Page 34 of Binding Their Hearts

Danny scrawled a note on his pad. “Can you tell me what getting married means to you? What does this ceremony mean?”

“It means…” Henry and Alice would promise in front of witnesses to love him forever and never abandon him. When he did something stupid, they’d give him the chance to fix it. They’d be patient and forgiving of all his faults. And he’d gain a new family, a friend-family. Emma would look out for him because he was Henry’s, and Master William would be carefully respectful of his important place in Henry’s life and make sure everyone else respected it, too. Alice’s sister would trade jokes with him and bristle if anyone said a mean word about him loving Alice. Henry’s mom—Henry’s mom! They’d go there for holidays, because she’d loved him from the start and kept inviting him, and every year he had to say no, he was going home to be with family. But when he was Henry’s husband, she’d be his mom, too.

“It means that I’m good enough. That I’m—that somebody could want me just for me. Two somebodies, and their somebodies, and they all think, ‘Hey, that Jay, he’s a good guy. I want him to stay around forever.’”

“Proof that you are worthy of being loved?”

He was. Henry had said so Friday night, his words tender and insistent and not to be argued with. He’d claimed Jay because Jay was worthy of being claimed. Not discarded or shoved aside, not in the way or a burden. Wanted. Desired. Craved. Alice had even napped on his shoulder before they’d cleaned up and gone to bed. He belonged right there with the two of them.

“That you aren’t a disappointment?”

He yanked a tissue from the box beside the chair. Every week he came here, and every week his cheeks ended up wet. He might’ve been overconfident about being cured. “Guess I’m not done with therapy yet, am I.”

“That’s your choice, Jay, but I hope not.” Sporting an encouraging smile, Danny met his watery gaze. “You’re doing important work here. Not gonna lie—real progress can be painful and scary and difficult, and at first it feels easier to run back to familiar patterns. But we don’t want to just slap a bandage on you and call it done. Sometimes the past gets stuck, and if your thoughts and feelings close up around those moments without dealing with them, then when the layers above get bumped, the pain explodes because of what’s already in there.”

Mom confessing how she’d almost drowned him. Dad saying he’d never amount to anything. Peggy, over and over, telling him he was doing something the wrong way, he was disappointing her, he needed to do better. Be better. His whole life, tiptoeing across jagged stones—

“Like road rash.” He rubbed the pale line on his shin where he still did regular scar massage. It hadn’t tanned all summer and maybe never would again, even though the accident had been nine months back. “If you don’t clean it all out, you’ll get nasty gunk poisoning you under your skin. You gotta dig to the bottom, maybe pack it with medicated gauze if it’s real deep, and let it heal layer by layer.”

And when the damage was enough to knock him unconscious, he ended up in an emergency room with Henry hovering nearby. Some hurts needed professionals.

“Road rash, right on—great metaphor.” Nodding, Danny pointed his pen at Jay. “You have this grit in old wounds, and if we can find and release it, give you a chance to be heard and understand that your feelings are valid—have always been valid—then the love you’re getting from Henry and Alice can pour into those gaps and help you react differently when they get bumped.” Danny explained with his hands, too, lots of up and down and clenching and waving. “You and me, we’ll find what we can in our sessions, and we’ll practice techniques you can use when something hits a sore spot you didn’t know was there.”

He hadn’t been stupid to think he was done with therapy. Alice would say he just needed to revise his hypothesis. Failure was never failure when it taught you something new. “Okay. I want to find all the lumpy bits. As long as it takes.”

“The good news is that we don’t have to sprint through it all today.” Danny scooped up the tablet on his side table and scrolled. “Let’s try a meditative exercise, if you’re up for it, and then I’d like us to think about all the ways you aren’t a disappointment. It’s easier to shout down those lying voices when you have a list in front of you to remind you, because sometimes your own voice can be hard to hear.”

Jay stretched back in the chair, letting it hold him up, kicking his feet out in front of him. “That sounds good.” Sounded not too far from things Henry had done with him—breathing exercises, homework in his wish book, the weekly list of at least three things he’d done right or been proud of that made him feel good about himself. Without saying the word, Henry’d been prepping him for therapy for years. “I’m ready.”

At the curb beside his bike, Jay pulled his helmet from his bag. He zipped his windbreaker; the temperature had slid while he was inside with Danny, and the wind had puffed up to what Winnie-the-Pooh would call blustery. Still an hour of actual daylight left—plenty and then some to make it home and hop in his shower and help Henry with dinner before Alice got there. If she made it on time.

The promotion should’ve been easier once she learned the admin bullshit, but it sure seemed like no matter how much she did, new stuff kept getting shoveled on her plate. She talked about it all upbeat, haha, funny story, but last night she’d pretty much fallen asleep at the dinner table. She hadn’t wanted to be sent to bed early and alone—couldn’t blame her for that, he would’ve hated it too—even though she’d been covering yawns and apologizing every three minutes. Declaring it a storytime night, Henry had herded them to bed like the ropes for practicing his ties hadn’t been sitting right out on the coffee table for after-dinner play. Alice had been out cold by eight thirty, and Henry had made a quiet game of watching Jay stroke his dick and try not to make a sound or jostle the bed too much. Took a lot longer to come that way, but every minute was the best kind of torture.

He slung the bag around his back, getting it settled for the ride, rolling his shoulders. The meditation stuff wasn’t as hokey as he’d thought it might be. Did seem to leave him loose-limbed—though not as much as a good orgasm with Henry and Alice.

As he bent to unlock the bike, his phone rang. Could be Henry, asking him to stop at the store. Or Carrie from work, reporting a problem with a rider. He unzipped the pocket on his shorts and slid the phone out. “If it’s Peggy, I won’t answer. I’ll let it go to voicemail.”

Danny said voicing his intentions could help him keep them. Guess they’d find out. He flipped over the phone and immediately swiped to accept the call.

“Nat!” The one sister he enjoyed hearing from. “What’s up?”

“Congratulations!” A screechy whine blasted through the speaker. “Did that come through? It’s a kazoo. Couldn’t find those New Year’s blowers in October, and an air horn seemed like overkill.”

If she was joking about the air horn, he couldn’t tell. “But you just happened to have a kazoo on you?”

“I think they’re trick-or-treating favors? Whatever, it was in a basket by the register, and I thought you deserved the festive air. I know, I know, I said it in chat already, but I’m old, and I wanted to say it out loud, too. Is this a good time? I figured you’d be done working.”

“I am, yeah. About to ride home. I can talk.” He hung the helmet on the handlebars and leaned back against the lamppost. When he and Alice had casually dropped the engagement news in the group chat Saturday, Ollie and Nat had spun up an emoji-and-gif storm, all champagne-popping and high-fiving. “And Alice’s sister was shrieking at her over the phone within five minutes, and she’s still a baby”—five years younger than him, anyway, which was definitely a baby, and holy shit, he was five years younger than Nat, did she think of him as a baby?—“so, uh, I think you get a pass on the being old thing.”

“Good to know.” She tooted the kazoo around a laugh. “Are you excited? Was it romantic? Do you want to gush? I’m here, little brother. Spill.”

He did. The whole thing. The night out, and telling Alice his intentions on the dance floor. Dancing with Henry and getting zero dirty looks. And the words that made him think he must’ve heard wrong, because Henry didn’t barrel into big topics the way Jay did, all skidding feet and pinwheeling arms. How they’d sat down after, and Alice had forked a bite of dessert and held it to Henry’s lips. “And she’s all, ‘Eat this before you pass out from shock like the rest of us.’”

Heaving gasps broke up Nat’s chortles from the other end of the call. “You three. You’re my favorites. Fuck, I’m glad I’m not on the outside of your life anymore, Jay.”

“Me too.” Having a sister he could share with would take getting used to. “I’m glad you’re the one who called.”

Silence built, but the screen showed the call was still live. “Nat?”

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