Page 126 of Attached At Heart
I told myself I’d never bring another guy home again.
And here I was, bringing home a husband.
“Give me your hand,” Blake said without taking his eyes off the road. I gave it to him, and he took it, lifting my hand to his mouth to press a kiss on the back of it. His soft lips grazed my skin, a gentle caress that sent a shiver through me.
When he did things like that it made me question everything.
There was no one in this car but us and not a single ounce of seduction in what he’d just done. Only tenderness and affection and reassurance and things that might be considered friendly on paper but in real life, in this moment, felt likemore.
Blake and I had yet to talk about our feelings. As far as I understood, we were married best friends with benefits. But that description was inadequate, wasn’t it? Ithadto be. It certainly felt like it should be when Blake did things like use his kisses to comfort me and call me “sweetheart” at the dinner table when no one was around to hear.
We fit together in an inexplicable way; there really was no denying it anymore. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around what that meant for me or us, for our future or where this would lead. Maybe it didn’t matter, though. Labels were the last thing I should be concerning myself with, and I should just be grateful to have him by my side.
“It’s going to be okay,” Blake whispered, and I let that soft declaration soothe my nerves.
He tossed a smile at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach.
They didn’t have anything to do with my worries about dinner.
The GPS indicated for Blake to turn off the highway as if the stone columns housing the front gate weren’t a big enough sign, and I held my breath as we rolled down my parents’ dramatically long, curved driveway through a wooded area that eventually ended in a circle drive in front of my childhood home—a coastal traditional with grayish-blue siding and white trim that loomed three stories up, sitting on a rocky inlet. Salt air wafted through the car windows as I rolled them down. And on the oversized wraparound porch was Bryan.
“Laney!” I heard him yell before the car was even in park, and my heart expanded in my chest. Not in a cardiomegaly way, but like a cardiac emergency, nonetheless. Because it was a homesick sort of feeling that I never imagined I’d experience. I’d never longed for being in this house, but Ihadlonged for being with Bryan. The dissonance I had with my parents kept me away from him, and a heavy dose of both shame and relief came at the sight of his smiling face.
Bryan bounded down the porch steps to meet us in the driveway, and as soon as I got out of the car, he flung himself at me, wrapping me up in a bear hug. Considering that my little brother wasn’t so little anymore, it nearly took me to the ground. I might be taller than him, but he had a sturdy build that I almost couldn’t support.
“Hi, Bry,” I laughed before pulling back from the hug. “How are you?”
“So good. So, so good,” Bryan responded immediately, speaking in a rushed cadence like he usually did when he was overexcited. “How are you?”
“I’m good, too,” I said, and at this moment, I actually meant it. I heard Blake getting out of the car behind me, and I angled my body to include him. “Bry, this is Blake.”
I almost tacked onmy husband, but it felt weird forcing that fact, which was both true and not true, on Bryan. I wondered ifthis was what Blake had felt when we’d gone over to Natalie’s for dinner. My parents were one thing, but it was uncomfortable deceiving people who I had no reason to deceive. People who only wanted our happiness.
“Hi!” Bryan waved enthusiastically at Blake before apparently deciding that wasn’t a good enough greeting and that Blake deserved a bear hug, too. And before I could do anything to stop it or throw out a warning, Bryan had nearly tackled Blake to the ground.
But not only did Blake manage to stay on two feet, but he also had a grin on his face from ear to ear. So wide. And I knew it was because Bryan’s mood was infectious. He experienced joy in a way that was often considered over-the-top and comical, but it was really just unreserved and real and the way we all should allow ourselves to experience our emotions.
Once Bryan released Blake, they both took a step back, both grinning at each other.
I never realized how badly I wanted this moment to exist until I was living in it. The two most important people in my life, together. I wished we hadn’t lived so far from Bryan for so many years in school, so this could have happened sooner.
“It’s great to meet you, man,” Blake said before clapping Bryan on the shoulder in the same way that he would with his own brothers.
Maybe Iwasexperiencing cardiomegaly. My heart felt so big it might burst.
People often infantilized Bryan because of his disability. Even my parents were guilty. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, too. But he was an adult, and Blake was speaking to him like one, and it was such a little thing that felt really, really big.
Emotion clogged my throat as I stood back and watched as Bryan and Blake chatted. Because of Bryan’s hypotonia—his genetic muscle weakness—and how it affected his tongue,among other things, he sometimes struggled to articulate his words clearly. He often used an AAC, augmentative and alternative communication, app to effectively communicate with others, but he must have left his tablet inside. Blake didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding him, though. He listened to Bryan talk about his job and his girlfriend before they somehow landed on a critical discussion of a new action movie, the latest in a series that was Bryan’s favorite.
I’d always been envious of the loving family that Blake had grown up in. I never stopped to think that because of how Blake was raised and who he was that he could create that feeling for me, too. That being married to Blake meant that he could give me a whole new feeling of family. Because that was what it felt like right now, watching how he was with Bryan. I told him once that it was hard to believe in a lasting love because I never saw it echoed in the way my family treated each other, but I was realizing that Ididsee it in how he treated me. How he treatedhisfamily. And now,myfamily.
And maybe it wasn’t love in a romantic way, but it was still love, right? The way Blake had brushed his lips across my hand in the car wassomekind of love, wasn’t it?
And the feeling bursting in my chest, that was some kind of love, too.
It was, wasn’t it?
