Page 151 of Gym Bros
“You have to know I really love you,” he tells me, and it sounds like he might be crying. “I really, really love you, and this is so much of who you are—and I love the whole package. I swear to God, Samuel. I really do.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Like I can’t imagine what you’d be like if you didn’t have your heart set on something. I can’t even picture you not being an athlete. It’s like—soyou.”
“Mmhm.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” he admits. “I’m really confused.”
“Sounds more like you’re conflicted.”
“No,” he disagrees, pulling back enough to look up at me.
He’s got tears in his eyes and wet cheeks. I feel them on my shirt. “I’m just scared.”
“Okay. So am I.”
He frowns, worried. “What?”
“I get that you love the whole package or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you’ll want to stick around once you get a sense of what being with me is actually like. And I can’t prepare you for it because I honestly don’t know what it’s gonna be like either. You’re right—there is a side of me you haven’t seen, and as I keep going, it’s gonna have to be a bigger part of my life.”
Calyx nods, an understanding look on his face even as another few tears fall. “I need to tell you something else, too.”
My frown deepens. I don’t like the sound of that.
“Should we sit?” he asks.
“Okay.” My guard is way, way up as he takes my hand and leads me to the couch. Even the fact that he’s crying isn’t keeping my natural defenses from asserting themselves. He sits, and I sit next to him, staring hard at him.
“I’m going back to work for a few weeks, too,” he says.
A huge breath whooshes from my lungs, and I crack a tentative smile. “That’s it?”
He nods, a few tears spilling down his flawless cheeks.
“But that’s great, baby.”
“I’ll be in London. And Italy. Europe.”
I nod. “Okay? Not for like a year or anything, right?”
He exhales and shakes his head. “Two or three weeks.”
“Baby.” I touch his face, wiping a few of his tears away. “It’s okay.”
“You won’t miss me?”
I laugh, feeling so much better. “Of course I’ll fucking miss you, but I figured this would happen eventually. It’s okay. I promise. Is that really why you’re sad?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I know things change and people change, and I’ve thought about this so much, and the only thing I know for sure is you make me so fucking happy. If this is us—and I think it is—I want to be with you no matter what. Provided you keep wantingme. If I’m not too much trouble.”
“Of course I’ll keep wanting you,” I say with another huge sigh of relief. “No one else could possibly handle me.”
He finally cracks a smile. “I don’t know,” he says with a flirtier look on his gorgeous face. “I happen to think putting up with you is more than worth it.”
My split lip doesn’t keep me from kissing him, and it doesn’t stop him from kissing me either, just the same as he always does, with lip tugs, a scrape of teeth, and long licks of his tongue. My cock thickens with the need to be inside him—claim him. “I told you I can’t come tonight.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t.”
