Page 80 of Liam

"Wow, that's unbelievable. Jamal is the least aggressive person I know. He's a kitten."

"Kittens have claws and bad attitudes."

"True. Then he's like a fluffy bunny."

I huffed out a snort. "I can get behind that. The man calls me sweet but he's the sweet one. What happened … he explained it as being in a kind of anguished mourning."

"I can see that. Not sure how I'd react to losing my ability to walk."

I looked up at Noah. "I think it was a perfect storm of negative emotions that caused Jamal to act like he did. After thinking about it, his past anger issues aren't causing me concern anymore."

"Then what's holding you back from reuniting with him?"

"Erik visited him and threatened him. Told Jamal if he didn't break up with me, he was going to tell me what happened in Jamal's past. Threatened to expose him to me."

"How the hell would Erik know about Jamal's past?"

"That's the part I don't want to talk about."

Noah exhaled long and hard and stared at me with his head cocked. "You think Jamal never would have told you if Erik hadn't threatened him? Is that what's going on?"

Thiswaswhere I was struggling. "He broke up with me rather than tell me himself. Did he not trust me? Our relationship so far has been one of open communication."

"But hedidtell you."

"After he broke up with me. Why tell me at all?"

"Because he wants you back, Liam. Sounds like he lay his heart on the floor in front of you. You can either pick it up and cherish it or you can stomp on it."

That last visual made my chest ache.

Noah came around to my side of the table, hugged me, held my head, and kissed my hair. "You love him. You have some thinking to do but I've never seen you like this before. Jamal must be a special guy to have my favourite gay playboy considering retirement."

"Fuck off." I leaned my head against Noah's chest and soaked in the love.

"Do we want dessert in here?" Brody asked from behind us.

I sniffed and tried to peer up at him from Noah's sweater. "What is it?"

"Ethan made some double-chocolate, walnut brownies for us," Brody replied. "I was going to heat them and put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top."

I groaned. "Gawd. Go ahead … hit me up with some of that."

Noah held me away from his body and looked down at me. "You feeling all right?"

"There's more to life than pleasing strangers. Not going to disregard all I've achieved or anything. Just going to ease off a little. It's more important to share moments with family."

Noah smirked. "By eating brownies and ice cream."

I pulled away from Noah and smiled at him. "Exactly."

As we dug into the chocolatey treat, I thought about Jamal's family. They'd be sitting around their dinner table right now, enjoying a meal together. I ached to be there with Jamal at my side.

I found a quiet seat and stared up at the two indigenous totem poles in theFirst People's Living Languages Galleryof the Royal BC Museum.

Jamal had filled me in a lot of information when it came to the ancestral lands of the Songhees and Esquimalt nations where Victoria, BC was settled. How the l?k?????n People hunted and gathered here for thousands of years. How when Captain James Douglas anchored off Clover Point in 1842, he saw the result of the l?k?????n People’s careful land management, such as controlled burning and food cultivation. They had been at one with nature.

He told me about the Seven Signs of the l?k?????n traditional territory. Created in 2008, the Signs of l?k?????n consist of seven unique site markers that designate culturally significant sites to the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations along the Inner Harbour and surrounding areas.

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