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We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. —W. Somerset Maugham
“Two years ago I wouldn’t have predicted you’d be getting married, but here we are, big day just around the corner.” “Corner? What corner?” Cooper protested. “We haven’t even set a date yet. There’s no game plan. No decisions made. No reservations booked. No guests invited. And definitely no corners, approaching or otherwise.” “But at least you’re handling it well,” Dean said brightly.
Choose a location significant to your relationship? Most of ours are crime scenes.”
“I can’t believe you were giving me shit about not speaking wolf,” Dean whispered. “You literally just booked a date with one.”
What stage of love was it when another person became a habit? How quickly had the mere background hum of another person’s life become such an essential fixture of the house that its absence felt like a robbery?
Cooper let out the breath he’d been holding. “Sorry, who is this?” “Just a hot single in your neighborhood, looking to chat. You busy?” Cooper snorted and put the poker down, leaning against the table. “Busy pining for the lover who abandoned me.” “Mmmm. He sounds like a fool. You can do better.” “Are you better?” “For you? I better be,” Park murmured.
the naked body is not inherently sexual and should never be treated as such unless explicitly invited to do so.”
“I can try to finagle you some tickets. We could wrap you in a feather boa and call it a joint bachelor party.” “I would rather you wrap me in boa constrictor and call time of death,” Cooper said, “than attend a haunted Halloween gala, my god.” Sophie turned to Park. “You know, it’s never too late to call off this engagement. You’re a catch, you’ll find someone.” Park sighed. “I was cursed by an old witch to find him charming.”
“Why, Mr. Park.” Cooper batted his eyelashes. “Are you suggesting some sort of rendezvous at a hotel? I’m a nearly married man, you know.” Park stood, dragging his hands over Cooper’s bare skin, and leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Mmm, so am I. Let’s be bad this one last time and go snoop around a dead blackmailer’s room.” Cooper smiled. “You know, no one says sweet nothings quite like you.”
“It’s your lack of hyperbole that really made me fall in love with you. Wrote half my vows about it.”
“That’s the third hug of the day, you know,” he said, curiosity burning in his expression. “My diary entry tonight is going to be rife with exclamation marks and hearts.”
“Thinking about what?” “Oh, nothing new. Just how I’m going to love the ever-living fuck out of you for as long as you let me,” Cooper said.
Cooper had the sudden sensation of being on the edge of another exhilarating fall. You’ll have this forever, he thought suddenly. This moment. This memory. No matter what happened in the future, no one could take away the fact that imperfect Cooper Dayton had found his own perfect love. He’d never felt more stupidly lucky in his whole life.
want to spend time with you.” Cooper raised an eyebrow. “I want to spend some non-naked, non-working time with you as well.” “All right, lunch out it is. But straight back to naked work after.”
Park laughed. “Cooper, there isn’t a room in the world I would be embarrassed to walk into with you by my side. Not even if you were wearing a sunflower on your head.”
“I can’t tell you how to think of yourself and neither should anyone else,”
Never mind the murder investigation, the blackmail, the crocodile. Cooper wished he’d managed to hold on to that phone if only just so he could hand Park the photo to keep and look at whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted. Because it wasn’t fair that Cooper could know what Benjamin looked like while Park had to cling to a child’s fading, unreliable memories.
“Dreams change. People change. Please just don’t stop giving me the chance to change with you.”
“You are my favorite part of living,” Cooper whispered. “I’d do anything for you.” It was a confession more than anything else. Not necessarily something he thought was right or took pride in, but dug from the deepest and most private part of his mind, unsightly and true. “I’m yours,” Park murmured simply. And for the first time, Cooper didn’t see it as having a power and dominance over him that he’d never wanted, but as a rare and fragile responsibility that Park had gifted Cooper in love.
“I just think your mom would be really, really happy that you found someone you trust enough to see beneath the socks, you know what I’m saying?” “Yeah,” Cooper said, voice a little rough. “Okay.”
But never miserable. Not once since the day I picked your awkward ass up at the airport and watched you fidget and check me out and mumble to yourself, lost in the case file the whole drive to Florence. It makes me happy, working with you.”
“I just wanted to say that whatever we call each other doesn’t matter to me. Pack, family, mate, husband, alpha, partner, friend—you’re all of those to me and everything else too.” Park’s gaze rose to meet Cooper’s. “And I love you more than words can even really say.”
Ryan Basque
I KNEW IT WAS RYAN
“You’re a part of that world now.” It was a simple statement. Clearly not intended to mean much. But still it sent a wave of yes and this and home coursing through his body.
“We did all the wedding things already. We put on fancy suits. Slow danced. Fed each other sweets. My dad almost made me cry. My brother saw your butt.” “We were drugged and kidnapped,” Park added. “Shackled together in the face of death,” “So get shackled to me again. Metaphorically this time.” Cooper frowned. “That sounded more romantic in my head.” “I worry about your head,” Park said frankly.
“I’m always happy to be an us with you.”
Just as any other task that involves bureaucratic paperwork, getting married was tedious, full of hoops to jump through and vaguely anticlimactic. It also made Cooper so utterly and effervescently happy he felt like someone could stick a pin in him and he’d explode into light. Glowing, weightless, unstoppable.
“Ollie’s here. We can’t let him catch us making passionate love.” The front door opened and Park joined them mid eye roll, which meant he was perfectly synchronized with Cooper, busy doing the same.
“You already know I love you,” Park said, shaking his head impatiently. “So today I promise, I vow that I know you love me, too. I never doubt it. How could I when I feel it all the time? I feel it when you make me laugh and then watch with that pleased little look on your face. I feel it when you touch me like I’m special and when you can’t touch me anymore because you’re over-full of sensations, but let me stay by you anyway. I feel so safe in loving you, because I know you love me, too. And it’s the greatest gift of my life.”
