Page 92 of Finding You

Kylen didn’t know, but he understood. His heart hurt for this man. “Yeah.”

“I don’t think she meant it that way—at least, not at first. And after a few years, she stopped saying stuff like that at all. But…but it always felt like she was trying to train me, you know? Like, associate all those compliments with sex so if I was feeling emotionally needy, I’d fuck her in order to get what I wanted.

“Baby,” Kylen murmured.

“Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I don’t know. I don’t think she’s a monster. But I didn’t think I’d ever be able to hear something like that in bed again without it making me feel the same way.”

Kylen stiffened and turned his head. “If I’m doing something that triggers you?—”

“No, that’s just it,” Dallas said. He leaned in and kissed Kylen soft and slow, letting the touch linger for so long Kylen almost forgot they were talking about something heavy. “It doesn’t trigger me with you. Because I feel like that all the time here. You make me feel whole as I am. I’m not scared that I’ll have to initiate sex like this again with you in order to be close to you.”

“Never,” Kylen vowed.

“I know.” Dallas buried his nose against the back of Kylen’s neck and held him even tighter. “Moving in with you should scare the shit out of me after everything I went through in my marriage. But it doesn’t. I close my eyes and see the rest of my life with you and our kids.”

Our kids. Christ, that sounded amazing.

“So I’m in. I don’t think my brother will be mad about it at all. He’s not used to sharing, and honestly, the only person I want to share with is right here in this room.”

Kylen couldn’t help his grin. “So that’s a yes?”

“Didn’t I say yes before?” Dallas asked.

Kylen snorted a laugh. He couldn’t remember now in the haze of his euphoria. He nestled backward. “Tell me again.”

Dallas kissed his neck, his shoulder, then lifted his hand and kissed his fingers. “Yes,” he murmured. “I want to live with you in this house. I want to have this life. I want to be with you for the rest of it.”

“I love you,” Kylen said. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of saying those words.

“I love you too.”

And yeah. He’d never get tired of hearing them either.

Epilogue

DALLAS

Dallas was exhausted, and he knew Kylen was too. That afternoon was the first time they’d been face-to-face without it being part of their relationship. But this was a matter of Flora and school. The evaluation request had gone through at the worst possible time.

Bronx and Lucas had just gotten in, and Dallas was still in the middle of bringing over his things so he would be officially living with Kylen and Flora. He and Kylen had been a little snappy with each other over what Dallas wanted to keep and what he wanted to leave behind, and then they’d gotten the meeting request.

Everything else was put on hold. It wasn’t Dallas’s first IEP evaluation meeting, but it was Kylen’s, and if Dallas’s gut was right, it wouldn’t be his last.

Luckily, the hard part was yet to come. This was to get it all started. In Dallas’s experience, the big emotions happened when the team got together to read the results. But he could sense Kylen’s nerves and wished more than anything he could hold him there at the table.

“We have a wonderful team,” Mrs. Contreraz said. She was the school counselor, and she’d been there forever. She was one of the few people in admin Dallas genuinely liked. “The evaluation takes about a month. We’ll be observing her in class as well as pulling her out to do various testing. At her age, we usually associate the testing with some sort of play so she doesn’t feel like it’s something she will pass or fail.”

Kylen’s shoulders sagged with relief, and Dallas threw caution to the wind, stretching his leg out to touch his boyfriend’s ankle with his foot. Kylen’s lip twitched, but otherwise, he didn’t react.

“What does Mr. Reed do?”

“I fill out a lot of questionnaires and forms,” he said with a small grin. “It’s about as much paperwork as you’re going to have at home. And of course, the team is here for you if you have any concerns.”

And so was he. In more ways than the school was presently aware. But they’d also decided to keep that to themselves until Flora was no longer in his class.

The meeting wrapped up, and Dallas could tell Kylen was feeling a lot better. He gathered up his collection of paperwork, and the two of them lingered in the classroom until the rest of the team filed out.

“This is a good thing, right?” Kylen asked when they were finally alone.

---