No, I didn’t know how that must have felt for him, but I could imagine it felt a lot like what had coursed through me when I saw him wrapped up in the other twin’s arms. It felt like the whole world was ending and like you would never feel anything good again because of it. Whoever coined the phrase “Love hurts” nailed it. It had the ability to hurt worse than taking a bullet and falling off of a goddamn building to the concrete below.
“I told him that even if he couldn’t love me like that, I loved myself enough to know I deserved better than to be a secret, and I told him Shaw deserved more than being his cover-up. I told him if he left, then I didn’t want to see him again.”
He was crying for real now. I could feel the liquid slip between where our faces were pressed together and all I could do was tighten my arms around his lean waist and hold on until the end.
“He told me he always thought I deserved better and left to go get Rule. I never saw him again and when Shaw called to tell me that he was dead I couldn’t even go to the hospital or anything because his family had no idea who I was and I didn’t want to out him after the fact, so I fell apart and no one was there to help pick up the pieces because I’d allowed myself to live a lie.”
He pulled back and used the back of his hand to scrape at his face. He was paler than normal and his eyes looked like the center of a blizzard, they were so cold and remote.
“I went to his funeral alone. I grieved for him in all the worst ways possible because I felt like I pushed him out the door, like I wasn’t good enough to make him stay. I was mad at myself, mad at him for everything, and even when I realized the only person suffering for my actions was me and I stopped trying to punish myself, I still didn’t move on. I still have a hard time admitting he’s gone and when I see Rule sometimes, for just a second, I think it’s all been a big cosmic joke. But he is gone, there is no going back. It’s hard to give so much of yourself to someone and then for them to tell you’re lacking. It’s hard not to be enough for someone who you love more than anything. It’s hard not to be more than fear.” He sighed and shook his head. “I told you I fucked up and I mean it. I handled this thing between us wrong from the get-go, Dom, and my only excuse is I wasn’t ready for you. I thought I was taking a risk by getting involved, but I lied. I kept so much from you, never tried to explain why getting in so deep with you terrified me. You never had all the information you needed to understand why I am the way I am and that isn’t fair.”
I shifted on my feet as I tried to decide what the best course of action was now. I mean the guy had just poured his heart out on the cracked pavement and I couldn’t say I didn’t understand why he had been so guarded with me up to this point. Everyone has baggage and he obviously had never unpacked and was still living out of his. It was my turn to sigh and put my hands on my hips.
“I think—” I was going to say that I thought the best idea would be for us to maybe take a few weeks and decide what we really wanted. I was going back to work and even though I cared a lot about him and really did want to be with him, I wasn’t ready to give that up. It wasn’t that he wasn’t enough or that my job meant more; now they were equally important to me. But I still didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t a cop and I wasn’t ready to find out the answer to that just yet.
Before the words left my tongue, he was right up against me so that we were chest to chest. He put his hands on either side of my face and dropped his head until our foreheads were touching and then he rubbed the tip of his nose against mine.
“Dom.”
I blew out a breath and it made his lips twitch where they were a centimeter away from mine. “Lando?”
“You are more than the fear. You are more than any kind of stupid excuse I can come up with to keep myself from being absolutely head over heels for you. I’ll worry about you every time you walk out the door regardless if you are going to work or to the grocery store because I am in love with you. I know it’s going to take some work, but I have it on good authority that means it will be worth it because we earned it.”
I’d never had anyone besides my family and Royal say those words to me before and I was stunned that they had the power to level a grown man. I put my hands around his wrists and let his hammering pulse sooth me as I closed my eyes.
“I love you too, Orlando, and I will never hide that from anyone.”
His eyebrows twitched and a tiny grin pulled at his mouth. “Yeah?”
I nodded, which made our foreheads bump into one another. “Yeah, and I’m sorry about Remy and overreacting in there. It felt like a sucker punch. It’s been a shit day all around.”
He winced and then leaned forwards so he could give me the lightest of kisses and pulled back. “I’m sorry for all of it. I should’ve been there for you today. I should’ve been there for you all along instead of letting you go it alone. If it makes you feel any better, your little sister threatened to unman me if I break your heart and I don’t think it was an idle threat.”
I chuckled and let him put his arm around my shoulders and guide me back towards the bar.
“Ari is a handful but mostly harmless.” I cut him a look and reached out to wrap my arm around his waist and tugged him closer to me. “My family will love you because I love you. We just need to clear a few things up.”
Again those light eyes became glinty with moisture. “Yeah?” this time when he asked it, I could hear all the questions he was scared to ask in it.