Page 64 of Night By Night
It took him a moment to pull enough brain cells and breath together to form speech. “All those nights together when we were younger…”
Dox sadly smiled. “You havenoidea how many times I laid there next to you and listened to you breathing and felt desperate to beat off. More than a few times I went into the bathroom and did it, just so I could fucking sleep. Made the few times we did that together particularly good for me.”
Dox stroked Hank’s hair, massaged his scalp, and it felt so goddamned good that Hank’s eyes nearly dropped closed.
“And…now?” Hank asked.
Dox sighed. “I know you’re straight, buddy. I mean it—I don’t even care about that. I don’t care if you don’t love me like that. It’s okay. I won’t expect anything from you. This is about me being able to takecareof the two of you. I can dothisthing,rightnow. I’ve got damned good health insurance. All we have to do is get a piece of paper for us, so I can fill out another piece of paper, and we can get her everything she needs.Nothingelse has to change between us, if you don’t want it to. I can’t sit here watching you drown andnotsave you. This is bigger than me and my feelings—this is about JJ and her life and her health.”
Dox was right—it was bigger than both of them. And it wasn’t like he was dating or anything.
Crap, he didn’twantto. Every day since he’d been living there, he’d looked forward to coming home—
To Dox.
“Please,” Maddox softly begged. “Letme take care of you both.”
Hank pushed himself up into a sitting position and found himself eye-to-eye with Maddox. Hank nervously swallowed, licked his lips, and didn’t miss how Maddox watched him do it like he was entranced or something.
No one hadeverlooked at him like that before.
Withhungerin their eyes.
If he thought back to when they were teenagers, he remembered catching a glimpse now and then of Maddox watching him if they were working out in the yard shirtless, or swimming, or—
Honestly?
This last hit had finished taking his legs out from under him.
Hank knew he had nothing left in him with which to fight, and he was lying to himself if he tried to say otherwise. He was…tired. Exhausted.
Done.
“Okay,” Hank whispered before he lost his nerve.
Fierce triumph flashed across Maddox’s face and he tipped his head forward, forehead-to-forehead with Hank now, his hand coming to rest on the back of Hank’s head.
“Iloveyou, buddy,” Maddox said, sounding vulnerable in a way Hank had never heard him sound before, like he’d opened the depths of his soul and laid it bare before him. “Even if it means I can only love you likethis, that’s okay. Because at least I’m taking care of you, ofbothof you.That’swhat true love’s really about—taking care of each other. Taking care of the people you love.”
Hank didn’t want to move. His mind struggled to make sense of the confusion and emotions swirling through him with every one of them simultaneously battling for his attention.
When they were growing up, Maddox had always taken care of him, bigger, older, and able to stand up for him. He’d always followed Dox’s lead, let him make the decisions, felthappyto follow in his wake. Dox had been the popular one, the smart one.
Dox had always put himself between Hank and bullies, because back then Hank had been a skinny damn twig and Dox had two inches and about thirty pounds on him.
Until this moment, he didn’t realize how much he’d truly missed all that. Dox watching out for him, having his back. Helping him study, worried about him passing tests—
All of it.
For the first time in his adult life, he also realized he’d never had someone to takecareof him. After leaving Florida, he’d always been the caretaker, stepping in when their parents were killed so Lois could continue school. Stepping in to take care of her after Cameron fucking beat her up, helping her get away from him.
Stepping in to be a father to his niece and taking care of both of them.
Then truly becoming JJ’s father, spending the last couple of years as a single dad.
How many nights before moving to Florida had he cried himself to sleep because he felt panic threatening to strangle the breath from his lungs? Trying to put on a strong front for JJ so she didn’t worry, trying tobestrong and comfort her even when he felt like he was tap-dancing on paper-thin ice with his arms full of dynamite? Waiting until he was in the shower or until after she’d gone to bed so he could secretly cry, sitting there silently wailing with his arms wrapped around himself as he rocked, trying to soothe himself.
Always feeling like he was faking it. Wondering how the hell everyone else was a functioning adult, and here he was, stumbling around and barely able to keep his shit together.
