Page 10 of Subtracting the Heart

“Good. We’ll be here. We’ve missed you a lot,” Jax replied.

Cade smiled at hearing Jax’s words. “Me too, Lucky. Me too.”

They hung up and Cade sighed, thinking about the latest mess he had on his hands. Would the day ever come where he’d have a nice, quiet life with the two men he loved?

Cade inhaled deeply before he hopped back into the sedan waiting for him at the curb of Griff’s building. He was out of breath from racing around the apartment. He hadn’t taken all his things, but he’d taken two days’ worth of clean clothes to tide him over.

He’d need to go back to the apartment on the twenty-third to get most of the clothes he owned to get him through the holiday week he’d be spending at the shelter, while Sammy and Stan went to see Stan’s parents in Aspen. He envied the man’s life… Sammy had a husband he loved dearly, and a job which satisfied him immensely. Cade hoped for the same thing, or something similar, for himself someday.

When the car service pulled in front of a huge Greystone house on a street full of beautiful homes, he was taken aback for a moment. It was the type of house he could see Jax and Ford living in, but it was damn hard to imagine himself coming home to it every night. He’d left that life behind a long time ago in Naperville.

After thanking the driver, Cade retrieved his bag from the trunk and walked up the nine stairs to the front porch, seeing amarble statue on the newel post. He couldn’t make it out clearly because the front porch light was dim, but he knew he’d see it the next morning when he went to work.

He rang the doorbell, hearing a beautiful, fullbong, just as one should hear at the door of a house of such grandeur. It fit perfectly.

The door opened to reveal Ford with a bright smile. “Welcome ho… sweetheart. Come in. Give me your bag. Are you hungry?” He took Cade’s duffel from his hand.

Once he was inside, Ford offered to take his coat, hanging it in the closet near the front door. He placed the bag on the floor near a grand staircase leading up to the second floor, then opened his arms to Cade.

Cade was hard-pressed to find any reason not to hug him, so he slid into the embrace easily. The taller man pulled him tightly into his body, and it felt incredible.

When he heard the sob, Cade started to pull away. Ford’s arms, like steel bands, tightened around him. “Please, just let me hold you. I know, Cade, we made a lot of stupid mistakes when we were trying to figure out how to blend our lives, and I’m very sorry for them. Jackson can apologize for his own shortcomings, but I pray, with every fiber of my being, that you’ll give us a chance to fix every wrong.

“We’re stupid idiots, okay? If you remember that going forward, maybe you’ll tolerate some of the crap we do. We won’t always do the right thing, I know, but we’ll always have the best intentions, I swear.” He rested his cheek against the top of Kincade’s head.

Cade was ready to say, “sign me up,” but they had things to discuss, and he wanted them to do things the right way, so they didn’t fuck it up again. He had just as many apologies to make…namely, why he didn’t stick around after Ford proposed. But that was a topic for another time.

He pulled away a little and looked up, smiling. “Bix, we all fucked it up. It’s probably just another thing we did together. It’ll take all of us to straighten it out, but right now, I need to speak with my little brother. Where are they?”

“They’re up in the media room on the third floor watching something or other. I was in the office doing paperwork. They have more in common than any two strangers I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure what that says about our… about Jax.” Ford grinned.

Cade reached up and wiped away the tears, pulling Ford’s face down so he could kiss him. “Our boyfriend is a big child who loves games. I’d guess he didn’t get much chance to be a child, based on things he’s said about his parents. There’s no harm in him reliving his misdirected youth, is there?”

Ford smirked. “As long as I don’t have to diaper him.”

They both laughed, and Ford led him up the staircase. He directed Cade down a hallway to a huge bedroom with a bed and a dresser. It was definitely sparse.

“This is the primary. You and Ash can share it because we don’t have other beds in the spare rooms. I’ll sleep on the couch in the office, and Jax can sleep in the media room in his favorite recliner, or he can sleep on the sectional in the great room.

“We haven’t bought many new things since we moved in, and we didn’t have nearly enough stuff to fill this place. We were waiting for you to help us choose things.”

“What about the bed in my old place? I left you the key to my apartment. I know they didn’t rent it for a month after I left because I had to pay the rent,” Cade reminded.

Ford held his hand. “Jax took a butcher knife to the bed in a tantrum after we got the note you were leaving us. He made a hell of a mess, but we can talk about all of that later. Let’s go pull them back to reality.”

Ford led him up another set of stairs to a short hallway with old-fashioned glass sconces lining both sides. The bulbs werelike flickering candles, and there were framed, classic movie posters on both sides. There was a red velvet bench with gold fringe at the bottom next to a deep-red door which was closed. “Wow, this looks like an old-style movie theater lobby.”

Ford laughed. “Yes, this became the most important area of the house for Jackson to concentrate on. He chose all of this except the posters. I gave them to him for his birthday last month.”

Cade looked at him in shock. “Oh, God! I missed his birthday.”

Ford kissed the top of his head. “He’ll forgive you easily, I promise.” He reached for the other red door with the shiny brass handle and opened it.

Cade felt as if he was in a grand theater. There was a ten-foot-by-twelve-foot screen projectingReturn of the Jedi,if he wasn’t mistaken. He had a friend in college who made him sit through a marathon one weekend. It wasn’t as painful as Cade expected.

There was Dolby surround sound, and it was breathtaking. There were eight recliners, four in each row. He saw Jax and Ash sitting in two front row seats, both kicked back. “This is the cool part,” Jax stated over the sounds of X-wing fighter blasts.

Ford grabbed a remote from a table in the back and pointed it at the back wall where a machine was wired to a piece of hi-tech projection equipment mounted on the ceiling. He froze the movie before aiming the remote at something on the wall that turned on the recessed lights around the perimeter.

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