“I love you because we don’t fit. I love you because we are both such a mess, such a fucking disaster—I love you because we—I mean, we have kids and lives and jobs and all I can think about doing for the rest of my life is sharing those things with you and trying not to mess them up and fucking you on every available surface, by the way. I love you because I left; I love you because I should have stayed. I love you with every fucking part of me.

“And you—I don’t know if you feel the same way, and I know I don’t deserve it, but I just wanted you to know that I—You’re everything I was too stupid to admit I needed. Whatever you choose, now, I just need you to know—Theo fucking Beaumont.” He paused—Theo had almost laughed. “I have loved you every single day of my life. I will go on loving you until I have no more life left.

“And I will love you if you love me back or if you walk away.”

Jack was scraped clean, hollowed out, and maybe he hadn’t breathed enough during all that, because he felt dizzy and sick. He’d never been able to talk like that—hadn’t been capable of feeling like that. But while he was making an utter embarrassing ass of himself, Theo had turned, wound his fingers through Jack’s hair, met his wet eyes with gray irises like a storm, clearing.

“Jack.” His breath shook. “I can’t live through you leaving again. I can’t do it.”

“I won’t. Ever.”

“We have children.”

“They’ll sort themselves out.” Jack sniffled, not particularly attractively.

Theo did laugh, and he looked so—“I think your ex-wife is secretly a nymphomaniac.”

“I’m openly a nymphomaniac. For you.”

Theo’s eyes clouded, just for a moment. “We should probably be reasonable.”

“I am so fucking done with being reasonable.”

He snorted, and ran his hand down Jack’s neck, and—“Genni hates you, you know.”

“I had noticed that. But I—don’t repeat this—I think I love her, for how much she loves you. She is kind of scary, though.”

And Theo gracefully ignored that last bit, and he was leaning closer, face so tender and warm and scared—“You owe me. A lot.”

“I’ll pay you back. Whatever—however long—do you want a vacation? Expensive gifts? Sexual slavery? The entire walk-in closet? Or I can get you that cat—lots of cats—any number of—”

“Jack.” Theo was smiling and smiling.

“What?”

“Shut up.”