Page 154 of All The Things: The Last Thing He Needs Omnibus

His words seemed to sink in slowly, and her smile turned to a bright grin. “When…? Did he ask you or did you two just decide?”

Tina cut in then. Gavin hadn’t mentioned it to her and, obviously, neither had Ben. “Oh my gosh, that’s so awesome. How did he propose?”

It seemed funny to Gavin that she would just assume Ben would be the one to propose.

With a nod toward Ben, Gavin rolled his eyes. “He thinks we should get married in case he dies.” Ben muttered something from the table where he’d sat down with Tina. Gavin added, “Oh, and he loves me…”

Nora let out a loud laugh. “God, he’s so much like his father.” She and Gavin started serving plates and setting everything out on the table. “Did I ever tell you how he proposed?” she asked Ben as she sat down across from him. Gavin followed her and sat next to Ben. When Ben shook his head, she said, “He picked me up on my eighteenth birthday, drove me out to a little hamburger stand.”

Nora looked from Gavin to Ben and laughed. “I had my mouth full of fries, ketchup running down my hand, and he said, ‘what are you doing next Friday?’ I told him I didn’t have plans.”

She paused to take a sip of her wine and laughed again. “He said, ‘good, we can go down to the courthouse and get married.’ I just stared at him for a long minute and thought this is how you ask me to marry you? Idiot. When I didn’t say anything, he added, ‘I love you, Nora. No matter what you decide, I’ll never love anyone but you the rest of my life.’”

Gavin thought about that for a beat. It did sound a lot like Ben’s not-quite-proposal the night before. It suddenly seemed a lot more romantic than Gavin had given him credit for.

When Nora spoke again, he had a hard time taking his eyes off Ben.

“I was so quiet, I think I scared him. But I was standing there thinking, looking around at the other couples, kids my own age, and I thought: Would I rather have one of them? Would I rather have some boy who would get down on one knee and promise me the moon, give me a ring and flowers? Or would I rather have this man? James didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. James made me feel safe and happy and loved. His delivery was shit, but in the end, I didn’t need grand gestures and broken promises down the road. I needed a man. One who would make good on the only promise a person can keep. To love me.”

Yeah, that about summed it up, didn’t it? Gavin could have someone else, most likely. He could find a guy who was all about cheesy romance and poems and whatever the hell else. Or he could have Ben.

Nora tipped her head to the side and added, “The fact that I felt like I’d been in love with James my whole life—since before I knew him, before I even knew what love was—probably helped his case.”

He glanced at Ben, caught his eye, and they shared a smile. Gavin felt like that too, didn’t he? The first time he’d seen Ben—once he’d sobered up and stopped trying to throw himself at Ben anyway. The first time he got a genuine laugh from Ben. Gavin had been in love, even if he’d never admitted it to anyone.

Tina said softly, “That’s so sweet.”

For one shocking moment, Gavin thought she was talking about him, had somehow read his mind in the middle of dinner. But she was looking at Nora.

“How long were you guys together before he…?” Maybe she couldn’t say the word died; maybe it felt cruel to her.

“Oh, we’re still together. He and Hunter are just waiting for me.” Sadness touched Nora’s smile, like a storm cloud over the sun, but her eyes were still alight with love and memories, joy.

Ben cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. Gavin knew he was probably overwhelmed with emotion, the idea of loving someone like that. Then it dawned on him. When Ben thought about that kind of love, the kind that lasted for a lifetime and then some, he probably thought about Gavin too. He reached under the table and grabbed Ben’s hand.

Ben looked at him again and smiled as he laced their fingers together.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ben

When Gavin climbed into bed that night, Ben had expected him to fall asleep instantly. They’d had a long, busy day and had been running on empty for over a week with all the moving shit on their plates. Instead, Gavin wrapped his arms around Ben and pushed against him, practically climbed on top of him. “I love you.”

Ben closed his eyes at the feeling of Gavin’s warm breath against his throat, the soft wisps of Gavin’s hair getting caught in the stubble on Ben’s cheeks. “Love you too.”

“I know.” There was something solemn about the way Gavin said the words, as if he’d never been really sure, never really known until that moment. Ben knew that wasn’t the case, but it seemed like Gavin finally understood something. Ben just had no idea what that might be.

He ran his fingers up and down the ridges of Gavin’s spine, not quite tickling him. “You okay, babe?” He felt Gavin’s nod, but Gavin didn’t say anything. “Did you get your errands taken care of this morning?” Maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up, but the whole thing had been niggling at the back of Ben’s mind all damn day.

“Yeah. It’s all done.” Gavin’s sigh said more than his words.

“Gonna tell me what you had to do?”

“I don’t want to.” Gavin’s whisper made Ben think of a little kid, confessing a crime after he’d been caught red-handed.

He couldn’t help a small huff of a laugh. “That usually means you should tell me.” He expected a laugh from Gavin too. That’s not what he got.

Gavin breathed out another sigh, followed by a sniffle. “I went to my parents’ house today.”

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