Take a Chance on It

  What is the Rye House Plot? her answer read.

  “Ha.” Gideon pumped his fist.

  “Just wait.”

  On the TV, Alex told her he was sorry. “No, it was the Monmouth Rebellion. Not a fan of Captain Blood? And how much did you risk?”

  “Yes.” Dane hit mute. The urge to leap up in celebration was there, but he had to content himself with victory arms.

  “Whatever. Freak.” Gideon uncovered the mic on his phone. “Okay, Jax. Go ahead.”

  “How’s he doing?” Jax said.

  Gideon stared at Dane. Could he tell that Jax’s voice drifted all the way over here?

  “Better some days than others,” Gideon answered.

  “Well, what’s his best day?” Jax asked.

  Dane called loudly, “He is right here, and he’s only dying, not deaf.”

  Gideon glared at him. “If you’re asking about his mood, he doesn’t have a best day. Physically—”

  Jax must have heard Dane because the next tinny words were, “Put me on speaker.”

  Gideon did and put the phone in Dane’s lap, coming to stand next to him.

  “Hey, Dane.” Jax was full of forced cheer.

  “Still here. For now anyway.”

  “You aren’t—you—?” Jax’s voice was hoarse.

  “There’s no reason to think the chemo isn’t working,” Gideon gave Dane a see-what-you-did frown.

  “Dane?” Jax persisted.

  “Yeah. What Gideon said. It just sucks. A lot. Sorry. We’d—” No, we wouldn’t. Gideon would, Dane realized. Because Dane wouldn’t be able to, but Gideon would do it for him. “—call if there was any change. I still have three weeks of treatment left.”

  “Hang on.” Jax’s voice got indistinct, and Dane heard Oz’s deeper voice in the background. “Okay. We can wait until then.”

  “Christ, I know where this is going,” Gideon broke in. “It’s fucking contagious. Like the plague.”

  Dane smiled up at him. “The one in 1666, nineteen years before the Monmouth Rebellion?”

  “Shut up.” To Jax, Gideon said, “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You going to mix Thanksgiving turkeys and wedding bells?”

  “Well…,” Jax started.

  “For fuck’s sake, Jax, you’ve known him, what, six months? Even Theo waited at least a year.”

  “It’s been a year. We can’t all spend a couple decades making up our minds. Besides, do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved just to let me pick up one of the girls from school? Let alone if God forbid I had to take one to the ER and authorize treatment.”

  “I think you’re desperate to hear what it’s like to have someone call you Daddy,” Dane put as much of a leer as he was able into it.

  Jax laughed. “You are one sick bastard.”

  “Aw. You noticed.” Dane fluttered his eyelashes, though he knew Jax couldn’t see him.

  “Seems like you’d better make time for one last fuck for the two of you to get it out of your systems,” Gideon snapped.

  “Oh, G’s going all jealous husband.” Jax was still laughing.

  Dane glanced up at Gideon’s face. His eyes were narrowed, lips tight with real emotion. Heat flashed in Dane’s chest, warming him throat to belly. Gideon was actually jealous? Of Jax of all people? But it was only there for an instant, disappearing behind Gideon’s usual bland look of disdain.

  He sounded bored as he asked, “Are we getting to an actual point here? I need to—”

  Dane cut him off. “I think it’s cool, if this is what you guys want. When you get a date, I’ll be there. Even if I need an ambulance ride.”

  “You’d better be,” Jax said. “Promise?”

  “It’s a promise.” That one, at least, was easy enough to give.

  Chapter 17

  “WOULD YOU go to work or something?” Dane spat out. “You’re making me crazy.”

  Gideon stopped short at the foot of the bed. Everything inside shrank painfully at the sight of Dane curled around the bowl he was using to hold the bile of his dry heaves.

  “And no. I don’t want anything. Stop checking. Feels like a fucking death watch.” Dane retched.

  This was the worst week yet. Nothing was helping him stop puking, and he couldn’t get out of bed. Five days since the chemo. Gideon wanted to open one of his own veins and pour some life back into Dane.

  “Get the fuck out.” Dane threw the bowl, but it didn’t get far. There wasn’t much in it but spit.

  Gideon left to get some paper towels, and when he came back around the partition, Dane was crawling around wiping the floor with one of his T-shirts.

  Gideon knelt silently next to him, and Dane shoved at him. Gideon was pretty sure he could override the tantrum and put Dane into bed with sheer physical strength, but didn’t know if the outcome was worth what fighting would cost Dane. Instead Gideon wrapped himself around Dane, pulled them both down onto the floor, and dragged a blanket over them.

  “I hate this. I hate you for making me do this.” Dane’s voice was flat.

  Gideon absorbed the blows like he would have had Dane been swinging at him, locking the pain down tight in that dark pit where he kept it.

  “Can you just quit now? What does it take to make you quit?” Dane’s words were half plea, half snarl.

  Gideon thought about it. Thought about some of the things he’d heard at meetings, what should have made anyone take the easy out. “I don’t know.”

  “You weren’t there at the end with Mama T. Spencer was. Maybe that’s why he went looking for an escape so he didn’t have to admit he couldn’t do this.”

  Seventeen years and a marriage between them. Maybe now was time to finally have this conversation. Gideon stayed close to Dane under the blanket but released him so he was no longer pinned down.

  Gideon let out a careful breath. “Did it ever occur to you that Spencer really did fall in love?”

  Dane jerked away. “That again? Goddamned convenient time to find his soul mate or whatever shit that means.”

  “I know you don’t understand—”

  Dane scuttled away, pressed his back against a wall, and glared. “Do not give me that I know shit again. You don’t know what I’m dealing with.”

  Well, at least it wasn’t flat surrender anymore.

  Gideon pushed up from the floor and slapped his hands on either side of Dane’s legs. “Fine. Let me tell you what you don’t understand.” He swallowed and gathered himself. “You say you love me and Theo and Jax. Right. I love Theo and Jax too. But I would cut open either of their chests and feed you their still-beating hearts if I could save you from this.”

  Dane didn’t look away, not that he had any place to retreat to.

  “That’s what being in love means, Dane.”

  It was finally out there. Lying between them. And for a second, Gideon felt the weight of it lift from him. He’d let it go, this thing he’d been holding on to, and the world was still here. Dane was still here. And they were both in one piece.

  But the seconds ticked by. Silently. Gideon watched the emotions shift like currents across Dane’s face. Shock, comprehension, fear. Oh the fear. That was sticking around.

  Gideon’s bones felt liquefied. He’d dissolve into a sticky pile of jelly, and Dane would probably walk right through it.

  Gideon licked his lips. “You could say something.”

  Dane spread his hands. “I wish I knew what to say.” He made a helpless, frustrated sigh. “You want me to say that a shock ran through me, and now I get the meaning of life?”

  No, Gideon didn’t want that. Didn’t want gift-wrapped bullshit.

  “I know what you want, I do. Gods, Gideon, I think I’ve always known.” Dane blinked. “And I’m so damned sorry.” His eyes filled. “I just don’t know how to give it to you. I don’t want you to hate me for not being able to. If I try and can’t.” He wiped at his eyes. “I think that’s the only thing that scares me more than this fucking cancer. You hatin
g me.”

  Suddenly, Gideon was exhausted. He put his head on Dane’s thigh. “Don’t think that’s likely.”

  Dane’s hand landed on Gideon’s forehead, trembled for an instant, and then swept back through the tips of his hair. “I’m not so sure. Have you tried?”

  “Yes, more than once,” Gideon admitted. “It didn’t take.”

  “Sorry.” Dane sounded grimly sincere.

  Silence again.

  Dane’s hand stilled, and then he turned Gideon’s head up so their eyes met. “I don’t know if it means what you want it to, but there’s no one I needed more the past two months. No one I could have stood being around but you. Not Theo or Jax or… Spencer.”

  “Okay.” Was Gideon supposed to thank him for that?

  “And I’m sorry again to ruin the moment, but my adrenaline is fading and I need to—”

  Gideon scrambled up and got his hands on the bowl, passing it back just in time.

  AFTER THAT, they were careful with each other. Gods, so careful. Day after day. Dane felt Gideon’s watchful tenderness in everything he did, straining soup, piling on an extra blanket warmed in the dryer. Dane tried to offer consideration back, choking down his frustration along with the soup and admitting to the shakiness enough to ask Gideon for help standing in the shower. After the last—what Dane hoped would be the last for the right reasons—round of chemo, Dane obediently took the joint Gideon offered as soon as the first round of dry heaves stopped. Gideon lit it for him, but though Dane offered repeatedly, Gideon only took two hits, and there was no sexy shotgunning.

  For the first time, Dane measured his wants, held back his id with everything he had. Not because he thought Gideon would deny him anything, but because Gideon wouldn’t. That knowledge had always been there, but safely underground. Dane might have liked poking at the seismic cracks in it, getting a heady rush of heat from the intensity that bubbled between them. Gideon hadn’t complained, so Dane figured he liked it too. Now the surface had been stripped off, letting Dane see the danger, let him see the scars it had left on Gideon. They tiptoed around it, so very careful not to push each other in.

  The night before Jax’s wedding, a week after Dane’s last chemo, Gideon booked them into a suite at a Hilton. It was to be a church wedding no less, though held on a Friday afternoon, with a big family dinner as a reception. The rehearsal dinner had been a potluck served in the basement of Redemption Lutheran Church.

  That night, Jax met them and Theo for drinks at the sports bar attached to the Hilton. Just the superfriends, as Ayla, Oz’s older daughter, had dubbed them. Given how much the name amused Kieran and Oz, Dane was certain it would stick.

  “Should you be drinking?” Theo asked as Dane sucked on his frozen piña colada.

  “Seems like as good a time as any,” Dane told him. “The oncologist said I could resume whatever normal behavior I could tolerate. I have a PET scan scheduled for Wednesday. That decides if I need more chemo.”

  “God, I hope not.” Jax grabbed Dane’s wrist and squeezed. “Wait, isn’t Wednesday your birthday?”

  “Number thirty-six,” Dane agreed.

  “Last one to catch up.” Theo raised his glass to toast him, and Dane clinked glasses with him. With a wink, Theo snatched the purple umbrella and fruit stick. “Thanks.”

  “Oh shit. I forgot yours too.” Jax looked at Gideon.

  Eight days ago. It had been a pretty good night, Dane’s nausea under control enough to offer a birthday blow job.

  “I managed to achieve the same result without any festivity,” Gideon said, but Theo insisted on a toast for him.

  After they’d all returned their glasses to the table, Gideon picked up the umbrella Theo had abandoned and spun it like a top. “I do have an announcement to make.” He didn’t look up.

  The frozen slush in Dane’s throat spread throughout his chest, as icy as the sensation of the iodine contrast for one of the PET scans. He shivered under his thick sweater, wishing he were huddled under the fuzzy blanket in Gideon’s loft—or better, under Gideon.

  Gideon put a finger on the tip of the toothpick to halt the spin. “Assuming Dane’s scan comes back the way we hope and he’s feeling better, I’m going to take a vacation.”

  Not we’re going to, I’m going to. Dane couldn’t argue that Gideon didn’t need it. That was for damned sure.

  “I’m sorry, did you say the v-word?” Theo asked. “The one that starts with v and ends with n and has a-c-a-t-i-o in the middle?”

  Jax reached across to punch Gideon’s shoulder. “I don’t know if you understand what that word means, G. Are you sure you’re using it right?”

  “Yes, very entertaining.” Gideon lifted his whiskey but didn’t drink any.

  “So where are you guys heading?” Theo asked.

  “Someplace warm. So be sure to exclude me from any superfriend holiday plans. I will be gone until after the first of the year.”

  “Wait, just you?” Theo’s question was for Gideon, but Theo was looking at Dane.

  “That’s the plan.” Gideon stopped looking at his whiskey and drank it.

  Under the table, Jax put a hand on Dane’s thigh.

  The sympathy coming at Dane in waves was making him nauseous. Or maybe that was still the chemo. He didn’t want to think about it too much, so he picked up the umbrella and held it over Gideon’s head. “Be sure to pack your rubbers.”

  “Where will you be?” Jax asked Dane.

  If Gideon was planning their divorce already, Dane supposed he’d need a place to live, though he knew Gideon wouldn’t throw him out on the street. Dane had asked Gideon to find a lawyer to handle selling Dane’s half of the house, but that was as far as he’d gotten.

  Gideon looked up at the umbrella and then met Dane’s eyes as he answered Jax. “Wherever he wants to be.”

  Chapter 18

  GIDEON WAS surprised Dane made it as far as their hotel room before exploding. It must have killed him to wait as long as that.

  “You couldn’t say anything to me about your vacation before telling Theo and Jax?”

  Gideon slipped off his sport coat and hung it up. “You’re the one who keeps insisting there isn’t any difference between our relationship and the one you have with Theo and Jax.”

  “And you’re the one who said this”—Dane stuck up his finger with the thin gold band around it—“was just about a piece of paper and healthcare.”

  “Because it was—is.” Gideon suspected Dane would rather have lifted his middle finger.

  Dane kicked off his shoes and sagged onto the suite’s sofa. Typical Dane explosion, to the point and evaporating as quickly as rain on steaming pavement.

  “Then why did you get the rings? Why say you’re in love with me and then announce you’re taking off?” The hurt confusion in Dane’s voice found a familiar hook inside Gideon, tugging on an invisible cord.

  Did Dane think that things were just going to go on like they had? Why wouldn’t he? Gideon hadn’t done anything to make him doubt it for seventeen years.

  Gideon untucked his shirt, then, unable to bear that questing look in Dane’s eyes, went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

  Dane followed, lowered the toilet seat cover, and sat.

  Gideon glanced over at him. “It’s just a vacation. And I hadn’t really decided to go until that moment.”

  “Okay.” Dane let out a deep breath. “Why now?”

  Now was a hell of a time for Dane to develop persistence.

  Gideon brushed and rinsed before he answered. “It’s your fault.”

  Dane lurched to his feet. “Because I can’t give you back something I don’t know how to?”

  “No.”

  Dane stared down. “I can try. I will try. It’s not like I don’t want to.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Christ, you’d think with us both trying so hard not to hurt each other this wouldn’t feel like gargling with glass.

  Gideon wanted to reach
for Dane, but their bodies couldn’t solve it this time.

  Gideon jerked his head at the couch, and Dane followed him back out. “I said it was your fault because the ACOA meetings were your idea.”

  “And that’s what you learned, take a vacation? I’ve been telling you to take one for years.”

  “Fine.” Gideon got up and went into the bedroom. Dane followed him again. He should have gotten two bedrooms. And locked the door.

  “I’m sorry.” Dane pulled off his jeans and sweater and sat on the bed in boxers, socks, and a turtleneck. “I’m listening.”

  “Maybe I’m done talking.” Gideon turned away to strip for sleep. He wasn’t sure he even could explain it, how he had looked at his friends and seen the patterns he’d been learning about, that he’d thought he’d left his shitty family life behind only to surround himself with friends and create the kind of dysfunctional family therapists could diagram in their sleep. Rage had swelled in his chest until he wanted to clear the table with one swipe of his hand, walk out, and never see any of them again.

  No, if he tried to tell Dane about it, he’d make some joke about the fact that his upbringing should have made him love pussy, and then Gideon would have to punch a cancer patient in the mouth.

  He climbed under the covers and lay with his back to Dane.

  “I’m sorry,” Dane repeated. “I guess Jax isn’t the only one who clowns when he gets nervous.”

  Gideon rolled onto his back. “And Theo tries to pretend everything just needs a little work to be perfect, and I try to fix things.”

  Dane’s swallow was audible. “What do I do?”

  “You….” Gideon blew out a long breath, then started again. “You do what you want to, and I try to protect you from any consequences.”

  Gideon didn’t have to be touching Dane to feel him shrink away. It was palpable in the air in the room.

  “So the cancer is a consequence now?” Dane’s voice was ragged.

  “No, this has nothing to do with your cancer.”

  “Spencer?”

  “No.” Well, not all of it. “I need to spend some time away and try to do things differently.” Because that pit where he’d been able to keep everything so nice and safe was starting to boil over and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—turn into his father.