He wasn’t going to bet on anything yet, but to Brett, it seemed like perhaps there was a chance that a miracle could happen. It didn’t seem quite as impossible as before, that was all. Not that he was rushing out to pick out china patterns or anything.
“Do you think you could handle it?” John prompted, and it was only then, looking at John’s slightly worried face, that Brett realized that he had just been standing there thinking at the other man. But there was just so much that he was thinking and feeling that he was having a hard time knowing what the right thing to say was. “You know, the married with kids thing?”
Brett took a deep breath. He was going to mess this all up if he didn’t say something, and if he worried too much about what the right thing was, he was going to never say anything at all.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t enough, maybe. It felt like there weren’t enough words in the world to express himself, and this new thing between them, whatever it was, it felt so fragile, maybe so easily broken. So he contented himself with the one word, walking very slowly through the snow beside a man that he loved so much it hurt.
If only he could be brave enough to put that out there.
John didn’t push it, though. That was probably a good thing. They just walked together, and when the hot cocoa was gone, both of them tossed their empty cups in a nearby garbage can. The sun was going down now, making the lights shimmer and glow, more beautiful than ever in the gathering darkness.
As they walked around the pond, the back of Brett’s hand brushed against John’s, bare skin to bare skin. John’s hands were so much warmer than Brett’s were, and John must have felt it, too. He took Brett’s hand in his own, perhaps feeling that it was safe because it was so dark and no one would see.
Their fingers linked together, and it seemed to fit. Their bodies, in general, despite the difference in size between them, seemed to slot together absolutely flawlessly.
It was the right time, Brett knew it. If he was ever going to tell his best friend that he was hopelessly, helplessly, utterly in love with him, it would be now, with the light snow filling the air and the children laughing around them and the frozen, postcard-perfect pond.
On the other hand.
He could lose so much. He could lose everything that they were too each other, the most important relationship in his life. So, in the end, he let himself lapse into silence, just sneaking little looks at John instead of speaking. If John looked into his eyes, he told himself, John would know. Without Brett needing to say a word.
But every time that Brett looked over, John was looking at something else. And it was probably better that way.
