Garrick made a face that looked like a wince. “Not precisely, but only for the fact that I didn’t really tell you anything. You just think I did. Look, this is going to take a while. Why don’t we get cleaned up and get into bed?” Garrick walked into the bathroom without breaking that fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoying monotone commentary. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”
Devlin rushed to the bathroom door and talked to Garrick’s reflection in the mirror above the sink. “The guy I love just told me everything I’ve thought about him for the last five years wasn’t his real life.” When Garrick started wiping down his cock--easy as you please--Devlin almost reached between the man’s legs and ripped his balls off. “You’ll have to pardon my lack of cool but I think I should be forgiven if I need to take a few minutes to digest and adjust to the new information.”
“Hey, look at it like this,” Garrick said as he reached back and handed Devlin a wet washcloth, “that means the stuff I told you about having a girlfriend and you being a weekend fling to get men out of my system wasn’t real either.”
Devlin narrowed his stare to slits as wildfire ripped through his core.
“I apologize.” Garrick broke his gaze from the mirror and busied himself with a handful of items lining the back of his sink. “Bad time for humor.”
“Yeah, it is.” Devlin was treated to the sight of Garrick’s back and ass. God, he looked, and wished to hell he cared one bit about the stunning view right now. “How about you cut out the flippant shit and start showing me some emotions so I know this matters to you and that I’m not just the butt of a nasty joke.”
Still looking down, fiddling with God knew what, Garrick murmured, “Can’t.”
Son of a bitch. Devlin shoved in between Garrick and the sink, forcing himself directly into Garrick’s line of sight. “Talk to me. Why?”
Garrick finally lifted his gaze and--Holy Mother--it was once again the pure green Devlin remembered from so long ago. Only this time, it was drenched in a layer of moisture.
“Why, Garrick?” Devlin asked again, this time gentling his tone.
Garrick blinked repeatedly and looked up at the ceiling for a handful of seconds before coming back to Devlin. “Because if you can’t accept my former life and some of the things I’ve done...” He breathed shakily. “If you can’t forgive me, it’s going to annihilate me, and I need to start armoring myself against that possible outcome right now.”
“Hey.” Devlin grabbed Garrick’s face and forced him to stay connected. “Do you see me running? I think you can safely assume that if I were going to ream you a new asshole and then walk away I would have done it a few days ago when you looked me in the eyes and pretended not to be who I damn well knew you were.”
“But it wasn’t entirely a lie.” Garrick’s voice, stripped bare of any machismo or detachment, echoed against the bathroom tiles with the sounds of despair. “I have to be Garrick now. With the exception of taking out the contacts before I go to sleep, Garrick Langley has to become real to me and to everyone around me. He’s the new me.”
Garrick took a moment, looked like he swallowed a few times, and when he started again his voice was a little less hoarse. “I’ve been other people in between our time together, Devlin--people who were complete fabrications and nobody I would want to be in real life--but this guy--Garrick--is okay, I think. The man you were with in San Francisco--Denny--who was the same man who loved hearing your voice on the phone and seeing your e-mails in his Inbox, he is in every way that matters the same guy who is standing in front of you right now. Every bit of that man in that motel room, except for the tattoos, bald head, and the extra bulk, is who I am at my core. He is who I am trying to be here in Redemption, only with a different name, a new job, and no family anymore.”
He drew Devlin to him and pressed a kiss to his hair. “I never lied to you about my family, or ever showed you anything different than who I really am inside. Everything we talked about that weekend, and later on with the phone calls and e-mails--except for that last one--is the real me.”
Devlin clutched at Garrick’s forearm as the nausea that came with reading that last e-mail a thousand times over spiraled through him again. “So you never had a girlfriend and you didn’t get married.”
“No. I hated doing it, but I knew it was the only way out of something I never should have let start in the first place, which was a relationship with you.” Garrick took a step back, and this time he looked like the one who might throw up. “I did it to maximize your hurt and betrayal so that you’d never want to go sniffing for anything about me again. The truth is, there’s never been anybody I’ve ever even thought about marrying.” His attention slid Devlin’s way. “Unless you count all those nights I was sleeping somewhere I didn’t want to be and couldn’t escape without detection; on all those nights in the dark, I thought about what it would be like if you knew the truth, could forgive me, and I was allowed to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Fuck.
Devlin’s knees suddenly turned to the consistency of Jell-o. “You’ve already sweet-talked me out of my pants,” he said with a rough chuckle. “There’s no need to pile it on.”
Garrick closed the distance between them and caged Devlin against the sink. “Now who’s nervous about the truth?”
Devlin exhaled a shaky breath. “Why don’t we
