Page 45 of Spring Breakup
Tyler wasn’t ready for Dean to leave. Their conversation and Dean’s vulnerability had made Tyler feel like he was wearing a too-small shirt.
“Wait… I… uh. Can we maybe… You seem off,” Tyler blurted. “And when Francis was off, I assumed it was my fault. Even when it wasn’t. I’d pester and pick at him until it suddenlywasmy fault, until he could come up with a complaint or a way to blame me. So I want to fix it, whatever is making you upset, now rather than later.”
“Oh, angel, I’m not upset.” Dean sat down beside Tyler and took his hand.
“You’re acting weird. You’re usually suave andfineafter sex.”
Dean laughed, and some of the discomfort loosened in Tyler’s chest. “First off, I haven’t been suave after sex with you at all. You’re just seeing me more clearly this time.”
“Or you’re letting me see you more clearly.”
The look Dean gave him seemed to say a million things, but Tyler didn’t understand any of them. Dean’s expression was wide open. “Sex with multiple partners can be intense. Sex withyouis especially intense formeevery time. So it’s taking a second to screw my head on straight. That’s not your fault, and you don’t need to fix it because it’s not a bad thing. It’s just… a thing.”
Tyler hated that answer. And loved that answer. Loved that he wasn’t the only one struggling with the intensity between them, but he hated that Dean was making it sound exceptional. It wasn’t.
“Okay.” Tyler nodded once, resolutely, and rose from the bed. “I think we passed the test.”
“What was the test?”
“The communication-after-a-threesome test. You said that was key. So this was good… I don’t know… practice.”
“Right. Practice.” Dean glanced around the room, almost dazed. He stood up and reached out to touch Tyler’s face but dropped his hand before making contact.
ChapterEighteen
Dean couldn’t sleep.The wind was howling outside, and when he closed his eyes, he either pictured the avalanche or Tyler’s sated smile. It was a teeter-totter between a nightmare and a really great sex dream. Neither were conducive to sleep.
He tiptoed downstairs to add wood to the stove. It didn’t need it. The soapstone kept the house toasty as long as they burned a fire one or two times a day, but Dean hoped the crackle of the flames would drown out the wind and his wayward thoughts.
He lay down on the couch and stared at the blaze flickering through the glass-fronted door of the stove. He was ready for this adventure to be over. There was heartache in the forecast for him. It was obvious, even if Tyler was oblivious to it.
At a certain point—Dean wasn’t sure when—he’d let Tyler slip beneath his defenses. And the funny thing was—Tyler had no idea how hard that was for Dean, how extraordinary.
Or if he did, Tyler didn’t care.
Dean was raw and scraped open.
And mad. He was mad. He’d gone thirty-three years without falling for someone. He’d protected himself with a happy-go-lucky smile and a bit of a himbo attitude toward sex. He’d shielded the parts of himself that were soft. And, at the end of the day, Tyler Vlachos would be his undoing.
Absolutely ridiculous.
He found the drawing pad he’d stashed in a kitchen drawer the day before and curled up on the couch with it. He moved his woodless pencil instinctively, letting his hand shape the avalanche without really seeing the paper. When he stopped, he could tell his proportions were off, but there was anger in his lines. It was more emotional than his standard, flat drawings.
He flipped the page and started over. He could draw human form in his sleep.
Form with no image stylization at least. His specialty.
Usually, his sketches were fast and bare bones, but he took his time, considering every line, every fluid lift of his pencil. He wished he were using compressed charcoal, but it was upstairs in his bag.
“That’s me,” Tyler said from the doorway to his room, and Dean jumped. His pencil slipped and made a dark, jagged line down the page. He hadn’t heard the door open. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But that’s me.” Tyler was sleep-rumpled and so hot it burned Dean to look at him.
He blinked down at his pad. He couldn’t deny it. The wavy hair, the bare chest, the bunched-up shirt he’d yet to give a pattern, the birthmark on the knee. “I told you I was going to draw your O face.”
Tyler laughed his sweet, surprised laugh and sat down next to Dean. Tyler examined the drawing. All the inadequacies of Dean’s life piled up in his throat.
“This is good,” Tyler said.
“It’s decent. I mean, you’re beautiful.” Dean analyzed his work, already seeing mistakes and things he’d have to fix. “But this”—he tapped the paper—“pales in comparison to reality. I like your glasses, by the way.”
