Page 71 of Resisting You

Frey took a steady breath, then turned to his son. ‘Ready for dinner?’

‘Husband!’

Frey shook his head. ‘Not husband. Friend.’

Rex started to pout, but Renato beckoned him over and distracted him with his very fancy cheese grater that Frey would have put money on he’d gotten from Olive Garden. Frey knew Rex would ask him about it later, but he appreciated that Renato had given him time to come up with an answer that would satisfy. One that wasn’t quite the truth but one that wouldn’t be a lie.

‘Sorry,’ Renato mouthed over Rex’s head once they were headed to the table.

Frey just waved him off and hoped he could get away with it. Just this once. Just to spare him the hurt.

Chapter Eighteen

Renato’s lips were spit-slick and kiss-swollen. He was hard but not desperate like the way he usually was in Frey’s arms. The night had been slightly tense and awkward, and Renato could tell that Frey was waiting on a knife’s edge for his son to confront them about the kiss.

Instead, Rex just went on and on about all the new things he wanted to learn how to cook now that he was becoming an expert. Renato loved the boy’s enthusiasm. Everything that interested him became a passion, and he started creating a little recipe book in poorly done letters that Renato helped him start.

Eventually, it was his nighttime routine. There was his shower, then his bedtime story, which Renato watched. It was like poetry, watching Frey’s hands curve around the words from the storybook. And Rex’s little laughter was sweet. It gave Renato a sense of home in ways he’d never really experienced before.

He’d entirely closed himself off to the idea of having this long before he’d even known Grady’s name. And his husband had been entirely on board with him.

But things felt…different. Like with his husband’s death, he’d shed some outer layer of himself and emerged in an entirely new form. The thought should have scared him, but instead, he was just curious and a little needy to see if there was something here.

Whatever the case, he was falling. He wanted to be part of this, and although Frey seemed entirely too shy when it came to feelings, the way he touched Renato—the way he held him and kissed him—he knew he wasn’t imagining things. Frey wanted him back the same way.

They could talk about the details later.

For now, he would just be here in whatever way Frey needed him. He’d be patient in ways he hadn’t been willing to be before. And he’d allow himself to accept that he wanted this, and there would be no cosmic punishment for letting himself be happy after spending so long quietly lonely and desperately sad.

“I’m sorry I’m not being any good tonight.”

Renato startled at Frey’s words and looked up at him. Frey was hovering over his chest, staring at his mouth, and Renato reached up to cradle his cheek. “What do you mean?”

“Just…I invited you over to fool around, and now I’m kind of a…limp, lazy pasta.”

Renato burst into quiet laughter before remembering they didn’t have to keep it down for Frey’s son, and then he laughed a bit louder. He wrapped both arms around Frey and rolled, pinning him to the bed before giving him another soft kiss. “I’m not here because of my dick.”

Frey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

Renato couldn’t tell if Frey was being serious or self-deprecating. But either way, he wanted to soothe him. “I enjoy your company.”

Frey scoffed. “Since when?”

“For a while now,” Renato told him. He wasn’t going to lie and say that it had been love at first sight—that he’d been just afraid of his feelings all this time. He’d genuinely been rubbed the wrong way by Frey, and Frey hadn’t made work life easy.

But that changed. Everything had changed.

“Kiss me,” Renato said softly.

Frey rolled his eyes again, but he leaned up, and their mouths met in something quiet and tender. He broke off with a series of small pecks, smiling as Frey settled into the pillows, and Renato rested his head on Frey’s chest. He loved the steady beat of his heart. He loved that he was in Frey’s arms and not alone in his bed, wondering if he’d ever be allowed this.

“I don’t want you to go,” Frey said.

Renato turned his head to look up at him. “Is that your way of kicking me out?”

Frey traced a touch over the back of his neck. “Not yet. But…you can’t stay. I still have to figure out how I’m going to explain to Rex that the kiss wasn’t an agreement that we’d get married.”

Renato huffed a laugh into Frey’s shirt. “Wouldn’t life be so simple if that’s all it took?”

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