Page 93 of Full Tilt
That startles a laugh out of me. “A what?”
“Don’t act like it’s not true,” he says, jabbing my ribs. “Honestly, we’ve not seen him like this in ages. Not since before he moved to England. Don’t screw it up.”
The warning isn’t mean. It’s fond. But it still lands with a weight I feel in my chest.
“I won’t,” I say.
He nods, satisfied, and turns back to wave someone over. A man approaches—Ash, his boyfriend, who presses a hand to Calvin’s back as he takes the seat beside him. I get introduced properly this time, and we fall into easy, friendly conversation, mostly about Ash’s time in Texas and still failing to wrap his head around the twin chaos.
By the time Brent finds me again, the sun’s sinking fast and the sky’s bleeding into soft pinks and golds. He looks tired, in that sun-soaked, full-of-food kind of way. His curls are mussed from one of his cousin’s kids trying to use him as a jungle gym, and he has a smear of something suspiciously blue near his temple.
I reach up and wipe it away. “Did a cupcake explode?”
“Possibly.”
He curls a hand behind my neck and leans in, not for a kiss, just a press of his forehead to mine. It’s tender in a way that undoes me a little.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “Your family’s… a lot.” And considering just a couple of days ago he met the chaos of my own extended family, he knows I mean it in the best possible way.
He chuckles. “They are.”
“But good,” I add quickly. “Like, really good.”
“You’re good too,” he says quietly. “You’ve been great. I know this was last-minute and exhausting.”
“It’s worth it.”
That earns me a kiss, soft and easy, and I soak it up like it’ll keep me grounded.
Later, after dusk rolls in and the firepit is blazing, we lie back on a pair of deck loungers, Brent curled against my side. My arm’s draped around his shoulders. There’s a kid in the distance waving around sparklers, and someone—Cosmo, by the sound of it—is leading an aggressively off-key rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Brent leans in and says, “You’re never gonna survive the fireworks if you think this is chaotic.”
I glance down. “Should I be worried?”
He tilts his head. “My dad went to Costco yesterday. There’s a crate of explosives in the garage.”
“That explains the small cannon I saw Tony wheeling out earlier.”
He laughs. It’s the best sound.
There’s a lull in the noise, and Brent’s hand slides beneath my T-shirt, fingers warm on my stomach.
“You’re thinking again,” he says.
“I’m always thinking.”
“You okay?”
I nod. “It’s just… surreal, I guess. This is the most welcome I’ve felt anywhere outside my own family. And even that… doesn’t always feel like this.” Hell, maybe it’s the weather and open skies—so different from Walsall.
Brent doesn’t speak. He just rubs slow circles over my skin until my breath evens out.
“You’d tell me,” he says eventually, “if it was too much?”
I glance down at him. “Are you joking? I’d burn half the world to stay in this moment a little longer.”
