The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

No one buys a chainsaw before dawn with good intentions.

All I wanted, that moment, was to go to him and pull him into my arms. Let our lips brush. But he’d ignite me if I tried. I knew he would.

His eyes flicked to mine so suddenly that I froze. I wasn’t ready to be hit with his blues like that, with that kind of intensity, and I didn’t know what to say.

The night I had to wash my father’s blood off my hands was the night I decided no one else was going to get a piece of me large enough to break. One person can change your whole life if you let them. Most people think that’s beautiful. I think give someone enough of you to shatter and they might just do it. Then what? What are you left with when they’re gone?

Hockey wasn’t an escape when he was right fucking there.

Half the battle with me is getting me to stay, and there I was. Staying.

He was as close to perfect as I’d ever seen, so close that it burned to be around him. He was like staring at the sun.

So brave, all the damn time, so much more than me. But in my bed, in that hotel room, under those Dallas lights, he split right down the middle.

I heard nothing, save for a single, shrill note: the sound of a heart cracking in slow motion.

I squeezed my eyes closed and held Shea as tightly as he was holding me. If I moved, I’d crack into a million pieces. The only thing holding me together was Shea. I couldn’t let go of him, either.

We were two blown-apart men. Two shattered hearts in one bed. Two tangled lives that should have been parallel.

The sheer absurdity of it: me, a man worth Shea’s life-long dreams? No way. No way in hell. I didn’t deserve him

But, goddamn, I wanted to. I craved the chance to be the man worthy of becoming Shea’s one true love.

My dreams, my hopes, all of it, every single thing; they all belonged to Shea. I didn’t fucking deserve him, and this was most likely going to end in disaster, but could anything be worse than last night?

I’m yours. I’m yours as long as you want me. You can smash me to pieces, shatter me into smithereens, and it will all be worth it, just for the chance to be part of your life.

You want to find your one and only, and I want to be a part of that.”

“What if I want that to be you?”

“Let me earn it,”

He wanted to know who made the first move. I told him I did. I told him I chased you.” Shea grinned. “You did. I was minding my own business when you hit me with that smile of yours. You brazen seductor, you.”

Because he’d made me hope and believe and reach for something and someone better inside of me when his blue eyes found mine, that first day, the next day, and every day after.

Something had happened to me, something beyond meeting Shea or falling for him. Something inside me changed along the path from that day to this one, something irrevocable and indefinable. I was not the same Morgan Elsher I was before. And I was good with that. Because this life? This was absolutely fucking perfect.

“The only reason I didn’t kill myself was because Shea wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to get it done. And then you showed up.” He made it sound like an accusation, complete with a finger pushed into my chest. “You. You fucking saved me. You both fucking saved me. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Shea and you. And that fucker, he swore he’d come back, that he wasn’t done with me, and now he is back, he’s fucking back, and he’s going to hurt you both—”

When had Brody decided not to die? When had he decided to live?

Months ago, I’d thought we were a kaleidoscope, shifting pieces of broken beads and glass twisting into new and beautiful shapes. Every time you looked at us we were different, I’d thought. Stronger. More exquisite. But I’d forgotten that it’s the brokenness of a kaleidoscope that brings out the beauty, and as easily as there can be order, everything can fall apart.