Page 31 of Breakfast Included

“I tried calling, but uh . . . My calls wouldn’t go through,” Tate said sheepishly. He gestured to the box in his hand. “And this took a few days to have made.”

Guilt and curiosity struck an odd chord in Reno’s mind. Had he been rash when he’d blocked Tate’s number? Did he have it all wrong? Surely Tate wouldn’t have come here to his dad’s house looking for him if he’d meant to disappear.

And what was in that box?

His spine straightened as hope dared poke its head out of the dark. “You left me.”

Tate took a step forward, and so did Ricky. Reno glared at his brother.

“Stop it,” he hissed.

Ricky rolled his eyes and stepped back again.

“I didn’t leave you,” Tate pleaded. “I was helping someone with their luggage. I thought it would only take a few minutes. I swear. But he had a million bags he wanted carried to his car, and then we got stuck in the haunted elevator, and my phone was dead, so I couldn’t call. I didn’t know your number to call on a landline, and by the time I got back to the lobby, you were gone. I couldn’t find my charger and had to borrow one so I could call, but then I got . . . your message, and . . . couldn’t.”

He couldn’t because Reno had jumped the gun and blocked him. He mentally kicked himself.

The earnest expression on Tate’s face, his gorgeous heart-stopping face, began to slip the longer Reno didn’t reply. But—

“A haunted elevator?”

Tate laughed softly, and hope shimmered in his warm eyes. “I’m so sorry, Reno. Please believe me. I’m all in. I was from the first second of our speed date. I had no intention of leaving you then, and I have no intention of leaving you ever again. If you’ll give me a chance to prove it. Please.”

Oh my god. I’m such an idiot.

If he hadn’t jumped to conclusions, expected the worst right off the bat, they could have been together these past few days. He could have finished his song

He opened his mouth to apologize for his own stupidity, but Tate took another step forward and lifted the gift box toward him.

“I— If that’s not what you want, then I . . .” Tate looked down, inhaled, held his breath for a few seconds before he exhaled, and looked up again. There was a wistful look in his eyes that tugged at Reno’s heart. “This is for you.”

Reno glanced at Ricky, who was still watching Tate, but his posture and expression were no longer menacing. Then to his dad, who was such a sucker for romance he had a silly grin on his face and a dreamy look in his eyes. Reno’s heart eased a little, beat a smoother rhythm in his chest. This was what his dad had always wanted for him and Ricky—the rom-com-movie worthy moment, when the estranged lovers finally realize they’re meant to be, and one of them makes a grand gesture before it’s too late. There was no mad dash to make the gate at the airport here, but there was Tate standing in his living room with hope in his eyes and a gift in his hands.

Reno didn’t speak, didn’t realize he was moving forward until he was close enough to Tate for the scent of bergamot and spice to tickle his senses. Close enough to see the tiny gold flecks in Tate’s eyes.

He reached for the box. His fingers glided over Tate’s, and he shivered.

He cleared his throat and opened the gift, not caring that the wrapping paper and ribbon fell haphazardly to the floor. He pulled the flaps open, pushed shredded colored paper out of the way, and gasped. He looked up at Tate. His smile was wide and bright and reached all the way to his eyes.

Reno lifted a snow globe out of the box and let the box fall to the ground with the rest of the wrapping. “No way . . .”

The scene inside the globe was familiar. It was their cabin at The Retreat, surrounded by snow-covered trees, and the river that gurgled quietly behind it. A light glowed from inside the cabin, and when Reno looked closely, he saw two silhouetted figures embracing in the window.

It was them, in their cabin.

No one had ever given him a gift like this, with so much meaning. His chin wobbled.

“Tate,” he whispered, and his vision blurred.

Tate reached out and placed his hands over Reno’s, the two of them holding the globe together. The magical little bubble they’d shared on the mountain.

“I love you, Reno Pierce.”

Vaguely, Reno registered his dad’s sigh and his brother’s groan, but all he cared about was Tate. Who hadn’t left him at all. In fact, Reno had been the one to leave. But Tate had come back, created this magical gift for him, and, most of all, loved him.

Reno leaned forward, crushed the snow globe to his chest as he threaded the fingers of his free hand into Tate’s hair, cupped the back of his head, and kissed him. It wasn’t a polite peck on the cheek or chaste press of lips because they had an audience. Reno didn’t care how many people were there or who was watching or what they were thinking. Tate loved him. That was the only thing that mattered, and in that moment, he had to show Tate how he felt because he couldn’t form the words to express the joy and sheer happiness that flooded his veins, tingled his toes, and made him light-headed.

Tate wrapped his arms around Reno and pulled him even tighter to him. The snow globe dug into his sternum, but he didn’t care. All he could feel was the press of Tate’s mouth on his, the caress of his tongue, the heat of his body.

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