Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Matty smiled against Wells’s shoulder. “I missed that.”
“So did I,” he said, unable to catch his breath. “So damn much.”
The moonlight shone into the room, blanketing their bodies where they lay in the bed. Neither of them moved, though, both not wanting to. He glided his hand along Matty’s thigh since their legs were tangled together, and Matty’s lips moved along Wells’s shoulder as he let out a sigh. While he basked in the silence of the room, Wells’s eyes drifted shut as his heart felt full. He was confident in them. He believed Matty, trusted him, but he’d be lying if he didn’t say there was a burning feeling in his gut that something could go wrong. It was too good to be true. Wells knew that, but fucking hell, he wanted it to be true.
He wanted this to be it, but they had a long, uphill battle. He wasn’t naïve; he knew Matty could break at any moment. It was Wells’s responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen, and thankfully, he was the right person for that job.
“Hey.”
Pulled from his thoughts, Wells looked over to where Matty was staring at him. “Hey.”
“Explain to me what happened with your sister. Why did she marry Jensen again?”
Wells smiled. His damn sister was a hot mess. But the greatest hot mess he knew, and boy, did he love her. “She got knocked up by this asshole, who shall remain nameless so I don’t kill him—”
Matty made a face. “You know him?”
“Yup. Fucker,” he sneered, shaking his head. How their childhood friend could have knocked up his sister and then throw her to the side would always bother him, but that was a story that wasn’t his. “And, well, you remember how since I’m gay, Wren gets both of our inheritances?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she couldn’t get it if she was pregnant and not married, so she asked Jensen.”
“Did she know he’d been in love with her for…hell, forever?”
Wells rolled his eyes. “She claimed she didn’t, but since he was in love with her, he said yes when she asked. I tried to talk him out of it ’cause I knew somehow she’d hurt him. Yet, they got married, and he claimed to be the dad. Then before the first wedding today, the one you broke up—” Matty laughed as Wells went on. “It all came out—who the father was. And Wren, being her self-destructive self, had never told Jensen who the dad was. So when he found out, the whole thing went to shit since we grew up with the dude, and for him to hurt Wren was real shitty. But for a minute there, I thought Jensen was going to leave her. I couldn’t have blamed him. Though, it would have hurt me since they are meant for each other.”
Matty nodded. “But he married her again?”
Wells grinned. “Yeah, for real.”
“Good for them.”
“Yeah, they need each other.”
Matty nodded. “What is she having?”
“A boy, and I can’t wait to meet him,” Wells gushed, a grin pulling at his lips. “He’ll be perfect and gorgeous like me, of course.”
“Well, of course,” Matty said, but Wells didn’t miss the haunted look in Matty’s eyes. Eyeing Wells seriously, Matty asked, “It doesn’t bother you that you don’t get that inheritance, does it?”
Wells shook his head. “No. I’m not changing who I am for anyone.”
Matty sighed, pressing his nose into Wells’s shoulder. “I envy you.”
“What? Why?”
“’Cause it scares me shitless coming out to everyone. I don’t know how you can be so confident in who you are.”
“Because I don’t care what anyone thinks,” he answered simply. “Just like you are on the ice—where you play your game and you are the boss of it—be the boss of your life. Don’t worry about anyone else.”
“Except you, though?”
Wells grinned. “Well, yeah, duh.”
Matty laughed before leaning his chin on Wells’s shoulder and placing a kiss to his jaw. Pulling back only slightly, he whispered, “I want what you have with Wren with Avery.”
Wells closed his eyes, his heart aching for his lover. Matty’s relationship with his sister was tainted by his issues as a teen. He hadn’t been a good guy, he had been a piece of shit, in fact, but he wasn’t that guy now. As much as Wells wanted to urge Matty to go and make it right with his sister, he was almost scared Matty wouldn’t be able to.
“I watched after Wren married Jensen. She turned to you, and the way she looked at you, like you are one of the greatest people in her life, it just shook me, ya know? But then she whispered that she couldn’t do life without you, and this overwhelming jealousy ate at me.” Emotion clogged Matty’s throat, and Wells watched as he closed his eyes. “I have this twin, this amazing woman, who is a songwriter, and a mom… Wells, she’s a mom. To my niece, and I’ve never met her. I’ve never been able to hug her or kiss her and tell her she’s the sweetest little girl in the world. It kills me, but then I think of how I don’t get to tell my sister how much I need her in my life, because we don’t have that kind of relationship, and it ruins me. I regret it all. Everything. And I don’t know how to tell her that. To apologize.”