It wasn’t fair.
Apparently Cully thought so too. “It is too, you big dorky moo!” He didn’t break contact, but he did smack Dante on the chest with his balled-up fist. “You have done nothing wrong! You make me eat and make me laugh and… and get me dogs to celebrate my big wins. You take care of the dog when I’ve got a deadline, and you make me laugh when I’m too serious and… and grab all our friends to ride to my rescue when I’m too stupid to ask for help. You’re perfect! And I’m this… this stress-ridden thing who can’t seem to open up to you when you’re sometimes the only person I want to talk to! I’ve lost count of the number of dates I’ve gone on, the number of guys who’ve taken me to a movie or a play or a gallery opening, and when I walk out of the house, all I can think of is, ‘I wish Dante had asked me to stay home!’”
His words, shocking as ice water, seeped into Dante’s lungs, into his skin, making his fingers stiff and cold and his breaths painful.
All those lovely fake memories of the two of them, together since college, no intervening bodies in the way, and this was the first mention of the unmentionable.
The other men they’d both dated. The touches, the kisses, the nights with other people that had always felt like the biggest lie, the biggest falsehood of all.
“Then why didn’t you stay home?” Dante asked, every joint, every sinew, every molecule of his body aching with betrayal.
“Because I didn’t know you’d want me,” Cully said, and Dante heard Cully’s bitterness, thrown at him like a handful of carpet tacks. “Jesus, Dante, sometimes you got along better with my boyfriends than I did.”
And there was the lemon-juice chaser.
“Because that was my option, right?” Dante retorted, everything in his body stinging.
Especially his heart.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cully started to back away this time, but Dante needed to say this—and say it when Cully could hear it. He captured Cully’s hip with one hand and gave him a meaningful look.
To his surprise, Cully relaxed and stepped forward, and a tiny part of Dante thawed. Cully wanted them together more than he wanted to be mad. The relief was acute.
“Because what was I gonna do, Princess?” Dante asked, his eyes burning. “Pitch a fit? Be a jealous asshole? Tell you not to go out with that guy?” He took a breath. “Watch you move away, get another room assignment, move out of the house, because I scared you, because I wanted you forever and not just for a month?” Dante shook his head. “Lose you forever because I couldn’t have you the way I wanted you? What kind of friend would that make me?”
Cully let out a whimper. “It would make you a lover,” he said, recrimination lacing his tone. “And you didn’t want me as a lover enough to take the risk.”
“The hell I didn’t!” Dante shouted and then clapped his hand over his mouth, shocked at himself.
Cully’s eyes widened and grew bright and shiny, and for a moment Dante didn’t think he could speak, the anger, the resentment, built up so tight in his throat.
But the thought—the barest thought—that he couldn’t do it, that it was better to be silent than to be truthful, made the edges of Cully’s features start to blur, the heat of him, pressed up against Dante’s front, began to fade.
Dante realized in a burst of clarity that hurt with its sharp edges that he could either tell the truth now, rip the tube top off and let the tits fall where they may, or—whether or not he and Cully ever escaped this house, this spell, this tiny piece of property lost in space and time—they would always, always be lost to each other.
“I wanted you so bad!” he said, pushing the words past a chest and throat thick with tears. “But you kept waiting for me to fail. You kept waiting for that moment when you couldn’t trust me, when I’d ask too much of you. It hurt, every day, not saying anything, not reaching for you, not holding you, but I kept thinking it wouldn’t hurt—nothing would hurt—as bad as losing you. How was I supposed to know that by not speaking up, not risking everything, we’d just fade away? We’d become ghosts of each other, wandering around, going through the motions, making our livings, and never, ever, ever touching?” The thickness in his throat was growing, along with the heat behind his eyes. Everything hurt, but the words needed to be said, needed to be forced out or they would blur, disappear forever, and he and Cully would be locked in limbo until even their names became faded.
“I sat on that pain every day, afraid if I said something, I’d lose you, and now I find out that we’ve been losing each other since the very beginning, and I don’t think I can stand it. I think if I can’t have you in my life, I’ll just… I’ll be like smoke in the wind. I’ll drift away.”
He sucked in a breath then, not sure what was going to come out of his mouth next.
Cully didn’t look the faintest bit surprised when it was a sob.
“Sorry,” he hiccupped, trying to pull away, trying to hide his face. God, men didn’t cry. They didn’t. Except Cully was crying, holding Dante’s cheek to his, and in the moment, they were heat and brine, holding each other tight, sobbing in wonder that they could still share something as honest as tears.
DANTE wasn’t sure when the tears passed, but he became acutely uncomfortable—hot, wet, salty, and he still had come plastering his pubic hair to his shorts from the day before.
“Grab your clothes, Princess,” he ordered gruffly. “We’re gonna go shower together. I know it’s probably too soon, but it’s all I got. This thing isn’t done yet.”
Cully sniffled and then, with a wicked sideways look, rubbed his messy face all over Dante’s shirt front.
“What was that for?” Dante tried to sound indignant, but he couldn’t be. It was such a snippy little move.
“For not telling me that sooner,” Cully said, voice clogged. “God, talking about me not trusting people.”
He was trying to make light of it, and Dante let him.
“I trust you fine,” Dante said, keeping his hand to the small of Cully’s back while Cully gathered his clothes again. “I honestly don’t see what you’d see in me to make all this bullshit worth it. I mean, half the reason I sucked up to all your boyfriends was that I liked them. You know that, right? It would have been great if you’d had shitty taste in men, but your guys were nice, they were funny, they liked sports—”
“They were you, you big stupid moo,” Cully snapped. He grabbed Dante’s hand in his free hand and gestured to the door. “To the shower, Dante. I’m not done yelling at you by a long shot, but I’d like to get to the kissing part too.”
Dante took his first clear breath in what felt like an hour. “There’s going to be more kissing?” he asked wistfully.
“You know,” Cully demanded, practically dragging them down the hall, “you do this big Italian himbo thing, and you have this rabid interest in sports that has nothing to do with the players’ asses, and you make this big deal about not being interesting, but not once since we met did I really think you were stupid until you asked that question. The past month has sucked, and the past half hour made that look like a trip to Disneyland. If you think I’m going through all this for a good frot on the couch, you’re high. We are by Goddess seeing this bullshit through if I have to draw a pentacle and spell you into my bed.”