Chapter 25

In the end, Gabe hadn’t been able to find a puppy. Or a dog of any kind. He’d even asked around for a few cats. He could wait, he supposed. But he wanted some kind of gesture. A “we’re in this together” kind of gesture. Partnerships. Foundations.

Built on a llama, apparently.

Because, somehow, that’s what was sitting in the back seat. A llama. An actual llama. It had been Rose’s idea, and Becca had jumped on board so fast his head had spun. She’d said it was unique, and she’d done that horrible squealing thing she did when she got really excited.

Jack and Alex had expressed some concerns, but Becca, she of the goat and the rooster and apparently plans for a pig, had shot down every single one of their reasonable concerns.

Then he’d found himself in Becca’s truck, being driven to a llama ranch. A ranch full of llamas, including two llamas that hadn’t taken to the herd or something? The guy running the place, Dan Sharpe, who’d seemed strangely familiar even though Gabe had never met him, said he was happy to have one inside llama, but his wife had put her foot down at two.

And suddenly, Gabe had a llama. Apparently, its name was Macaroni. Dan assured Gabe a change in name wouldn’t confuse it.

A llama.

“What am I doing?” he muttered as Becca helped him transfer the llama to the back seat of his truck.

“You’re professing your love with a weird animal, and I couldn’t be prouder. Or happier. Or—”

“She might not be as ecstatic about the llama as you are.” Or the love. Forty-eight hours wasn’t so bad in the grand scheme of coming to grips with years of childhood fucked-upedness, but he’d been mean. A little cruel.

He figured she could and would forgive stupidity. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to forgive cruel.

Becca added another blanket around the llama, cooing to it softly before she closed the back door and turned to him. “If she doesn’t want to keep it, I do.”

“So, the real reason you agreed to this comes out.”

She reached up and cupped his face, patting his cheeks. A little hard to be considered a pat, really. It was very close to a slap. “Off you go. Grovel, plead, beg, but don’t you dare make my Christmas dinner tomorrow awkward.”

Gabe gave her a mock salute, but he stiffened when she sniffled.

“I’m so glad you found—”

“Don’t you dare start.”

“—someone,” she continued, ignoring him completely. “I’m so glad you’re giving this a shot, and I’m so, so, so glad fate brought me the best pseudo-brother a girl could ask for.”

“Make sure you inform Jack I’m the best.”

“Only until Rose has the baby. Then he gets to be the best for making me a pseudo-aunt, but I’ll switch back when you and Monica get married.”

“Have it all planned out, do you?” Married. Christ. He had a ways to go on that front. Maybe it didn’t fill him with dread or anything—after all, he wouldn’t try to get over years of fear and shit for just anyone.

Married.

Becca grabbed him in a tight hug. “No jokes, okay? Just be honest with her.”

His initial reaction was to lean away, to carefully disentangle himself from all Becca’s care, but he didn’t let himself. He hugged her back because it helped with the nerves, leaning on someone. Believing in them and what they said and felt. “I’ll do okay, and if she kicks my ass, you’ll patch me up, right?”

“We all will.” She brushed a sisterly kiss across his cheek, then released him. “I want an update, even if it’s only text.”

He nodded, then got in the driver’s seat of his truck. On a deep breath, he shoved it into drive.

“Stay put, Macaroni,” he muttered. Because yes, he was in love and talked to llamas. That was his life now. Normal, normal life.

Panic was also a part of this new normal, because it beat through him like a wild thing. But it was a weird panic because he felt no compulsion to turn around. He wouldn’t go back. Couldn’t.

He followed the Shaw’s drive over to Monica’s cabin, then frowned at the prettily lit house. It looked like a fairy-tale Christmas cottage, but Monica’s truck wasn’t out front, and she clearly hadn’t been home yet, because there was some snow that had blown up over her stoop at least partially blocking the door. Based on the flight information Monica had given Becca, she should have been home by now.

“Well, Macaroni, we might be screwed.”

The llama shifted in the back seat, but that was about all.

Headlights splashed across the dark, and then her truck was pulling up next to his. She was here, and he had to actually do this.

He stepped out of his truck the same time she did.

She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe he was there, but it gave him some hope he didn’t see any traces of horror at him being here.

“You’re here,” she said.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Colin scrambled out of the passenger side door. “Gabe!” With the exuberance of a child probably hopped up on sugar, Colin lunged at him.

Gabe scooped him up easily enough, even with the ache in his shoulder. Something like relief washed through him. Hell, he’d missed the kid. “What’d you do, eat your weight in cookies at your grandparents?”

“Kinda.”

He dropped Colin back to his feet, then grinned down at him, ruffling his already-messy hair. “Missed having you around, runt.”

Colin all but beamed, and Gabe kept his gaze on him, because he was afraid to look at Monica’s expression. He crouched down, so he could be eye level with Colin. “Hey, can I, uh, talk to your mom out here alone for a few minutes?”

He saw the way the kid’s faced changed. Hurt, probably, but something else too. Something closer to fear than Gabe could stand. He reached out, gripping Colin’s shoulder and squeezing. “And if all goes well and she doesn’t punch me for being a jerk, I’ll come in and have some cookies or something after we’re done talking.”

Colin glanced back at Monica, then leaned close to Gabe’s ear. “Tell her she looks pretty. Gets her every time.”

Gabe barked out a surprised laugh as Colin took the keys from Monica, then bounded for the front door.

Gabe stood back up, and neither he nor Monica spoke until Colin had gone inside and slammed the door behind him.

“I brought you a Christmas present.” Still she said nothing, just stood a safe distance away looking…something. He wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was just exhaustion. “You look pretty,” he added.

Her mouth curved the slightest hint. “He told you to say that.”

“Yes, ma’am, though it’s never not true.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, your present.”

“Gabe—”

“It’s symbolic, so you have to let me give it to you.”

“Symbolic of what?”

He pulled open the door to the back seat of the truck and pointed inside. Monica peered over at the llama.

“What the hell is that?”

Not quite the response he’d been hoping for. “It’s a llama. A housebroken pet llama, I’m assured.”

“You brought me a symbolic llama for Christmas.”

“Well, technically it’s my gift to Colin. My gift to you was sex. You said I could keep my gift card. Also, I couldn’t find a puppy. But if you don’t want it, Becca’s going to take it, and obviously I didn’t want Colin to see it before I ran it by you and—”

“Gabe. Breathe.”

“Right.” He took a breath, let it out. Breathe. Think. Stop babbling about a fucking llama.

“Llama aside—”

“Its name is Macaroni.”

“Oh, no, don’t tell me its name.” She hesitated, then stepped forward, then reached out and stroked her hand down the llama’s neck. “How is it so weirdly cute?”

She was close to him now, him standing next to the open door, her reaching inside the truck. He wanted to reach out and touch her, hold her, say all the words that seemed to clog his throat as she cooed over the animal.

“Monica?”

She turned her head, meeting his gaze.

“I love you.”

* * *

Monica wanted to fall into his arms at that, but she knew… Oh, there was some work to be done first. No matter that he looked so earnest and sincere and any fear that lingered in his expression wasn’t that horrible thing that had driven him out of here a few days ago.

“I love you, too, but we already went through that.”

“I was wrong to leave like that. Wrong to let fear… It’s a strange thing to have lived thirtysome years, been a Navy SEAL for a decade or so, lived through a grenade explosion, and still realize that fear was the thing that motivated most of your life choices. Not desire, not drive, not anything but fear.”

“Fear can be a powerful motivator. Or de-motivator. I was too afraid to go after you. I told myself I was giving you time, but I just didn’t want to hurt like that again.”

He reached out, his fingers brushing across her hair so gently she didn’t even feel it. “I wasn’t ready for you to come after me.”

“What changed your mind in such a short period of time?”

“Love,” he replied simply. “That you loved me, and you’re too smart and good to make it up or lie. That Alex and Jack… You know, that first time Alex came to talk to you a few months ago, when we kind of… I hate to use the word manipulated. Jack and I encouraged him to go to you. We pushed him. Egged him on. Tried to get him to fight us.”

“Men,” she muttered irritably.

He smiled, and this time when he reached out, his gloved fingertips brushed her cheek. “That was love. That we stood up to him. That he went to you. It’s easy to accept love when it helps someone else. It’s scarier, harder when it’s just…you. But they’ve also been in my life for so long, and nothing has changed that. The worst day of our lives, and we’re all still here. So, this morning, they…they just showed up. And they stayed, no matter what I said. They always have. I guess I don’t have any reason to believe they won’t always.”

It moved her in a lot of ways. Because she knew what an important step it was for Alex and Jack too, these three men who’d gone through hell together, to be here on the other side reaching out for love and lives and, just as important as that, pushing each other to do the same.

“I will, too,” she whispered. “Show up. Stay.”

His mouth curved, and it had none of his normal sharpness. Only sweetness. “I know. It’d never have gone this far if I didn’t, on some level, know that.”

If only it were as simple as all that, but she had more in her life than just Gabe. “But I need to know you’d do the same. I can love you, Gabe. I can’t really fathom being able to stop, but I can’t have you in my son’s life if you aren’t willing to show up and stay. I need that promise from you.”

“I love him, too, you know.”

As if her heart wasn’t already raw and aching, beautifully big and bursting, and then he added that to this emotional day.

“He told me he likes you best because you treat him like a man,” she managed to say between her tears. “And I like you best because he thinks you do, and I know you don’t always.”

“Hell,” he muttered, pulling her to his chest and holding her there.

She gave herself the space to cry there against his chest for a few minutes, to feel and absorb in a way she usually forced herself to move away from.

“It was a lie. Not wanting you, not wanting a future with you both. I wanted it so desperately I couldn’t see straight, but when the thing you want is the thing you most fear…” He squeezed her tighter, and she was happy to be squished against his hard, warm chest. “It’s easier to convince yourself you don’t want it or can’t have it than face the fact that having it just requires some work…and some faith. I can’t promise that faith will never falter, but—”

“I’ll be here to remind you it shouldn’t.”

He pulled her back, so he could look down at her, the array of colorful Christmas lights dancing across his face.

“And what will I be here to remind you of?”

She smiled. “That I’m not just a therapist or a mom.”

“I can think of a few ways I’d enjoy doing that.”

She gave him a little shove, but he kept his arms tight around her. The llama made a noise from the back seat. It was the weirdest little thing, but she was already halfway in love.

“So, what on earth is the llama symbolic of?”

“My promise to you, and Colin, to take care of responsibilities together.” He glanced at the llama. “No matter how weird they are.”

“That is a very symbolic llama.”

“I’ll admit, I looked for a dog first.”

“It’s a default, symbolic llama then.”

“I suppose. Doesn’t matter though. You know why?”

She shook her head.

“I love you. I want to build a life with you. All the things I said I didn’t want are what I want more than anything. I’ve been too afraid of that for so long, and then you came along, and it was suddenly real. The truest, most beautiful thing I’d ever wanted. I’m not very good at the words—”

“Those’ll do,” she whispered, moving onto her toes to press her mouth to his. “Come inside.” She sighed and looked over his shoulder at the back seat. “Both of you, come inside. Colin is going to flip.”

“I was told a name change wouldn’t confuse him, if he wants to change it,” Gabe said, picking the llama up out of the back seat and then setting him down on the snowy ground.

He made a little noise, too cute for words, and then pranced a bit through the snow.

“Oh, no, he’s Macaroni. There’s no doubt about that.” And there wasn’t any doubt about this. She walked to the door, pushing it open.

The llama did another little, weird prance and noise, and then happily ran for the door. Gabe followed, perfectly silhouetted by Christmas lights. Tall and strong and hers, really hers. She glanced at Colin, who’d fallen to the floor, mouth dropped open in awe as the llama edged toward him.

Gabe stepped up to the threshold and grinned down at her. “Merry Christmas,” he murmured.

“You know you can’t be a grinch anymore, right?”

“Of course I can.”

She shook her head, grinning up at him. “No, Christmas Eve is officially our official moment. You made Christmas promises, Gabe.” She tapped her fingers to his chest right above his heart. “I’m afraid your heart has grown three sizes.”

He grunted. “Maybe two.”

Since Colin was busy exclaiming over the llama, she reached up, pulling Gabe’s mouth to hers. But she didn’t kiss him. Instead, she looked right at him and grinned. “I’ll make it three.”

A promise she didn’t intend to break.