Page 131 of Out of the Storm

Jeff’s breath caught. Fuck, if he had been in that house...

But he hadn’t been. He’d been with Gary instead.

Gary started kissing him all over his face. “Gosh, I could have lost you.”

Gary continued peppering him with kisses. Sitting up, Jeff basked in them, in the little rays of sunshine, before finally catching Gary’s mouth with his. After a bit, Jeff broke their kiss and tipped their foreheads together.

“Gare, you saved me.”

For the rest of the evening, the two of them stayed close, not even parting for a single moment when they changed and washed up for bed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gary

Early the next morning, Gary and Jeff were wrapped up in each other’s arms, sound asleep, when faint but obviously frantic knocking caused Gary to rouse. He blinked his eyes open, groaning quietly as he tried to reorient himself.

Who could it be so early? Maybe Mel? With the power and phone lines still being out, Gary hadn’t heard from her. Mel might be worried for his safety. He’d have been worried for her too had her house not been clear across Niles, far from the tornado’s path. Gary kissed Jeff’s forehead. Instinctively, he reached for the nightstand but then remembered that his frames were still in pieces.

Next to him, Jeff shifted a bit. “What is it?”

“Someone’s knocking,” Gary said, keeping his voice low. “Let me see who it is.”

“Poor choice of words,” Jeff mumbled with a small, sly smile.

“Mean,” Gary chastised.

Briefly, Gary considered wearing his wonky old frames, but they were so mangled they barely even stayed on his face, so he left them in the bedroom. Not only were they bent, but they also had just one lens, which was all scratched up to boot. Slowly, Gary crept through the house, taking care not to bump into any of the fuzzy-looking obstacles in his path.

The moment Gary opened the front door, a slightly blurry blob that smelled like hair spray, cigarettes, and perfume barreled into him.

“God, you’re okay!” Dawn said. “We couldn’t reach you!”

Gary hugged her back. “Phone lines are out.”

Dawn pulled back and sucked in a breath.

“What happened to your face?!”

“Bar fight,” Gary said, trying to keep his face serious, though he couldn’t help but break into a smile not two seconds later. “Okay, not exactly. I’m clumsy. Let’s leave it at that.”

Gary noticed a few more fuzzy people at the bottom of the steps.

“M-Mom?”

One of them started up the steps. Gary could tell it was his mom by the way she was struggling with them, her movement slow.

“Gare,” she said. He wrapped her up in a hug, his heart splintering the second they connected. “Hun, I’m so sorry for keeping him from you. I’m so, so sorry.”

Even though Garywantedto say that it was okay, it wasn’t. Not yet. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be. Still, she was his mom. He loved her. And he missed her. He’d been missing her foryears. He’d spent over twenty years missing who she had been before his father had up and left. God, his father had crushed her. Broken her heart. Broken her spirit. She’d trusted Milton Graham to love her, to raise her children with her, and he’d broken that promise instead.

Gary’s eyes filled with tears, and he hugged her tighter.

“I wanted to keep you safe,” she said, her voice quivering.

And God, Gary’s heart seemed to splinter even more. She’d been trying to protect him. Like how he’d been trying to protect Jeff when he’d confronted Don. Maybe people really flubbed sometimes when they were trying to protect the people they loved.

“I know I should have told you that he wanted to see you kids again, but I—”

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