearing my throat, I swiped at my eyes. “He used to tell us that if anyone wasted their time pining for him or moping about him, he’d come back and haunt us.”

  “Wow.” Jesse shook his head, laughing quietly. “Did he plan his own funeral too?” He flinched like he hadn’t meant to blurt that out.

  Chuckling, I took Jesse’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “He had a few opinions on that subject.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I pulled in a breath. “Early on, when he was between treatments and could stomach alcohol, he decided he wanted to get drunk. So one night, we got shit-faced. We started talking about the things he wanted at his funeral.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Started writing it down and everything.”

  Jesse’s eyebrows knitted together. “Dare I ask?”

  I started ticking the poi
nts off on my fingers. “Bounce house. Chocolate fountain. He wanted a drag show, but only if I promised—in writing—not to include this one drag queen from a club we went to sometimes.”

  A laugh burst out of Jesse, and he nearly toppled forward. “What?”

  I chuckled despite the nostalgic sting in my eyes. “Hand to God.”

  “Did . . . did you do all of that, though?”

  Sobering a bit, I sighed and shook my head. “No. And Sean even told me he understood that the funeral was for all of us to get closure. He wanted us to do whatever we needed, as long as we got on with our lives afterward.”

  Still working on that, Sean, but I promise I’m trying.

  I rose, knees creaking from being in a crouch for so long. When we were both on our feet, I put an arm around Jesse and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. For coming with me, and for letting me talk about Sean.”

  “You’re welcome.” He rested a hand on the small of my back. “And you can talk about him whenever you need to. I’m sure it’s good for you, and I . . .” He shifted his gaze to the headstone.

  “Hmm?”

  Jesse took in a breath before meeting my gaze again. In a soft, shy voice, he said, “I really do like hearing about him.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “Sounds like he was a great guy, and he was obviously important to you.”

  “He was.” I swallowed. “But I don’t want to be grim and depressing all the time.”

  “You’re not.” He rubbed his hand up and down my back, the gesture soothing in ways I hadn’t realized I’d needed. “You talk about the good stuff too.”

  “True.” I searched his blue eyes. “And it’s not . . . I mean, it doesn’t sound like someone obsessing over an ex or—”

  “No, not at all.” There wasn’t a trace of insincerity in his expression. Quite the contrary.

  I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his temple. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.” He held me tight, and neither of us let go for a long time. As we stood there in the brisk morning light, embracing and not speaking, I was suddenly beyond grateful that he’d offered to come with me. I hadn’t been sure I could do this alone, but I hadn’t anticipated how hard it would really be or how much comfort I’d find in Jesse’s sure, quiet presence.