“Ach, Connor.” Donal said something in Gaelic, too low and too soft for his son to hear. “I’d never have wanted any of my children to take up the badge if they didn’t want it.”
“I was a little boy, Da,” he explained. “And you came home wearing a uniform and carrying the world. How could I not want to be that man? Be you? And yes, I probably wanted to be a cop because you were one, but I love it. It’s who I am. It’s the part of me I don’t question.”
“But ye question this man in your life? That ye love him?”
“I don’t know if I love him. Maybe. Maybe I’m just… I don’t know.” Connor collapsed back into the soft couch, rubbing his face in frustration. “Everything’s gone cattywampus and upside down. I had a plan—career, house, and then a wife. Children. And now….”
“No one is saying ye can’t have those things. Well, except for the wife. This Forest boy might be having a problem with that,” Donal teased as he ran his hand through his son’s hair.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that. For this.”
“I’m going to ask ye a question, and I want ye to think about it before ye answer,” Donal said gently. “Is he the first man ye’d thought about this with? To be with?”
Connor leaned into his father’s touch, a comforting, firm hand on the back of his head. They’d sat so many times in the same position, often in the dimly lit study while his father watched footie games on the television or while working on his reports. Donal’s touch anchored Connor as much as his dreams had, a forever kind of tether to the world around him.
He’d feared he’d lose that touch, that anchor, when he’d spilled his secrets to his father, and now in the light of a Sunday afternoon, Connor found himself adrift, even with his father holding him steady and firm.
“I’d watch Rafe,” Connor admitted softly. “When we were in school. Something about him. Before we were really close, and he was just Sionn’s friend, I’d watch him. I used to tell myself it was because he was… lost, because he needed saving of some kind, but now I don’t know.”
“Rafe’s a handsome boy,” Donal replied. “A bit of a fuck-up, but he’s worked hard to be back on his feet. He’s had a rough time of it from the start.”
“I couldn’t fix him, Da. And we tried.” Connor shook his head at the years of frustration he’d had with Rafe in his life. “But he was the first, I think. The first time I wondered, but then I put it all away. I couldn’t… think on that. There were women—and I love women. I love the way they smell and feel on me and how their skin tastes on my tongue, but there’s been times when I’ve wondered—when I’ve thought about how it would be.”
“Lately?” his father asked. “Before yer Forest? Or just about him?”
“About Miki—but just for about a second, Da,” he confessed, shunting his gaze away from his father to stare at the opposite wall where their lives played out in framed photos. “I wondered how it would be with him—just for a few moments when Kane introduced him. Something about him kicked me in the gut, and I had to take a step back. I’d never touch him—he’s Kane’s—but it was there. That wildness about him. I could see why Kane wanted him, and I’d never had that before—that recognition of why a man would touch some part of me.”
“And now Forest.” Donal sighed and rubbed at Connor’s head once more before sliding his hand down his son’s back to pat at his shoulders. “Ye can’t let him go, then? Do ye even want to?”
“He haunts me, Da. Worse than a sunburn I cannot wait to heal but at the same time tightens my skin so I can’t not feel him. I see him, and I want to touch him, to hold him, because I don’t think he’s been held enough or been told someone cares about him. He’s had a shite hippie who took him in off the streets and who probably loved him but didn’t give him any kind of self.” Connor pulled himself away from the wall of family and friends. “He’s not had any of this, and I want to give it to him. I want to lie in bed with him when it rains and listen to the water hit the roof. I find myself wondering how the coffee foam on his lip would taste on my tongue or if I could make him smile by blowing a raspberry on his belly. It’s not just want, Da. It’s need. I need him. And for the life of me, I fucking don’t know what to do with that. I wanted to be like you, Da. And I don’t know—”
“All I want is for ye to be Connor,” Donal cut in and looped his arm around Connor’s shoulders, giving him a quick squeeze. “Ye don’t need to be me. I don’t want ye to be me. I want ye to be the best Connor ye can be. That’s the man I raised, not this Ken doll ye’ve built around yerself.”
“And if that means I want to be with a man? Then what?”
“Then ye’re with a man.” He shrugged. “What difference does it make who ye love so long as ye love? That’s what I told yer brothers. That’s what I’m telling ye. Are ye telling me they’re less of a man than ye because they love who they love?”