Page 15 of Capturing Perfection

Logan took a deep breath and began. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Oh God, was this the moment? Was Logan about to tell him the time had come for him to move on? Had he healed enough to reach out to his Army buddies and ask for their support with his recovery moving forward? Almost certainly, they understood what Logan went through better than Clay could ever hope to. Now that Logan received approval for the implants, he would spend much more time at the VA with his own kind. Oh shit, the VA. Boston's VA didn't have an implant program. Logan would have to get services out of state. He was moving. Clay knew it. Okay, he could do this. He would listen to what Logan had to say, then smile and make sure Logan didn't see the shattered pieces of his heart hit the floor.

Clay picked up his smartphone and waved it with a question. When he saw Logan shake his head, he frowned. If Logan didn't want the captions running, it must mean he wanted to talk and needed Clay to just listen.

“I need to apologize for leaving the way I did all those years ago.”

Clay opened his mouth to tell Logan it didn’t matter, but Logan’s hand went up to stop him.

“I know you think I ran because of what you said. In part, that’s true, but not for the reason you think. You see, I’ve been keeping a secret from you, as well. In fact, it’s the same secret you kept from me.”

Clay sat in shock. Wait what was happening? Did Logan just tell him he was gay? He didn’t understand. So many questions flew through his brain he couldn’t grasp a single one until, “How long?”

“I began to suspect while I still lived with my dad. There’s more.”

Still lived with … while the abuse was going on? Oh, fuck. Clay could not even imagine how confusing that must have been for Logan. But still he and Clay met at Mrs. Shelby's two years after Logan entered the system. They'd lived together for seven years! Logan had seven years to tell Clay. That was more than enough time to at least figure out some things, and yet he’d still run as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels when Clay had finally scrounged up the courage to tell him when they were twenty? But wait, there was more! Of course, there was more. There was always more.

“I didn’t run because I disapproved of you. I ran because when you admitted you were also gay, it shattered a barrier I’d been using to protect myself since we were teenagers. You see, Clayton, I love you. I’ve always loved you, and back then, that knowledge terrified me. I wasn’t ready to deal with both the fear and the desire. Not fear of you, but fear of myself. I didn’t know how to separate healthy sexual desire from the abuse. I was afraid my body would betray me and, in doing so … destroy us.”

Clay’s shock passed hyper drive and went straight to ludicrous speed. His mind entered a semi-catatonic state. Logan loved him? Logan? The brother of his heart, his best friend and the man of his fantasies, was not only gay but loved him?

His heart wanted to jump up on the table and do a jig. Did this mean Logan wasn't leaving him? A brother in arms had n't replaced him? His heart beat so fast that he felt as if he'd just run a world-record hundred-meter dash, and his brain floated on a cloud of euphoria. He realized he’d been sitting there silently for several minutes. With each passing second, Logan’s body tensed, and the blue orbs, which had been open and honest for the first time in months, now darkened with despair.

“Let’s go home,” Clay said.

Clay flagged down the server and asked for the check. Logan barely looked him in the eye for the entire time it took for the server to run Clay's credit card. He put his hand on Logan's back as they walked out of the waterfront brick building. Logan hadn't been this stiff since the first weeks back in Boston.

Clay stopped them as they stood on the warf. The breeze whipped Logan's inky hair, and Clay's fingers itched to smooth the flyway strands. He settled for capturing Logan's chin to make sure the man looked at him. "Hey, I only wanted to leave because we clearly need to have a longer discussion, and I didn't want us to be constantly bothered by a well-meaning but tip-seeking waiter."

Logan nodded, but remained silent. He'd give anything to know what was going through the man's mind.

The drive seemed as if it lasted forever and not long enough. As ecstatic as he was about Logan’s news, he had questions and needed to tell Logan a few things of his own. The car was dark, so Logan wouldn’t be able to read his lips, but Clay wanted to give Logan some reassurance that everything would be okay.

They pulled up in front of the building, and he found a parking spot. Logan moved to open the passenger door, but before he grabbed the handle, Clay placed his hand on Logan’s thigh. The muscle hardened under his hand, and he gave it a squeeze. He felt the warmth of Logan’s body leaching through the material of his slacks, and he wanted to experience that heat on his bare skin.

Clay opened the driver's side door and met Logan on the other side. His hand stretched out in offering, and Logan’s fingers wove through his as they walked to the entrance of their building.

When they entered their apartment, he guided Logan over to the sofa, still holding hands. Logan sat on the plush leather, and before sitting directly across from him on the padded leatherottoman, Clay switched on the lamp perched on the end table. Retrieving the iPad, he opened the caption app. He set the tablet up on the little built in stand that came with the case. He held out his hands, and Logan grasped them with a pleading look in his eyes. “I opened the app because what I have to say is important, and I need to make sure you understand me. You stop me if you can’t follow.” Logan nodded.

“I’ve waited twenty years to hear you say those three words, but as you know, those years have been far from easy for us. I know I’ve said that I don’t need your apologies for the way you left, and that’s true. However, I need to tell you what it was like for me. Keeping my sexuality a secret from you was the hardest thing I had to do. I don’t know everything about what happened to you as a child, but I knew enough that I thought living with a man who had the desires I did would be difficult, if not terrifying. I valued our friendship too much to risk that. You were all I had, Logan. You were the only person who’d never given up on me, never abandoned me. And then … you did. I can’t even describe the pain I felt when you left. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, but so you can understand my surprise at the bomb you dropped earlier. When I told you I was gay, and you ran … I thought it was my fault. I thought … you were afraid of me. That I would hurt you, like your father did.” Tears rolled down his face, but he had no willpower to stop them. “I would never hurt you, Logan. Not like that. I would have done anything to ease your fears. If that meant never touching you again, I would have done it. But you never gave me the chance.”

Logan slid to his knees on the floor in front of Clay. He used his thumbs to wipe away the tears streaming down Clay’s cheeks.

Clay felt Logan’s breath on his lips. He saw the tears pooling in the dark blue eyes. For a moment, he allowed their foreheads to touch before continuing. “After I pulled myself together, Itried dating. I really did. I slept with too many men, trying to find someone who evoked the same feelings you could with a simple touch. It was only after I finished my degree and joined the policy academy that I determined promiscuous sex would solve nothing. It didn’t ease the hurt, it didn’t bring back my best friend, and it definitely didn’t find me love.”

Logan pointed to the sofa, and Clay moved so he sat next to him. Their heads rested on the back of the cushions and turned so they could see each other’s faces.

“I searched for you for years. Once I finished at the academy and started working, I used every connection available to find you. One day, when I was at Carol and Jack’s, not too long before he died, I saw a photo of you in uniform. You and two others were standing in front of a burned–out, multilevel building. All the surrounding buildings were in crumbles. You had smiles on your faces. It was a little odd. Seeing your smiling face amongst all that destruction.”

Logan smiled. “A buddy took that during my first deployment. We'd just been involved in some serious urban warfare. I guess we were happy because we were alive. I sent it to Jack and Carol, so they’d have something of me should anything happen. Before Jack got sick, I received a few letters from them."

“When you came home for his funeral and I saw you in your uniform, I couldn’t look away. You left before I could talk to you. Why?”

“I saw you watching me. I saw how sad you were and wanted to walk over and hold you so bad but didn’t know how you would react had I approached you. I figured that wasn’t an occasion to hash out our issues.”

“Carol gave me one of your photos. It sits on my desk at work.”

Logan stiffened. "You keep a photo of me on your desk? Why?"

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