My cell vibrated in my pocket, and I took it out on automatic pilot. There was a message from Kai in our private chat group.
< And? >
And what? What did he want me to do? As if he could hear my thoughts, another message appeared.
< Take it out and look at it. >
I couldn’t do that, because if I emptied out the contents of the bag, I’d be admitting so many things. The first of which was that, obviously, Kai recalled every excruciating moment of everything I’d said under the Wishing Tree.
I’d gone straight home after he left, hoping he would forget everything, ducking out of sight when he was jogging back to the tree, and then running the rest of the way until I’d burst through the back door and straight into the warm kitchen, trays of cookies cooling, and Mom mixing frosting. Lucas straddled a chair, staring at the cookies in awe; Duncan was on his phone playing Tetris, way too cool to pretend being interested in cookies. Callum was in the family room with his then girlfriend, Brooke, the two of them watching an old Tom and Jerry cartoon; and Dad was at the stove making coffee.
All of them had glanced my way as I made my dramatic entrance, and I had everyone’s attention.
“I’m gay,” I blurted, then leaned against the closed back door and waited for a reaction. Everyone was quiet, and in typical fashion, it was Lucas who broke the silence.
“We kind of guessed that when you made my Action Men kiss,” he snarked, which had earned a clip around the ear from Mom. “Mooom,” he whined, but then he stood and crossed to me, pulling me in for a quick hug. “Cool,” he said, and then stealing a hot cookie, he sat back down. Duncan hugged me; Callum came in and hugged me; hell, Brooke kissed my cheek. That had embarrassed me, given what I’d just revealed to her brother under the tree, and how he’d walked away.
Then, Mom had shooed all three brothers, plus extra girlfriend, out of the kitchen and shut the door so it was just me, her, and Dad.
“Is everything okay?” Mom asked, and I remember the way she said it, with so much emotion, that she choked up and began to cry.
“I’ll stop it!” I remember saying. “I won’t be gay. I’m sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry.”
Dad was there, right in front of me, gripping my shoulders. “What your mom wants to say is that—”
“—we love you,” she interrupted, “and I’m so happy that you’ve told us.”
“That,” Dad deadpanned, and then there was this enormous three-way hug, and Mom cried some more, but it was relief she said, that I could be happy in my own skin, and that the entire family would love me forever, and everything was okay.
My brothers had come back in after a while.
“We’ve been talking.” Callum sounded so serious, and I was scared. “We agreed that if anyone messes with you, tells you that it’s wrong in any way, or whatever happens, we’ll form a militia and rain hell on them.”
“Callum!” Mom said in shock.
“Agreed,” Duncan said, and held out a hand, which Callum placed his on.
“Yep,” Lucas added his hand and raised an eyebrow at me. I stepped closer, extended my hand. “Haynes boys’ rule,” Lucas said, and finally, there’d been a circle of all four brothers, and we repeated what Lucas said.
Just like that, they’d accepted who I was, had never made me feel small, never teased me, or dismissed me by telling me they’d always known. Well, apart from the Action Men thing, that was.
That was all I’d told them; I’d never mentioned the impossible love I had for Kai.
Only years later had I come to terms with my feelings for him, but the silk had never quite become something I was comfortable with, remaining a secret I kept to myself. It was still a crippling shame I carried inside, sure that no one could ever love someone like me—not even Kai. My love for him went deeper than any other emotion, embedded in my soul, but did he really know me, and want to accept me for who I was? Did he understand me?
I stretched for the bag and opened it again, pulling out the exquisite lemon-yellow-edged corset, with gold and cream ties at the back, and ivory-colored hooks at the front. There was something else in the bag, a scrap of silk -- panties that were nothing more than the sheerest of material, the same color as the corset -- and a card that tumbled out with them, a handwritten message in gold ink.
I found this in a shop in Dallas, maybe six years ago. I couldn’t help but buy it, knowing that one day it would be right to give it to you. I love you, Bailey. Every part of you. Kai, xxx. There was a smaller note after the x’s, and I huffed as I read it. I’m outside your door if you want to talk.
I crossed to the window and moved the drapes, glancing down at the front of the workshop, and true to the note, Kai was down there, leaning under the awning on the opposite store, buried deep in his coat. What if I didn’t want to talk? What if I needed time to process? Would he stand out there and die of hypothermia waiting on me?
What did I want?
He’d been flirting with me; I hadn’t noticed.
He said he loved me, but did I feel that was real?
“I’m not going to know if I don’t talk to him,” I told the drapes and dropped them back. Going down to the workshop was walking into the cold, and when I opened the door, I wished I’d left my coat on when snow hurled itself into me. Kai turned at the noise and watched me with an uncertain expression.
“Come in,” I said over the noise of the snowy gusts, “it’s freezing.”
He hurried inside, and I shut out the ice, then went through to the small hallway and up the stairs to my apartment. Only when we were in my front room did I stop thinking about cold, and instead, on the fact that Kai was in my apartment.
“Can I take my coat off?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, aware that this one action was tacit agreement that we were going to talk, or kiss some more, or maybe… the silk was right there, lying on my bed. Maybe I didn’t want to talk, maybe I wanted to feel something with the only person I loved.
“Yes,” I murmured, not wanting to break the silence where it was just me and my thoughts.
He shrugged off his coat, toed off boots, stripped scarves and gloves, and then he was in stocking feet in those same worn jeans with the Christmas sweater snug around his broad chest.
“Why now?” I asked, realizing he hadn’t moved toward me, and that I’d put the sofa between us.
“Every time I’ve come home, I’ve wanted to tell you.” He sighed. “No. Not every time. At the beginning, hockey was enough. Playing the game, Cups, parties, my big empty house, and just coming home every so often, it was enough. I could imagine I was happy, but then I had a wakeup call. Can I sit?” He eased himself into the chair farthest from me, and Boots took the opportunity to leap onto his lap. He smiled down at my treacherous pet, and then picked him up and booped his nose. “Hey, Boots. How you doing?”
Oh god, all that sexiness, and he loves cats.
He settled to stroking Boots, and when he’d taken a few moments, he continued.
“I knew I loved you, but I loved hockey but then my career wasn’t something I loved as much as I loved…” He glanced at me. “Other things,” he finished. “I still played, and I gave the Harriers all of me, and I banked the money, but the last few years, I’ve wanted something else—the kinds of things some of the guys who’d come into the NHL with me had, like partners, and kids.”