On a Roll by Beth Bolden (free ebook novel .txt) 📗

Her hand squeezed his again. “Can you tell me about it? Because I want to hear about him.”

“Really?” Sean found he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Really,” she said firmly. “Sean, you deserve to find happiness. I know you had it with my son. And God knows, he was happier than he’d ever been in his entire life when he met you. A mother knows these things. But you’re still here. You’re still breathing. You deserve to have that again, don’t you think?”

“I want to believe it.” Sean looked out, all the way to the horizon, where sea and sky met. Where, if miracles were ever possible, he thought he might see Milo again, when he came here.

But maybe this was its own kind of miracle.

“Then you should believe it,” Lacy said firmly. “Milo would have wanted you to believe it.”

“I . . . I . . .” Sean swallowed hard, swallowed back his tears, thinking for the first time of Milo in ages, not as an abstract concept, but as the laughing, loving guy that he’d adored. The one who never wanted to hold him back. The one who was always supporting him and pushing him and encouraging him.

The very last thing Milo ever would have wanted was for Sean to spend the rest of his life alone.

“I think he would’ve really liked Gabriel, actually,” Sean said. “I think he would’ve. I think he would’ve hated him, too, a little. The way I did, at first.”

Lacy was smiling, even as he saw the tears drip down her cheek. “You didn’t like Gabriel at first?”

“He owns a food truck, too,” Sean said. Resigned, because while the specter of Milo wasn’t around to ask, his mother was. And that was somehow even better. “We actually have the same name on our trucks,” he added, and found he was smiling, too. Impossibly. “He didn’t like it when I showed up in LA, and of course I wasn’t going to change it, because it was always what Milo wanted, right?”

“Right.” Lacy chuckled. “And so you argued with him about it.”

“Oh my god, so many times,” Sean said. Thinking of all those times when he’d kept the argument going because he hadn’t wanted Gabe to turn and walk away.

How had he never realized that he hadn’t wanted him to go because he liked him, not because he disliked him?

“You still haven’t changed the name, have you?” Lacy asked.

Sean shook his head. “But I’m thinking . . . I’ve thought that maybe I should.”

“Really?” For the first time since she’d appeared out of the mist, Lacy looked surprised.

“I fucked things up,” Sean said succinctly. “I let him think that I didn’t care about him. And then I left. There’s no excuse for it, I was confused, yeah, but I wasn’t so confused that I couldn’t see that things were changing between us, that I was feeling. But I denied it, and I pretended, and I dragged him along.” Sean shoved a hand through his hair, feeling the cold, damp moisture in the air. It felt totally different here than it did at the beach in California. And even though it was warm and sunny there, and usually the opposite here, at Cannon Beach, Sean thought he preferred this. It felt right.

“You need to go easy on yourself,” Lacy said. “He was the first . . . since Milo?”

Sean nodded. “I didn’t even realize we were in the middle of something, and then we were, and I couldn’t handle it. It was easier to keep acting like it was nothing. Just sex.” He blushed, realizing that he’d said sex to his husband’s mother. But she just laughed, completely unconcerned.

“You’re not even thirty,” Lacy said conspiratorially. “You’re allowed to want things. Even men. Especially men.”

“Well, I wanted him,” Sean admitted. “And I took him, and god, I shouldn’t have. Not because of Milo, but totally because of Milo.” Sean stood and began to pace again. “He deserves someone better. Someone who doesn’t have to lie to themselves.”

Lacy’s words were kind, but they were firm. “I think the only person who gets to say what they deserve is Gabriel, and I think if you love him, then he’s probably a very forgiving person. A kind person. A generous person. And he wouldn’t want to hold this against you.”

Sean remembered how Gabriel had tried to convince him. How his face had fallen when Sean had said that he needed space.

“He wouldn’t,” Sean agreed. “He’s . . .” Sean grinned then, because a thousand different Gabriels paraded through his mind. Gabriels throwing meatballs. Gabriels teasing him. Gabriels laughing. Gabriels cooking, his confident capable hands constructing something delicious. Gabriels kissing him. Gabriels smiling, soft and sweet, when he thought Sean wasn’t looking. “He’s that and more,” he finally finished.

Lacy was crying again, and impossibly still smiling, and she stood, joining him, looking out over the bluff where they’d scattered Milo’s ashes. “He’d be so happy for you,” she said softly. “Someone to love you when he couldn’t anymore.”

“You think so?” Sean looked out over the ocean, and for the first time, felt like he could believe it.

Lacy put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him in tightly. “I believe it,” she said. “And I want you to come up here, during the slow season, and I want you to bring this new guy of yours. I told you this, on the worst day, and I want you to know it on the best too: you’re family. You’ll always be family.”

Sean didn’t have any more words. Just put his arms around her and hugged her tight and hard, wondering how he’d gotten so lucky to have a wonderful husband and a family who’d loved him, through thick and thin.

And then to get lucky enough to find someone else he could love. Who loved him back.

Sean knew in that moment that he wouldn't be waiting four more days to go back to Los Angeles. He needed to see Gabe, and