Page 56 of Don't Scare Me, My Love

He was always like that. Without questioning, he accepted what I said. He didn’t force me to tell him things I didn’t want to. He never even asked me why I wore the eye patch in the first place. We only got talking about it a year ago becauseIassumed hewouldask about it, like everyone else, while he just accepted it as a part of me, not trying to make it my whole personality, like so many others seem to.

I took a deep breath. “Would you be comfortable if I wouldn’t wear my eye patch?”

His head rose as his palms brushed over his knees, rubbing in the last white streak of body lotion. “I’m comfortable with whateveryou’recomfortable with.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I just walked around like this?” I opened my right eye, revealing the empty socket.

“Why would I?”

The corners of my mouth curled into a smile. “I was just wondering.”

Nicholas walked behind me, putting his hands on my bare shoulders. They slid down my abs, pulling my back against his chest.

“I probably don’t tell you often enough, Jason, but you’re such a beautiful man. With what you’re wearingandwithout.”

Our eyes met. My heart fluttered a little because even though I felt safe with him, I’d never shown him my face so openly.

He kissed the back of my head. “And believe me, if there was ever a part of your body I would want you to hide, it would beyour fat cock, because I can’t think of anything else when I see it.” His teeth flashed at me as he laughed at his joke.

I turned around so he could see me without a mirror in between. This was the first time I had beencompletelynaked in front of him. My chest heaved.

How on earth did we end up here? How could everything be so slow and fast at the same time? And how could he take me and find beautiful what, for so long, I had considered my greatest flaw?

“Nicholas, why did you never ask me about my eye?”

“Are you angry that I didn’t?”

“No,” I shook my head. “God, no. On the contrary. For so long, it seemed like that stupid eye was the only thing people noticed when it wasn’t even there. But somehow, you saw all the other things that made me,me.”

“When we first met, you told me all those gory lies. I loved them, don’t get me wrong. I still do. But it felt like you were so tired of talking about it I figured if you ever wanted to tell me, you just would. That’s why I never asked. I hope that was okay.”

I offered him a smile and nodded, to which he responded with a smile as well.

“I’m always here to listen,” he said. “Be it for more entertaining versions or the truth.”

We held each other for another second before I let go of him.

I turned back to the sink, my gaze falling on the prosthesis again. “It’s not even a long story. Or an interesting one.” I said with no hesitation. “When I was eleven, my mom noticed I had a dark spot in my eye. She didn’t think much of it at first, but after watching it for a few weeks, she got the impression that it was growing. We went to the doctor, and after some tests and some back and forth, they said it was cancer.” I looked in the mirror and found Nicholas just standing there next to me, listeningclosely. “I only figured out that‘cancer’must be bad because she was crying like no one I had ever seen cry before.”

Nicholas looked at the sink and then back up at me. “It was harder for her than for you.”

“To me, cancer was just a word. I had never heard it before and didn’t know what it meant. The doctor gave us two options: chemotherapy, where I could have kept my eye, but there was a chance that the cancer would spread, or remove the eyeball and all the shit with it. Well,” I shrugged. “You know how it turned out. The eye is gone, but so is the cancer. I’m healthy as an ox now, and for a long time, I thought the eye patch was cool. In college, it made it so easy to get guys to talk to me that it almost seemed like there was no downside. Depth perception was a little weird at first, going from seeing everything in three dimensions to a two-dimensional image took some getting used to, but, well, that doesn’t bother me anymore. It was only when I got older that the constant questions got annoying, so…” I waved it off. “You know the rest.”

Nicholas stared at me for a moment before his lips parted, and a single tear rolled down his chin. “That must have been very scary.”

He brought his palm to the side of my right arm, running it up and down. He inhaled sharply twice as if to calmhimself. Another tear rolled down his cheek. I pulled him in closer and ran my thumb over his face, wiping it away. “Are you seriously crying because of that story? You know, I’m fine. I’m not missing anything in my life—especially not now.”

A laugh that almost turned into a cry escaped his mouth. “You’re right.” He shook his head, closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around my back to pull my chest into his.

My chin rested on his collarbone, and I pushed myself as far into him as I could.

“I love you,” he said, his voice trembling. “And even with all those scares, I want nothing bad to happen to you for real. I promise I’ll protect the hell out of you, whether it’s against killers, monsters, the darkness—name it, and I’ll protect you from it.”

“My mom, when she finds out I’m getting married to a guy she never even met.”

Nicholas’ body shook as he laughed. “I’ll throw myself between the two of you and absorb any questions or whatever she throws at you.”

“My love, you don’t get it.Youwill be the one who needs protection. Unless we pull something like today at our wedding and give them all heart attacks.”

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