Page 75 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
“Okay.” I nodded, caressing his proud jaw. We’d been through too much to lie to each other now. If he said he wouldn’t resent me later, I’d believe him. “We’re really doing this.”
He infused our lips, and with a palm to the back of my head he held me there until I had to push against his chest or die from asphyxiation. “I’m still searching for answers, Phoenix.”
“So am I. We’ll never be perfect, but we can grow together.”
“You’ve always been the wiser of the two of us.” He took time to consider me, and I rested back on my palms, feet planted on the ground and knees bent, to give him unbridled access. So he could see all of me. “You don’t blush anymore.”
“I’m sure I’m still capable.” I thought back to the things I’d said and done while his cock ploughed through me tonight. Things that no longer felt foreign to my nature. “Are you disappointed?”
“No. Never disappointed.”
He coaxed me to my back and hovered over me. I brushed his hair off his face so I could see him fully. “You’re a good man, Sebastian.”
“Thank you.” He smiled in agreement. It was boyish and full of belief in himself.
“Tell me how your life has been.” I’d constantly thought of Sebastian’s time away from me. Was he okay? And how had his past welcomed his visit?
“There were days, weeks even, when I would feel like I’d accomplished so much. I would convince myself that I had dealt with everything and come out on the other side. Then all it would take was reading a line in a book, hearing a song on the radio, or a contrary thought in my head, and I’d be triggered. And I’d be right back where I started.” He slid his fingers through mine. “I realized that I was renovating the outside of my house, without first addressing the fire that blazed within. I looked the part and played the part of a man recovered, but a closed heart can’t be healed. I needed to forgive myself from the inside out. I needed to walk through that fire, and then forget how it felt to be burned so that I could walk through it again. And again. Each time, exiting stronger than when I went in until the flames were extinguished.”
“‘Until you were no longer the damage, but the treasure that prevailed the wreckage,’” I whispered.
“Yes, my love,” he whispered back.
We spent our final day at the lake house never leaving each other’s side. Bash would follow me to the bathroom and kneel behind me, tickling my spine with his tongue while I tried not to miss the inside of the bowl. Then he’d close the lid and sit, bringing me down onto his waiting erection.
He cooked, or attempted to, with one hand holding mine. He ate his food off me, and then licked me clean, his tongue reaching into some impossible places.
I lost track of the hours I’d spent listening in rapture as Sebastian filled me in on the months we’d spent apart. The close calls with Emily and the baby, his paintings of me, his relationship with his surly grandfather, his son entering the world, and his perspective on life now that Caleb was here.
We left our lake house recommitted, stronger, and with an understanding that even forever was too short of a time span for our love.
No more hiding, no more squandered time, so as soon as we got home, Sebastian invited Emily over for dinner. Her eyes widened with recognition, and then alarm after taking us in, the way we hovered and moved around each other, drawn like magnets. She’d aimed her disbelieving glare on Sebastian, who, to his credit, didn’t back down and put an arm around me. In the end, she trusted him. Trusted him to know what he was doing and to always do what was best for their son.
My mother was still a work in progress, but the more we brought the baby around, the more she softened. It was manipulative, but desperate times sought desperate measures.
Falling in love with Sebastian was both immediate and gradual. That initial rush hit like a potent dose of morphine, but if asked then why I loved him it would’ve been hard to explain. I just knew. Now the reasons why were infinite.
Love wasn’t a single act, but a daily practice of the most mundane. The accumulation of the little things. It wasn’t about specific events, or the intensity. It came down to consistency, to working hard and exercising the heart daily even when we looked in the mirror and didn’t see the benefits, because love took time and patience. And things are most rewarding when we sweat to get them.
Our black and white views would often form a melting pot of gray, and his flaws would occasionally be a dangerous enemy of mine. But when his demons needed love, I would hold them between the protective arms of my heart too. And when my tendency to make him jealous, to push him just to see him move threatened to cause discord, he would make love to me with a will as strong as steel, ignore my counterfeit pleas for mercy, and then whispermy loveto me soon after.
Nothing about our life would ever be too small to be grateful for, and no problem ever too big to not be forgiven. I would love our life always. And for him and Caleb, I would forever go through the fire and then forget how it felt to be burned.
Epilogue
Phoenix
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
~Plato
Year One
Alow whine shook me awake. I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes and detangled myself from the books and papers surrounding me on our bed. The fussing grew more impatient over the baby monitor. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” We were into our first year of reconciliation and living as a family. And being awakened by Caleb’s whimpers never got old. I’d never grow tired of seeing that flash of relief in his watery eyes when he realized I’d come for him. That he was no longer alone and afraid.
In the nursery, two chubby fists held on to the top of the crib railing, and one matching leg hung over it. “Are you trying to escape?” I gasped, swooping in to pick him up. He was so happy to be saved that he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Should we go find Daddy?” His fists thrashed wildly in the air, bubbles blowing as he answered in his own language. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
We found Bash in his study, head down on a stack of papers, snoring, and holding a red Sharpie. I quietly reclosed the door. “Looks like we’re on our own, buddy.” I barely avoided an uppercut to the chin as he bobbed around in my arms.
