Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,116
possessive, I’ve never shared well, so no, not for me. But it honestly depends on what you want.” I wanted to be supportive, so I talked more than I normally did. “I have a friend from college who has two husbands, and they’re raising four kids, and it’s been great for them. But they’ve worked really hard to make that seamless over the years. It just depends where you all are with your hearts.”
“And where are you with—”
“Dez,” Nick announced from either the top of the stairs or the hallway. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to say goodbye to you.”
I was surprised at how sincere he sounded.
Dez turned, and Nick shook his hand, clapped him on the shoulder, and then slipped by him into the room.
“It was a pleasure to meet both you and Loc,” he said almost sadly.
“And you,” Nick assured him, nodding. “I learned something important, having met you.”
“Something good, I hope?”
“Very good,” Nick assured him. “And now I’ll say good night, because I need to take care of my man.”
“Of course.”
He looked like he was going to pass Nick and come back into the room to hug me goodbye, but Nick stepped sideways, barring his path, his hand on the doorknob.
“Good night, Dez,” he said, and I could hear the finality in his tone. It wasn’t cold, but it was close. “Drive safely. I wish you all the best.”
He nodded, looked over at me, and turned as Nick closed the door and locked it before turning to me.
“I made him stand at the door and keep it open.”
Nick crossed to the bed and sat down to pull off his sneakers. “So, you’re saying he came in here and closed the door behind him at first?”
I grunted and rolled over away from him.
“And you’re naked under the covers, aren’t you?”
“As I said, I had him step out.”
“Which is lucky, because if I opened the door and he was in here with you, I would have lost my—”
“Oh, Mr. Madison, I love your work so much,” I teased him. “I hope you don’t mind that I bribed your manager to let me into your room.”’
“If only having you was that easy.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “I’m nothing but easy where you’re concerned.”
“You’re such a liar. Easy is not something you have ever been.”
I snorted. “What would be the fun in that?”
“It’s going to be like this for the rest of my life,” he grumbled into my ear and spooned around me, kissing over my shoulder and up the side of my neck, his arm slipping under my bicep so he could put his hand over my heart. “Up and down, fighting with you.”
“You should run now,” I offered, utterly certain of his choice even after a short time.
“Oh hell no,” he husked, inhaling deeply, a man content. “This is my spot, next to you, for all of my days.”
Yes it was.
“And by the way, we’re going home tomorrow.”
“What?”
“There’s no reason to stay. The Netflix people can follow us home and watch me work on my album in the studio, but you’ve nearly been shot and kidnapped, so yeah, we’re out of here before anything else happens.”
“You know those were isolated incidents.”
“I don’t care. I’m taking you home behind a big-ass security gate.”
“No, you can’t make changes to your commitments because of me. I don’t want you to alter your life in any way or I’ll worry that I’m not helping, only hindering. I can’t be a burden, do you understand?”
“That’s what I was saying to Dez,” he told me, holding me tighter, his face pressed to the nape of my neck. “He showed me that, before anything else, I’m a man in love, and the thought of someone hurting you or hitting on you or just—I need to go home and take some time for us to become a solid us before I charge back out into the world again.”
“Nick––”
“No,” he said, his voice brittle and flat. “My life is changing because it’s time, because I’m not who I was, or what I was. I’ve changed. Grown. I want a life, with you, as a couple, making plans and following through on them. I’m stepping forward, not back.”
That made sense. Our new reality had happened when we were away from home, so in some ways it didn’t feel quite real yet.
“Will you trust me to be making good, thoughtful choices for both of us?”
“Sure,” I agreed, my voice low. “But I don’t want you to leave here without making