Page 64 of Down in Flames
West gently pulled away, just enough for Michael’s hold to loosen, and then he swiveled in his arms. He needed to look him in the eye to make sure his words landed when he said, “I want to protect you, too. It doesn’t matter that you’re the strongest person I know. I don’t want you to go through the pain of losing someone you love ever again. I want to be the one you can lean on. The one where you know your heart is safe.”
“God, West…” Michael brushed his fingertips over West’s injured cheek, gently combing his hair back from his temple. He cupped the back of his head and pulled him forward, resting their foreheads together, and whispered, “I wasn’t able to save Mary. You can’t ask me not to protect you. My heart can’t take it.”
West let out a wounded grunt and cradled his face in his hands. His voice cracked when he said, “If there’s one thing this heart of mine has taught me, it’s that there’s no guarantees. I’ve already made it farther than the doctors ever thought I would, and it looks like I’m here for the long haul. I’ve got a lifetime of hours and minutes to fill. We do. I want to spend some of it busting broncs and seeing what I’m made of because I never got that chance. But I want to spend all of it with you. Living. Not just surviving. Can you handle that?”
“Loving you is the riskiest thing I ever did,” Michael rasped, burying his face in West’s neck. “It scares me to fucking death.”
West held him close, wishing he could squeeze the hurt right out of him. “I won’t take any crazy risks. Never again. I promise. You’ve just got to keep trusting me like you did tonight.”
Michael pulled back and clasped his head between his hands, a bedraggled mess with desperate eyes. “I don’t want to lose you,” he rasped, kissing him hard.
“I’m here. I’m right here. I’ll stand by your side forever if you let me.” West pulled back, grabbed Michael’s wrist, and pressed his hand flat against his own chest. Right over the steady beat of his heart. “Feel that? I may have been born with only half a heart, but it’s all yours.”
The smile that broke across Michael’s face was like a sunrise. He’d seen it countless times before, but it was so beautiful he couldn’t look away, not even for a second, because he was sure he’d never see something so utterly perfect ever again.
“I love you,” Michael whispered, kissing him. “I love you so much that it fucking breaks me.”
“Then I’ll be right here to hold you together,” West murmured, kissing him again, tracing his unshaven cheek with his fingertips. “You’re my family, Michael. You and Abby. You always have been. Being with you is all my dreams come true, for however long you’ll have me.”
“Forever?” Michael asked, searching his eyes.
Fat, hot tears welled, and for once, West couldn’t act fast enough to pinch them away. They spilled on the first blink.
“Hey, now,” Michael whispered, tracing the wet tracks with both thumbs. “Don’t cry, baby. I thought you’d figured it out by now. You’ve been a part of me for so long that I can’t tell where I end and you begin.”
He cupped West’s face in both hands, careful of his injuries, and drew him in for a kiss that started out gentle. Before either of them had drawn a breath, it turned sweet and deep, sinking right into West’s soul and warming him from the inside out.
“You don’t want to keep living in sin?” he teased brokenly once they came up for breath.
There was an answering twinkle in Michael’s blue eyes.
“Nah,” he joked, taking West with him as he relaxed back against the therapeutic jets. “I already bought this tub as your wedding present. It’s no gold ring, but I wanted it ready whenever you need. It’ll be great for working on those sore muscles after a rodeo…and I’ll be right there to ease everything else.”
Speechless and overwhelmed, West pulled his head forward, kissing him with force. He thrilled at the warm breath of laughter that fluttered into his mouth, losing himself to it, and only resurfacing a long, long time later when Michael tucked his head against his wet chest.
They drifted together, warm and peaceful, until Michael nudged the top of his head with his chin and whispered, “I’m sorry it took us so long to get here, but I wouldn’t trade the journey for the world. You’re my best friend, West Owens, and I promise to love you with everything I’ve got for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s going to be a long time,” West teased. “Sixty years, at least.”
“Will you love me just as long?”
“Longer,” West promised, meaning it with every beat of his whole heart.
EPILOGUE
They were cheering for him this time.
Kade Keller was dead, and all it had taken was an old, broken rodeo man named Jasper Owens to help bury him. Once the secret was out, West’s father had taken a keen interest in his riding. It was the first thing they’d ever shared. He'd never been so lively during Sunday dinners, leaning over a plate of spaghetti and jabbing at West with his fork to get a point across. Even so, it had taken months before West got up the nerve to ask the question that had been plaguing him.
“How come you never said anything?”
His father had been sitting on a stool out in the garden, bracing himself on his cane and hacking at clumps of errant pigweed. It was the most activity he'd done in months.
“About you riding?” he’d asked, squinting off into the distance. “I wanted to let you find your own way. You’re a grown man, and taking on those broncs was the first thing you ever did without our permission. I blame myself and your mother for that. She coddled you, and I was too wrapped up in my own hardships to care. The least I could do was give you space. But I never could figure out why you’d put yourself through hell just to purposely lose.”
West stared at him agape for so long that his father threw back his head and laughed for what felt like the first time in years. It was a deep belly laugh; the kind that triggered nearly forgotten childhood memories.
“How did you know?” West asked.