Just Like That - Cole McCade Page 0,87

Summer’s arms wrapped hard around him—and suddenly his heated, wet body pressed against Fox, grounding him, holding him fast with one arm while the other hand stayed tight to the railing, and Fox clutched at him, sucked in several panicky breaths, buried his face in his shoulder.

“Summer, Summer...”

“I’ve got you,” Summer soothed, voice steady despite his panting, walking them forward, their combined weight a bulwark against the water; Fox could barely make his stiff legs move, but somehow he crawled along with Summer, refusing to let go. “It’s all right, Fox. I’m here.”

The waves lashed them, battered them...yet Summer held strong. Strong enough for both of them, Fox realized dimly, as, shaking, they spilled off the bridge onto the other side near his Camry, stumbling out of the water and nearly falling before they caught each other with gripping hands.

Fox wasn’t crying.

He wasn’t.

It was just the rain, he told himself.

Just the rain.

Summer clasped his shoulders, then his face, staring at him. “Fox—Fox, why did you do that? I was coming to you—”

“Why did you do that?” Fox flared, clutching at Summer’s wrists, his chest feeling like it would explode with the rush of fear suddenly built up and bursting out. “I couldn’t let you...what if you’d been...what if you’d...”

Then Summer’s arms were around him again—strong enough to block out the driving rain, warm enough to erase the sucking, icy sensation of waterlogged clothing, while Summer buried his face in Fox’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t. I didn’t,” he whispered, voice trembling. “I’m safe, Fox. I’m here. I’m here with you...if you’ll just...if you’ll just stop running from me.”

“I had to run,” Fox gulped out—and yet somehow his arms moved of their own volition, creeping around Summer, clutching at his back, and suddenly that free-floating feeling was gone, that black drowning sensation, as long as Summer was in his arms. “I can’t... I can’t figure out what I’m doing, I need to just... I’ve been stuck here for so long, stagnating, and if I left I could...”

“Nothing,” Summer said softly. “Leaving Omen didn’t change me, Fox. I didn’t find what I was looking for out there because where you are doesn’t matter. It’s who you are...and you’re not going to find who you are by running. I learned that the hard way. I didn’t find who I wanted to be until I found you...right back in the town I ran away from for all these years.”

Fox lifted his head, stricken, staring at Summer.

He had changed, Fox thought.

Because he was so steady now, so strong, so calm, so certain of himself.

And Fox had changed, too.

Because now he was the one uncertain, fragile, frightened, when before he had tried to make himself so untouchable, so unshakeable.

And he would have to learn to be open to that, to flow with it, to just...reach for something with no certainty that he would ever be able to hold it forever, if he wanted to be with Summer.

“What if I don’t know who I want to be yet?” he whispered. “What if you hate who I become while I try to figure this out?”

“I don’t think that will happen, but there’s only one way to find out.” Summer half-smiled, and still that light of hope burned so bright in him, and Fox didn’t understand how his own thoughtless cruelty hadn’t snuffed it out. “Or you can run, but if you run... I’ll go with you. That’s all I ask. If you have to find yourself somewhere else...let me go with you, so I don’t have to find myself without you.”

“But I...” He shook his head desperately. “I don’t know how to do this, Summer. I don’t know how to live for you.”

“Oh... Fox. You don’t.” Summer’s smile turned so sweet, and he curled a hand against the back of Fox’s neck, drawing him in, their brows resting together, a quiet temple between them creating a warm space free of the rain; a warm space filled with blue eyes that captured and held Fox so deeply. “You live for yourself, and you let me live with you. And it’s hard. I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard, but Fox... Fox, all you have to do is try.” Summer swallowed hard, his voice so thick, so tight, but surely that, too, was just the rain, making wet tracks down his handsome, gentle face. “And if you fail, it’s okay. I’ll fail too. But we’ll fail and fall and help each other back up, and it’ll be okay.” His voice broke on