Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I know you’re new to this whole relationship thing, but sometimes you have to trust that someone’s telling you the truth, even if there’s a possibility that they might not be. I know you, Travis. I know you’re not like Peter. Hell, if you wanted to fuck around with guys, you’d go do it. You’ve always been open and honest about what you wanted. It was a lot hitting me all at once, and I admit, I got a little scared, not about what you did, but about what you might do one day.”
“Gary—”
“But I realized, that’s not the person I want to be. Life can suck sometimes, but I don’t want to end up so afraid of getting hurt that I never really get to be me…or do the things I enjoy. I’ve spent too much of my life like that already. And I can’t live my life afraid one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be with the next Evan—some boy toy who’s so much hotter than me.”
“He’s not hotter, and you know it,” he says.
“You’ve made it easier for me to believe that.”
He smiles.
I like seeing him smile again.
I like seeing the relief in his eyes.
“But,” I continue, “you really hurt me walking off like that. I know I hurt you with what I said, but this is the kind of shit we have to get used to if we’re going to make this work. Sometimes we’ll fight things out. It’s not always easy. And we’re not going to be this in love every single day, but we’ve got to be able to talk about shit when it comes up.”
“I know.” He pushes his hands into his pockets and looks down, more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. “I went to see my parents too.”
I want to reach out for him but don’t know if I should. Travis went to see his parents? I can’t imagine what he would have said to them after what went down at the party.
“For years, I’ve been telling myself it didn’t matter how they felt. Fuck them if they couldn’t accept me, but…but I didn’t really feel it. I hardened myself, created my own armor where I didn’t let anyone in. And then you—this quiet, sexy man who doesn’t fucking know how gorgeous he is—happened, and I was feeling shit I wasn’t ready to feel. Things I didn’t know how to deal with because I was scared, Gary. That’s not easy for me to admit, but I was scared you would realize I wasn’t enough for you.”
This time, I can’t stop myself from reaching for him. I grab his hand, pull it out of his pocket, and interlock our fingers. “How could you possibly think you aren’t enough for me? You’re everything, Trav.”
“The same way you think you aren’t enough for me. Or that you weren’t enough for Peter. We have that in common, and we never realized it, and that’s why I walked away. I needed to leave before you could hurt me. I’m so fucking sorry for that.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “So fucking sorry. I love you, Gary. I meant that when I said it, but loving someone is scary as shit. I’ve never had this. And it’s freaking me the fuck out.”
“It’s freaking me out, too.”
We have this strange distance between us.
I don’t like how, after all we’ve shared—how many nights we’ve spent, our bodies pressed up against each other’s—we feel so far apart…even though it’s only a few feet.
“I love you too,” I say. “You know that, right? No one has made me feel the way you do. You helped me realize it’s okay to be who I am.” It’s important to me that he knows that. I didn’t feel comfortable sexually before him, and I was insecure about my body and what people thought of me.
“Jesus, we’re like fucking twins or something. But yeah…that’s creepy, so no, but you did the same thing for me.”
And that’s the thing, we all react to the shit life throws at us in different ways. For Travis, it was becoming highly sexual and pretending he didn’t give a shit about anyone. For me it was burying the pieces of me that wanted to let loose. But inside? Inside, we were both killing ourselves.
He gives me a gentle tug, pulling me closer. “It’s fucking killing me not to have my mouth on yours right now.”
“Then I guess you better kiss me.” I step back to the wall and soon his lips are on mine.
There it is.
The explosion of our passion that I’ve gotten so used to. We’re like this bomb that’s always seconds away from detonating, and we revel in the burn.
Here I am, once again—tasting him, wanting him, needing him.
We wrap our arms around each other.