Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Darius chuckled. “You remind me more and more of my youngest brother. Lias is a romantic. I think he was seven or eight when he decided that he was gonna marry his crush at Coho Pass one day.” He shook his head pensively. “Weddings. Not my thing.”
Gray faced him with a deadpan expression. “This is my shocked face.”
Darius let out a laugh.
But it was easy to dismiss a future as something you didn’t want…when you didn’t think it was possible.
Today, it was.
“Gray and Darius have prepared their own vows,” the officiant said. He nodded for Gray to go first.
Hoo-boy.
Gray took a deep breath and slipped his hands into Darius’s. “Given the…start…we had, I used to feel like we’d been robbed of the beginning we deserved. I would space out at random and imagine what it would be like to meet you for the first time at your restaurant. Or maybe the friends we have in common would one day introduce us, and I’d develop the biggest crush the minute I saw you.”
Darius’s smile morphed into a smirk, and his shoulders trembled with a silent chuckle.
“But if we’d met under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t have what we have today,” Gray went on, his voice full of conviction. And he was totally winging it from here. “To get to where we are right now, we had to take those exact steps. We had to fight every battle, nurse every wound, and turn into this…this united force that wanted the same future. That needed it.” He paused and tried not to get stuck in the gentle severity of Darius’s gaze. Only one person understood what Gray was saying, and that was the man in front of him. “Marrying you here today isn’t about a beginning for me. It’s about completing what we started three years ago. It’s about spending the rest of my life protecting us, working side by side with the love of my life, nurturing everything that ties us together, be it shitty memories, grief, chemistry, love, or parenting. So that our dreams can keep coming true, and we can keep creating new memories together. That’s all I want, Darius.”
And…exhale.
Darius engulfed him in a tight hug and pressed his lips to the side of his head.
Gray closed his eyes and let the comfort wash over him. The relief, the love, the safety, the fact that this wasn’t some boyhood fantasy… This was real.
“There’s nothing pretend about us, knucklehead.” Darius leaned in, and Gray’s breath hitched. “Tell me to kiss you.”
Gray swallowed dryly. “Kiss me.”
Darius shifted his hands to Gray’s hips and covered his mouth with his own, and a storm of emotions swirled around him. Gray didn’t know what to think or what to do, but one thing was for sure. The moment became perfect as they kissed each other slowly to the background sound of Jayden and Justin laughing at the twins’ theatrics. Justin scored a goal, Gabriel pretended to be mad, Gideon whooped, and Jayden shouted in triumph. All while Gray fucking melted in Darius’s arms.
“I’m losing my head over you, Darius,” he chuckled weakly. “Don’t fucking play with me.”
“I’m not playing. If anything, I’m sick of it. I’m so over pretending that I only wanna be near you during your recovery, when—fuck. When I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to let you go.”
Gray fisted the front of Darius’s hoodie and screwed his eyes shut, feeling months of tension rolling off him in waves. Then he kissed Darius deeply until he could form words like a normal being.
“No more pretending.” He spoke in between hard kisses. “And let me know if you’re a flight risk. I’ll tie you to a pole on the porch.”
Darius smiled into the kiss and cupped Gray’s cheek. “I’m not the runner, baby. I’m all in.”
Gray couldn’t describe what a rush it was to hear that. “For us, I can be a fighter.”
As Darius pulled away from the hug, he blinked past the glassiness in his eyes and cleared his throat.
It was his turn.
He flicked a glance toward their guests. “We’ve reached the part I’ve been dreading for a year and a half.”
Gray grinned so widely.
Darius earned himself a couple laughs from the guests. Then he rubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw, and he faced Gray once more.
“When I proposed to you, Gray, we had no idea we’d be forced to postpone this day twice,” he said. “I figured I’d have a few months at best to come up with the perfect vows that could correctly convey exactly how I feel about you—how much I love you.”
Oh fuck, Gray was gonna cry, wasn’t he?
“I ended up getting two years, and that wasn’t enough either,” Darius admitted. “Truth be told, I don’t think it’s possible, because you didn’t merely change my life—you gave me a new one that made it clear I hadn’t really been living in the first place. Instead, I’d been preparing—literally—for a lonely existence.”