Page 33 of Ken
At that moment, two things happened. Jade fell utterly and irrevocably in love, and Justin realized that he had lost his battle. He had been trying so hard not to let himself get attached to Ken, but that was just not something he was going to be able to stop anymore. How could he even pretend that he could, when he had allowed this meeting between Jade and Ken?
How long they would have gone with their impromptu dance session, Justin didn’t even know. But he wasn’t going to get a chance to find out, either, because first, there was a cold breeze that came in from the ocean, followed by the thick scent of incoming rain. Before long, the droplets came, and the dancers had to give it up and run to the picnic shelter, huddling under it and watching as the water came down in torrents, the hungry, dry ground sucking each drop up the moment it fell.
“Oh well. It’s getting close to dinner, anyway,” Justin mused. It was sad that their time was over, but it was just how it was.
“Great!” Jade spoke in the tone of one who is used to neatly arranging things her own way, like everything was settled. “Then Ken can come home with us, and we can have dinner there.”
With that decided, she headed off into the rain, holding up the picnic blanket as a makeshift shelter over her head, and Ken and Justin exchanged looks before bursting out laughing.
“She’s bossy,” Justin tried to explain, and Ken gave him a secret little smile, one almost as intimate as an embrace.
“Kind of like you,” Ken teased, and then he was gone, too, running through the park, following Jade to the parked car before Justin could work out if that was an insult or a compliment.
* * *
“Goodnight, Daddy. Goodnight, Ken.” Jade smiled and waved to them both, then went off to tuck herself into bed. Which was a sure sign of just how tired she really was, because usually, it took some serious work to get her to sit still for that long.
Of course, she had been sick. She was probably still recovering from that, too. Either way, as much as Justin loved his daughter, he was more than happy to have her safely tucked away in her room.
Ken was here. By some miracle, Ken was still actually here, and nothing terrible had happened. All of these years, Justin had tried to protect himself, and his daughter, but now he was having a hard time remembering just what he’d been so afraid of.
This day, despite all of Justin’s nerves, had been the most natural thing. Watching Ken and Jade together, seeing the bond that they’d made almost immediately, was really sort of the most beautiful experience that Justin could remember having in quite some time. Sometimes, it was hard to think about why he’d been so scared, but that was, in and of itself, not a little terrifying.
Justin settled down on the couch, and he only became aware that he was staring at Ken when the other man grinned at him self-consciously and waved a hand in front of Justin’s eyes.
“Hey, Earth to, Justin,” Ken teased, and Ken blinked and smirked a little bit.
“Sorry,” he admitted, and he was. He hadn’t meant to stare, but the truth was, he was coming to some rather uncomfortable understandings, and it had left him a little bit breathless.
“It’s okay,” Ken smiled, draping his arm comfortably around Justin’s shoulders, pulling him close. Justin let himself go, for once, just let himself feel what he was feeling, even though he knew that there was a good chance that it was going to turn around and bite him in the ass later.
Burying his face in Ken’s strong chest, listening to the slow beating of the other man’s heart, he tried to let it soothe him, to calm him down. But the fact of the matter was, with Jade’s easy acceptance of Ken, the last serious impediment that Justin had had to a relationship was swept away.
Just like that, he was free to go after this, to see if it could work, and the thought of that, after so many years resisting it, was just very intense and very frightening to him. When he buried his face in Ken’s chest, though, when he hugged the other man close and breathed in his scent, it helped.
God, was he really ready for this? In some way, he had given up on ever having this, from the moment his ex walked out on him. Maybe from before that, even, since they hadn’t been on great terms even before she’d gotten pregnant.
So now, here he was, face to face with something that made anything that he’d felt before feel like nothing more than a passing infatuation. Ken was, more and more, slowly but very surely, worming his way into Justin’s heart and making a home for himself there.
And all he could think of to do was to let it happen, and hope that his luck this time was better than it had been before.
