Page 122 of Stealing Home

EPILOGUE

DOM

Six Months Later

Dom stood in the garage with Lucia on his hip and watched Gavin carry in another box. “Please tell me that’s the last one.”

Gavin set it on the workbench he’d built and installed last week. “It’s the last one from my truck.”

“That answer feels really specific.”

Gavin smiled and dropped a kiss on his lips. “It is.”

Dom caught the front of his shirt and pulled him in for another kiss. Gavin’s hand settled at his waist, warm through the thin cotton of his shirt, and Dom lingered until Lucia pushed a damp palm between their faces.

Gavin laughed and kissed her fingers. “Sorry, Lucky. Your dad is distracting.”

“Not sorry,” Dom said with a shrug. He let go of his shirt, but Gavin stayed close.

Lucia immediately reached for him, twisting in Dom’s arms until Gavin took her. She settled against his chest with the complete confidence of someone who had long ago decided Gavin belonged to her.

“Traitor,” Dom told her. Lucia grinned, showing off the seven teeth she had worked very hard to acquire over the last few months.

“She has excellent judgment.” Gavin pressed a kiss to Lucia’s head.

“She eats Cheerios she finds under the coffee table.”

Gavin shrugged. “Still.”

Dom rolled his eyes.

For a moment, they stood in the open garage with sunlight warming the driveway. Inside, they heard something hit the floor, followed by Evan swearing and CJ immediately insisting whatever had happened was not his fault. Dom cleared his throat. Getting emotional over their friends helping move Gavin in was ridiculous, but he’d spent the morning doing it anyway.

Gavin’s clothes were upstairs. His books were mixed in with Dom’s in the living room. There was an ugly green mixing bowl in the kitchen that Gavin claimed was the perfect size for everything. It looked like it had survived at least three decades and possibly a small war. Dom had already decided he would learn to live with it. He would try anyway.

Dom had asked him to move in because he wanted Gavin to live with them. Gavin said yes because he wanted it too. It should have been that simple. It hadn’t been. It had taken them longer than one night in the kitchen to get here.

The morning after Gavin came back, Dom had woken with his arm across Gavin’s stomach and remembered everything before he’d even opened his eyes. Gavin leaving, the hours without hearing from him, the relief when he finally heard Gavin’s truck pull into his driveway. And then everything after. For several seconds, Dom had stayed perfectly still, listening to Gavin breathe beside him and fighting the urge to tighten his hold.

Gavin noticed something was off as soon as he’d woken. “You okay?”

Dom stared at the ceiling. “Yep.”

There was a long pause before Gavin spoke again, sounding like he was approaching a cornered animal. “Dom.”

“I said I’m okay.”

Another pause stretched between them. “Okay.”

Gavin got out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Dom was left staring at the empty space beside him, immediately hating the distance he’d put between them. He lasted exactly as long as it took for Gavin to use the bathroom and come back before the words spilled out.

“I’m not okay.”

They’d talked over coffee while Lucia threw pieces of banana from her high chair. Dom admitted that waking up and finding Gavin beside him had immediately been followed by wondering whether he would still be there tomorrow. Gavin had listened without making promises large enough to cover every future possibility.

“I’m here today,” he’d said instead.

Dom had hated the answer at the time, but he understood it later. Forever wasn’t something they could prove in one conversation.