“I wish.” He sounded miserable. “I tried helping out after Kathleen and Rachel passed away. I never wished them any harm, Tate, and you of all people know how much I loved them like they were my family. They were my family. But when they died I thought that maybe I would be granted the opportunity to be with you. But nothing worked as I planned.”
I expelled a harsh breath, so affected by his words that my breathing became shallow pants. “Goddammit, Gio. Why tell me now? Why?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t plan to, but you caught me here, so if I’m going to tell you some of it, I might as well tell you all. I fucking love you man and it hurts seeing you with that guy you have living at your place. Why him? Why not me?”
“Because you’re like a freaking brother to me. I love you, but not in the way you want.”
“But you could,” he insisted and pointed at Bryan who was chatting to Jeremy still. Behind the two, a large man with a beer gut was watching Bryan, the interest evident in his eyes.
“I can’t just turn off my feelings for him and turn them on for you,” I told Gio. “Maybe if you had told me before— hell, I don’t know. Maybe not even then, but you cannot do this to me now. I love him.”
“You barely know him!” he snapped and grabbed my upper arm, stepping closer to me. “You don’t know the guy, Tate. You’ve known me for years. You know I won’t let you down. I did everything for you, looked after the funeral, took care of the house while you were away, and I waited for you. I waited for you to come back, and you had to do so with that smug piece of shit who’s just using you!”
“Don’t talk about him like that!” I peeled his hand away from my arm. “Why the fuck would you do this now? I can’t deal with this, Gio.”
“Think about it,” he said as I started to walk away. “If you do, you’ll see it makes sense. You and I make sense. You and him? That’s not going to last. He can’t even get a fucking job. In the meantime, I’ll be here waiting on you, waiting to pick up your pieces again, when you get fucked over.”
Reaching one end of the pool and exhausted from doing power laps, I hoisted myself out and sat on the edge. A thick towel draped over my shoulders and surprised, I glanced up to find Bryan behind me. He sat beside me, kicking his feet in the water but not saying anything.
“Sorry for waking you up,” I told him. “I just couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s fine. I could tell you had a lot on your mind on the drive home. Want to talk about it?” He twisted sideways and placed a kiss on the side of my neck.
“There is something I wanted to ask you,” I said choosing the safer topic to talk about. “I want to visit the cemetery where my wife and daughter are. I’ve not been there since the funeral and I know it’s bad, but I couldn’t.”
He reached across my lap and gripped my hand. “I understand. I won’t condemn you for it. You did what you had to in order to survive after they passed.”
I squeezed his hand, thanking him for understanding. “I want you to go with me this weekend. I feel like I need to speak to her again, to tell her sorry for not being truthful with her from the start. I think I need her blessings because I’m serious about you, Bryan. I’m serious about us, and I don’t want to feel guilty anymore of their deaths.”
“Sounds like a fine idea. I admire you for it.” Silence reigned between us for a while, the tranquility only broken by his feet splashing the water. “Tate.”
“Yeah?”
“Will you tell me what Gio and you talked about?”
I swallowed hard, afraid to voice the thought. What if he wanted me to give up talking to my best friend to avoid the problems that were sure to follow tonight’s events? I couldn’t blame him if he felt that way either but still, I didn’t want to be so quick to give up on years of friendship. There must be something we could do to work it out.
“I’ll tell you soon.” I was asking him for a lot, to trust me in my silence, but I wanted the time to figure out what to do without him influencing that decision. I needed to find a way to keep both men in my life. I didn’t want to give up either.
“You’re asking me to trust you without knowing what’s going on?”
“I’m asking you to trust me and my love for you.” He sighed, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into me, kissing his head. “I swear, it won’t come between us. I’d give up everything before losing you.”
I meant it too. I had already lost two important people in my life. People mattered more than anything else in the world. If I lost all my wealth I could regain it, but losing someone for good, there was no getting them back. I wouldn’t lose him, and if I didn’t have to lose Gio as well that would be a bonus. If I had to choose between the two though, there was no doubt who would be missing from my life.