Page 74 of Part & Parcel

Nick shook his head. Kelly’s hand found his, grasping through the dark. Nick gripped him hard, tugging at him to come closer.

“Can’t fix it overnight,” Kelly said with a sigh. “Any of it. But it can be fixed. I was wrong, I was . . . so wrong, babe. It’s notusthat’s falling apart, it’sme. But I’m with you. And I don’t think you’re a monster, but I wouldn’t care even if you were. I love you. And I’m with you. You just have to stay with me.”

Nick pulled Kelly’s hand up to his mouth, pressing his lips to Kelly’s fingers. Kelly scooted closer, bringing the warmth of his body to Nick’s as he wrapped around him. He took his hand back, sliding it over Nick to hold him.

“I love you, Nicko,” he whispered against Nick’s lips.

Nick couldn’t answer. He just dug his fingers into Kelly’s shirt as Kelly pulled him closer. He rested his head against Kelly’s chest, clinging to him. Kelly kissed his temple, squeezing him.

“God, I love you.” Kelly said quietly. “Just stay with me.”

Nick pressed his face against Kelly, like he could burrow into him. He held on to him gratefully, just breathing in his scent.

“What the fuck is touching my foot?” Kelly demanded in a panicked whisper.

Nick raised his head, snorting. “Ty’s kittens.”

“You’ve been in here cuddling with sweet, fuzzy little kitties?” Kelly asked, his voice going higher. “How isthatfair?”

Nick rested his head against Kelly’s chest again and made a sound like air being let out of a tire. Both kittens responded happily, clambering up his and Kelly’s bodies to nudge at Nick’s face and under his chin. Kelly was laughing softly, jostling Nick’s head as the kittens tried to snuggle between them.

Nick hid his face in Kelly’s neck so he wouldn’t get another cold nose shoved against his cheek, and he sighed in relief as he was surrounded by Kelly’s warmth. Even the high-pitched purring of the kittens as Kelly rubbed them both was comforting.

“Can we get a boat cat?” Kelly asked after a few minutes of snuggling with the beasts, his voice wavering with laughter.

“Absolutely not.”

They drove for about four hours before they stopped for a rest and to let the kittens get out of the car. The others walked around and stretched, but Kelly couldn’t resist when Ty got down onto the grass to let the kittens romp over him; he joined them.

They were still little enough that they had a hard time running full throttle without tripping over themselves, and watching them play, watching them enjoy the hell out of a tiny patch of grass at a rest stop off the highway, started clarifying things in Kelly’s mind.

Life wasn’t complicated. Life was a patch of grass and a butterfly to chase.

He hefted himself to his feet and searched around for Nick, but he wasn’t nearby. He picked up Cricket instead, carrying her over to the picnic tables to sit and wait. She purred so hard she was vibrating as she curled up in his arms, and Kelly grinned as he cradled her.

He sat staring off at the Rockies in the distance. They weren’t far from where he’d grown up, in a tiny town perched on the edge of the state. It was just as flat as the prairies to the east, but in the distance Kelly had always been able to see those mountains’ peaks touching the sky. He’d grown up in the shadow of those peaks, and he’d always sworn he would live among them one day.

He’d been ten years old when his parents had died in a car crash one stormy night, and he’d been sent to live with his grandparents in Colorado Springs. Those mountain trails had been everything he’d always hoped they’d be, and they’d helped begin to heal the broken heart of a ten-year-old boy. At the age of twelve, when his grandparents had become too old and ill to care for him, he’d been put into the foster system. But he’d been lucky. He’d known even when he was a kid that he was lucky. His foster family had been good and kind, and he’d been able to stay near the last members of his family until they both had passed when he was seventeen. A year later, he’d joined the Navy, searching for adventure and purpose. Searching for home.

He’d found it, and realizing that made all the turmoil in his mind the last few months seem petty and useless.

Sitting here, though, on the border of Colorado and Wyoming, Kelly remembered the hope and longing he’d always felt when he’d looked out the windows of his parents’ home and gazed at those mountain peaks.

“Hey,” Nick whispered, yanking Kelly’s mind back from the past and making him jump. Kelly turned to blink at him. “You want to go see them?”

“What?” Kelly asked, dumbfounded. How the hell could Nick have possibly known what he’d been thinking about?

“Your parents. We’re no more than an hour away. We can take the time if you want to go see them,” Nick said gently.

Kelly’s mind swirled, cycling through a myriad of emotions as he stared into Nick’s eyes. He slowly became aware of a tickle at his kneecap, of warmth just above his calf. He looked down with a frown to find Nick’s hands both there, one on each of Kelly’s legs as Nick sat opposite him at another table, his fingers curled behind Kelly’s legs, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles against Kelly’s knees.

Nick glanced down with a frown, and his thumbs stopped moving. He raised his gaze to meet Kelly’s, and his eyes were wide. “Sorry,” he whispered, spreading his fingers as he lifted them. “Had no idea I was doing that.”

Kelly grabbed for one of his hands, keeping it where it had been. “You’ve always done that,” he told Nick, squeezing his hand harder. “Even before you and me started. We’ve sat like this before.”

Nick was silent, the pads of his fingers pressing into Kelly’s skin, their knees almost touching as he bent close enough to speak quietly. “We have,” he said.

“I think we fucked up,” Kelly whispered harshly.

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