“Wait a second. I have Sunday brunch. Maddox invited me earlier in the week. Didn’t mention anything about you.” Apollo laughed.
“I think our friends are setting us up.” Dylan nudged his shoulder. “Probably best if one of us cancels—”
“What? No way.” Apollo gave him a resounding kiss. “I say let’s arrive together and save them the trouble of a setup.”
“Seriously?” The wonder in Dylan’s words wounded Apollo. Man, he really had been a dick to Dylan all summer. “You don’t mind if they know?”
“No. I want them to know. I want us to wake up together and go hang out, and I want to meet this roommate of yours and your soccer team. I don’t only want to fuck around. I want to date you.”
“Date? Me? Like really date?”
“Like really date,” Apollo confirmed. He’d done a lot of thinking on this. “It would be too easy to beg you to move back in, but that’s not what either of us needs right now. You need to know that I want you for more than what you bring to the family, and we both need to go slow.”
“You do have a thing about slow,” Dylan grumbled.
“I want to take you to my favorite places around here. I want...” He took a breath, not sure he could voice this part of his plan aloud, but not able to keep it in either. “I want us to fall in love. Like actually fall in love. Like be a real couple—”
“Too late.” Dylan kissed him. “I’m already there. And we don’t need flowers and dancing to be a real couple. Give me fish taco night and Netflix after the girls are asleep anytime. Just give me you and I’m happy.”
“Really?” Apollo rolled him underneath him, looming over him.
“Really.” Dylan stretched up to meet his mouth. “And take all the time you need, all the dates you need, hell, I’ll follow you to the zoo if that’s what it takes, but...” Dylan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Yes, let’s fall in love. Fall in love with me.”
“I will.” Moisture stung Apollo’s eyes as he kissed Dylan hard. Dylan met him strength for strength as their bodies moved together like they’d been doing this for years. Like they would be doing this for years.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nine months later
“Is he here yet?” Chloe bounced in her new booster seat. They’d grown so much in the past few months that Apollo had been forced to upgrade their car seats, just one more in a series of signs that they were growing up, their almost-six-year-old legs dangling down to kick against the seat. “I want to make my pizza.”
“I’m going to read the menu,” Sophia said archly, eager to show off her new talent. “But where’s Dylan? It’s his party!”
“Shh,” Apollo reminded them. “He doesn’t know it’s a party, only that we’re going to Cucina for dinner. A nice dinner, where you will remember your manners, right?”
“Yes, Baba,” they both answered in singsong voices.
“So we can’t tell that Ya-Ya or Dustin or—”
“Here he comes,” Apollo cut Chloe off before she could list all the people meeting them at the restaurant for Dylan’s combined birthday and school/job news celebration. They were picking him up from work at the Boys and Girls club where Dylan had been named the summer day camp director and also received a raise to continue on next fall, when he’d also be doing graduate school part-time.
Which Apollo was not at all freaked out about. No, not him. Look at them making plans for the next year and him not—
“Why do you look like you’re going to be fed nails not steak?” Dylan slid into the passenger seat, leaning in for a quick kiss. “Nervous?”
“Me?” Apollo was not nervous. Not at all. He didn’t do nervous. And besides how would he know... “What did the girls tell you?”
“The girls?” Dylan’s face wrinkled up. “They didn’t have to tell me that you’re on edge about next week. But I took the day off to go with you. It will be fine, I promise.”
Apollo grunted. He’d finally given in to Dylan’s urgings about seeing the specialist about his back, and after a series of diagnostics, he had a surgical consult scheduled for next week. Like so much else in his life, he had to stop letting his fear of the unknown stop him from doing what he knew might help. He rubbed his puzzle tattoo absently before starting the car.
“Happy birthday,” he said, eager to change the subject from his back. “Did the kids all sing to you?”
“Yeah.” Dylan smiled fondly. “I brought cupcakes, so they were thrilled. They all laughed at how old I am now.”
“Ancient,” Apollo said dryly. He was still older, still trying to not let that bug him as much as it once had. But it still prickled at him, especially on nights like this when thoughts of the future kept plaguing him, with good reason.
They arrived at the restaurant, and Dylan helped him unload the girls, holding their hands as they walked into the place.
“Floros,” he told the server, who led them not to a table but to the group event space known as the wine shop.
Dylan’s eyes went wide. “What did you do?”
“Me?” Apollo played innocent as they rounded the corner and everyone called out, “Surprise!”
Dustin greeted his brother with a hug and Apollo with a sage look. They’d talked yesterday, in one of the more awkward conversations of their friendship, but he gave Apollo a discreet thumbs-up now. Ben and Maddox were there as well as Dylan’s roommates and Allie and a few of his other work friends. Zack, newly returned from overseas and looking even more buff than usual, was there with an arm around Pike.
Apollo’s mother had big hugs for Dylan and the girls. It was nice to see his mother sparkle again—something about having Dylan around seemed to have revitalized the whole family.
Apollo had invited Pat and Marilyn, who genuinely did seem to like Dylan and accept his place in Apollo’s life, not that there hadn’t been a few rocky moments over the early months, but they’d demurred, Pat because of the large crowd and Marilyn because she said she didn’t want to intrude on a night that should be about him and Dylan. Which made sense, even though Apollo did kind of want them here. They would always be a huge part of his family and nothing was going to change that.
“You did this?” Dylan looked up at Apollo with the sort of awe he usually reserved for bedroom activities. “Thank you.”
“Baba, look at the presents!” Sophia pointed to the table. “Do our present now too!”
“It’s already on the table.” Apollo dropped his voice, trying to encourage her to do the same.
“I want Dylan to have our present first.” Chloe stuck her lower lip out, not at all lowering her voice. “Baba, you promised!”
“There’s a present on top of the party?” Dylan’s eyes were wide and his voice wavered. The way he worried his lip with his teeth said that he had an idea what was coming. Apollo couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.