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“You’re so fucking gorgeous, City Boy. Sorry it took me so long to tell you.”
A text message appears on my lock screen. Just two measly words. Grumpy Bear Still beating. A choked noise punches out of me—not quite a sob, not quite a laugh. I trace my thumb over the message, staring until tears blur it out. That asshole. That fucking beautiful asshole. Pressing the phone to my chest, I sink back into the couch. Staring up at the popcorn ceiling, I blink away a second wave of tears. “Just keep your heart beating for me, okay?” “I’m sorry, Zayne,” I whisper into my empty apartment. I’m sorry you weren’t my greatest love.
I’ll do whatever it takes to prove I’m not going anywhere. Prove he’s not a whim or a fix or any-fucking-thing else in between. He’s the beat of my fucking heart. And that? That’s everything.
“That’s my burden, okay?” Exhaustion weighs down every word. “My burden is loving you, but not letting myself have you, because I’m fucking petrified nothing will ever be enough to keep you. And I can’t live with that. I literally cannot live with the idea of losing you, Waylon. So there you fucking have it. I’m not just scared, I’m petrified. Happy?”
“But you know what? You know what I’ve realized?” I go on, not tearing my gaze off his. “What?” “I like myself a whole lot better when I’m with you.”
“You didn’t make anything worse, Will,” I tell him after a long, quiet moment. “You woke me up, that’s all. You brought me back to life.”
And I’m… I’m okay. Not completely, and not always, but I’m getting there. Because of you,”
him. “You make me want to hang on and fight. You make me believe I stand a chance. You. No one else. You.”
“God, you’ve ruined everything, City Boy. You’ve ruined me.”
“Don’t for one second think you make my life worse,” I tell him roughly. “You are the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t trade even a second of it for anyone or anything.”
“I love you.”
Because I’m staring into the abyss and the abyss is staring back at me and it’s looking at me like I am the goddamn sun. He’s looking at me like I’m the goddamn sun.
So I press forward. —And I give myself to the sea.
I am his. All his.
“I love you, stupid.”
“I am stupidly, insanely in love with you.”
“I told you,” he says deeply. “So long as I have the will to live…” I swallow hard, fingers digging into his skin, and I murmur against his lips. “There’ll always be a way.” I’ll find it. Always. I’ll always find… Him.
“You’re my boyfriend. Fuckin’ deal with it.”
“One day, I’m gonna hold your hand in public, and not feel like I’m dying when I do it.”
Will, the person who my heart beats for. The guys I call brothers. My cousin who’s always been more like a sister—just like the one whose ghost walks these paths. The one we came here to celebrate, along with her twin brother… They’re my family. Blood might be thicker than water, but us? We’ve got thorns. There is no pulling away without one of us bleeding out. It’s codependent. Toxic as fuck. Messy and raw in a way that most people will never understand or accept. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Pun absolutely intended.
