Make Me Whole (40 page)

Galen nudged Nick with his hip. “I had help.”

“No.” His dad’s gaze slid to the first statue in the Dexios Collection. “I wanted to wait for you.”

“Well, come on. We’ll show you around.” Nick took Galen’s hand. “Unless you have to get back to your guests.”

Galen’s brown eyes sparkled. “Your dad is one of our guests; besides, I think I’ve earned a little break.”

T
HE
moonlight shone down into the now-deserted exhibit room, and the museum was quiet once more. Galen loved the museum at night. It was almost as if he could hear the pulse of the place, the energy it collected during the day shining back at him. And tonight that energy had been very good.

Nick came up behind him and slid his arms around his waist. “You and Suzane did an amazing job, pulling this exhibit and gala together. What are you going to do with all the donations?”

“Oh, I have plenty of things in mind, activities I’d like to sponsor with the workshop, maybe putting in some computers for digital art and a photo lab for the purists. As much as I love the museum part and do want to open a third, final room someday for the public, I want to work more with the kids first.”

“I think that will make you very happy.”

They stood in silence, and Galen let Nick’s presence be a balm to the ache of the last week. He was here. He’d come. Galen didn’t know what spurred Nick’s change of heart, but he was determined that he wasn’t going to let past resentments steal their tomorrow. That was, if Nick still wanted a tomorrow. Galen hoped for it, and he’d find a way to fight for it.

Nick let go of Galen and turned him around. “Apologies aren’t
enough, but here they are. I’m sorry I blew things way out of
proportion with you and Vincent. I know that I have to let go of my past and my fears. I swear to you, Galen, I really will focus on getting past that. I had no right to go off on you like I did.”

Galen smiled as one of the worries that had been nagging him about their relationship left him. He could see a conviction in Nick’s eyes that had been missing before. “I have my faults, God knows, too many of them, but I won’t take you for granted. And I have to apologize too. I didn’t realize how much I hurt you when I walked away like that. This last week has given me a taste of what you went through, so I think I understand where you’re coming from a little more. I’m sorry, and I wish I could say that I would have done it differently, maybe had lunch on occasion, hooked up on the net, I don’t know. I was coming out of a bad place and trying to work through it day by day.”

“I know you’ve tried telling me that so many times, and I didn’t listen like I should have. There are so many things I regret. I kept telling you that I wanted you to stay, and I didn’t realize how much I was pushing you away at the same time. I was so afraid that the past would repeat itself.”

“Like what happened with the other couples and the curse?” Galen asked, and even as Nick nodded he knew that wasn’t the real driving force behind the fear that had been his excuse. “And with your mom?”

“Yeah.”

The quiet way Nick said that tugged at Galen’s heart. “I was a jackass too. I shouldn’t have walked out like I did, especially after you told me about your mom. I’m so sorry for pulling a stunt like that. There was no excuse for it.”

Nick tilted his head up to look at the skylights and drew in a breath, as if to fortify himself. “I… after you left I did call you and asked you to come back. I’d always told myself that I wouldn’t ask somebody to stay when they wanted to leave, but I couldn’t not call you. When I got your message the next day I realized that you hadn’t gotten mine, and I punked out. I should’ve called you again. I should’ve at least tried to beg you to come back home. You are worth me laying aside my damned pride.” The raw pain in Nick’s expression and voice made Galen ache inside too, and it took a moment for his words to register. “It just… I… I was so afraid that the answer would be no and that you were gone for good.”

“Wait a minute. I left a note saying I was just going to be gone for the night. I asked you to meet me at the café for breakfast.” Galen broke off as Nick stared at him in confusion, and a horrible sinking realization struck him. “You didn’t see the note?”

“I… I didn’t see a note.” Nick searched Galen’s face, his brow lined, his jaw set. “I don’t understand. If you only wanted to be gone a night why did you move out?”

“I didn’t move out. I packed a duffel bag. You brought all my stuff here. You kicked me out.” Though as he thought about it he realized that he hadn’t actually seen Nick move the boxes, he just assumed, and the expression of confused heartbreak on Nick’s face told him all he needed to know. “Lykon.”

“You’re not making any sense. I swear I didn’t kick you out. The last thing I wanted was for you to leave.”

Galen touched a hand to Nick’s chest. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.” The weight of the realization struck him even harder, and his eyes stung. He couldn’t imagine what Nick had felt when he came home to an empty apartment, with no note, no word, just Galen gone. “It’s my fault. I was so upset after the fight that I let Lykon take over for a while. I assumed he’d go back to the museum to be with Dexios. I never thought that he would do something like this. He must’ve been the one to pack everything.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nick said, sounding bewildered as he turned his head to look at the statues. “Why would Lykon do something like that? He had so much at stake. Why would he try to sabotage us? Didn’t we have enough shit to work through?”

“I don’t know.” This time Galen touched a hand to his own chest, but all he got from Lykon was a sense of stillness. “He mentioned tests, but I didn’t really pay that much attention to him. Every relationship is tested, so I thought he was just talking in metaphors.”

“I… I feel like such an idiot.” Nick turned back to Galen, still looking a little lost. “Why he did it doesn’t really matter, though I think there’s something in the old myths about it. What matters is that I should’ve done more, sooner. After everything that has happened, you taking that time away and what has been going on with the statues and the family legends, I just played it all up in my head. I just kept waiting for you to leave, like you already had, like how Lykon had left, and I was forgetting that you came back like he had come back. I focused on the wrong thing. I’ve been such an asshole. I don’t know how you can forgive me.”

Galen stared at Nick, his thoughts tumbling over themselves in a chaotic rush. Nick had believed Galen had walked out on him the way that his mom had walked out. And despite that belief, despite his fears, he’d shown up tonight. His heart started beating faster, and his throat ached.

“Shut up, Nick.”

Nick’s apologetic litany stopped, and Galen smiled at him as an aching joy filled him up. “Forgiving you is easy. For one, you didn’t make me wait six months. And you came back too. Just when I needed you the most, you didn’t let me down. Thank you for coming tonight. I needed you.”

“I was worried that I’d ruin it for you by coming.”

“No, you made the night for me. It wouldn’t have been right without you,” Galen said, sliding his hand through Nick’s hair. “You had every reason in the world to give up on us, to be so damned afraid that it would be easy to choose to let it all fall apart, and you still came. That tells me everything I need to know.”

A look of profound relief crossed Nick’s face, and then he was kissing Galen, holding him tightly. Galen had missed this so much. Just the chance to hold Nick again lifted the weight that had been holding him down.

“I love you,” Galen said softly when they broke apart.

“I love you too.” Nick cupped Galen’s face and kissed him again. “I’ve got to give it to you. You’re one persistent bastard. Thank you for that.”

Galen laughed at Nick’s lighter tone, feeling so damn free after the misery of the last week. “A note of warning, I can be a serious nuisance when I want something, and I want you. Whether you knew it or not, when I was hurting you gave me something good to strive for, you helped me to find the strength to heal the broken bits inside of me. Even after we got together and I was still afraid of taking new steps to put the accident behind me, you were there for me. Thank you.”

“I’m choosing you, no matter the risk,” Nick swore, his expression becoming serious. “You helped me too, even when I didn’t know I was broken. You helped me to reach beyond my fear so I could connect with my family again. It’s kind of funny, we’ve been concentrating so much on the statues, but really we were the ones who needed to be whole first.”

“We did it. Together,” Galen said, looking up at him.

“No more running, for both of us.”

“That’s a promise I can live with.”

Nick’s thumb brushed across Galen’s cheek, and he leaned closer, touching his forehead to Galen’s. “Come home, Galen. I’ve missed you so much. Please come home with me.”

“You don’t know how much I’ve been waiting to hear those words. I can’t believe I thought you’d moved me out. I should’ve known better.”

“No more regrets. No more looking at the past. We’re just going to look forward from now on.”

Galen smiled and felt Lykon tug free. Lykon appeared next to them and crossed his arm over his chest in a private salute before turning toward the final statue. Nick tensed, and Galen held his breath as they watched Lykon go to Dexios, who reached up and pulled him down into his embrace. The statue shimmered, and Galen could see Lykon lying down and facing him, both of them so lost in each other. The outline was there, but they weren’t whole yet.

“So close,” Galen groaned, aching for them. “Have they ever been this close to being together again?”

“I don’t think so.” Nick turned Galen away, his gaze unshadowed. “But I know it’ll happen now. It’s just a matter of time.”

Galen smiled back at that certainty and nodded. He felt it too, in Lykon’s joy as he left him, in the contentment and love in the statue’s embrace. He felt it in the way Nick held him, in this confidence in their own love. “Yeah, very soon, I think.”

“I wish we had a chance to say good-bye,” Nick said softly as he looked at Dexios and Lykon.

“They’re happy, they’re together, and they intend on just holding each other until the last threads of the curse are broken.” Galen laid his head against Nick’s shoulder, content in a way that he couldn’t explain, in a way that he had not been in a long time. “I could sense it when he left me.”

He sighed and kissed Nick’s temple. “Take me home.”

Nick squeezed him hard and held him just a moment longer, conveying how much he wanted that in his embrace, and his voice was rough when he finally answered. “Gladly.”

“W
E
ARE
gathered here today in a place that celebrates love of all kinds, to witness the joining of Nicholas Charisteas and Galen Kanellis.”

Dexios woke up with a shudder at the sound of those words as the last tie tethering him to bronze and copper snapped. He rose from the confines of his prison and looked back at the final statue, where Lykon lay permanently locked in his embrace. They had lain together just like that for the last year, ever since Galen had gone home with Nick. They had waited, content to hold each other, for the final chain in the curse to be broken when Galen and Nick made their vows to each other.

“I thought they would disappear with us,” Lykon said as he took his place by Dexios’s side.

Dexios drew a breath and picked Lykon up, swinging him around in a tight embrace as a feeling of completion, of coming alive again struck him. Trembling, he set Lykon down and stared into his flushed, beaming face.

“Perhaps they’ll serve as a reminder,” Dexios said softly, touching his hand to Lykon’s cheek. “They are almost there, and she is allowing us to witness it.”

They looked at Nick and Galen, who stood in the center of the exhibit room and faced each other with smiles on their faces and tenderness in their eyes. Their hands were linked and their voices confident as they repeated their vows to each other. An older woman with a cap of silvery-blonde fine curls smacked Galen on the arm when he pretended to look in his pocket. She handed him a ring with a shake of her head.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Galen said as he slipped the ring on Nick’s finger before lifting his hand to give it a kiss.

“They look happy,” Lykon said in a low voice as he leaned against Dexios, moving under the curve of his arm.

“They are happy.” Dexios’s arm tightened around him. “They are a part of us, and we are a part of them. Their joy is our own.”

“I would make my own vow to you, one that I should never have broken. For an eternity, I am simply yours. Where you go, I will follow, until we are no more.”

Dexios turned and faced him as Nick slid a ring on Galen’s finger. “I have my own promise to make as well. I acted in haste. I did not give you the understanding that you needed. I will not do so again. If you need my ear, you have it. If you desire my patience, it is yours for howsoever long it is needed.”

Lykon tugged Dexios to him and kissed him hard. “These promises will not be forsaken. We should go, the Elysian Fields await us.”

“Why?” Dexios grinned as Lykon looked at him in confusion. “We have an entire world to explore, an island to make ours. That is Cythera’s gift to us.” As Lykon’s eyes widened, another voice brought their attention back to the couple who had broken their curse.

“Nick and Galen, I pronounce you husband and husband. You may seal your vows with a kiss.”

Dexios sensed the leap of Nick’s heart, and his own joined it as he and Lykon turned to face the couple again. Nick grinned and caught Galen up in an embrace, bestowing on him a heated kiss that left Galen flushed and breathless. They turned with linked hands to face their friends and families, and Galen gasped, his mouth falling open as his gaze landed on the fourth statue.

He nudged Nick, thrusting his chin toward it, and Nick’s eyes widened. They both turned, searching the room, and went still as they saw Dexios and Lykon. Nick lifted their linked hands in a salute. Dexios and Lykon did the same.