Best Laid Plans Read online

  “Yes, it’s….” He’d become very pale, and Tad was afraid he was going to be sick. “Thaddeus, may I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “All this… the flowers and candles and music, this dinner…. Are you breaking up with me? I’ll… I’ll understand if you are,” he said hurriedly. “I mean, I know I’m not like any of the guys you’ve dated, and… I’m sorry. I’m being stupid. I won’t make a scene.” Rush rose to his feet. “I’ll let you go.”

  Tad jumped to his feet as well, feeling a little sick himself. Had he been wrong about Rush’s slip earlier? Had Rush been distancing himself from Tad all along because he’d never had any intention of making it work between them? Well, fuck that!

  “Listen to me, Dalton, it ain’t gonna work,” he snarled.

  “Excuse me? What isn’t going to work?”

  “Don’t try that adorable confused expression. You know exactly what I’m talking about—breaking up with me.”

  “I don’t want to break up with you. Why would I want to do that? I love you.” Rush suddenly looked scared. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you that.”

  Tad was so relieved he wanted to pull Rush into his arms and hug him and kiss him and…. Instead, he pulled the chain from out of his shirt and whipped it over his head. “Here. Hold this.”

  Clearly confused, Rush took it, barely giving it a glance.

  “Now, why weren’t you going to tell me you love me?”

  “No one wants to hear that.” A tear spilled down his cheek.

  “I do.”

  “No one…. You do?” Color flooded back into Rush’s cheeks.

  “Yep. I don’t want to break up with you, and I don’t want you to let me go. I don’t understand why you’d think I would. I thought things were going well between us.”

  “You… you seemed to like having sex with me, and… but then this….” Rush looked away. “Emmett… when he’s ready to break up with whatever girl he’s seeing, he does this.” Rush waved his hand around, encompassing the candlelight, flowers, dinner. “And then he gives her one of the roses and sends her home in a cab.”

  That asshole. Tad gritted his teeth. “I’m not Emmett.” He really wanted to meet Rush’s middle brother so he could kick the shit out of the son of a bitch.

  “I know you’re not, Tadder, and it’s a good thing too, because that would be incest.”

  “All I have to say is ewww. And ick. I think I have to wash my brain with bleach.” As he’d hoped, that made Rush laugh, but he could see Rush was still upset. He took a deep breath. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. He dropped down onto one knee. “I love you, Rush Dalton, and I want you to marry me. Will you?”

  Rush’s eyes grew huge. “You… you want to marry me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You’re serious?” He looked into Tad’s eyes. “You’re serious!”

  “Yes, I am. That’s what the ring is for.”

  “What ring?”

  “The one you’re holding.”

  Rush opened his hand and stared down at the band resting in his palm. “Wait a second. This looks familiar. Did you trick me into trying this on last week?”

  “I did. Now don’t keep me hanging. What’s your answer?”

  “Oh!” Rush unfastened the chain and slid the hemp ring off. “Here.” He gave the ring back to Tad, but before the bottom could drop out of Tad’s world, Rush extended his left hand with the fingers spread apart. “What are you waiting for, Tadder-my-Tad? Put it on my finger.”

  “You’ll marry me?”

  “Of course I will, you dope! Didn’t I just get done telling you I love you?”

  Tad slid the ring on Rush’s finger, surged to his feet and pulled him into a rib-cracking hug, and kissed him, thoroughly mapping the interior of his mouth before drawing back slightly to whisper, “I love you, Rushboy.”

  “I love you too, Tadder-my-Tad.”

  “When do you want to tell everyone?”

  “Can we surprise them in the morning?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. Come on.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Rush’s smile was incandescent as he led Tad toward the bedroom. “Dessert can wait for later, don’t you think?”

  It was a good thing Miss Abby’s cheesecake was in the fridge. They never did get to it.

  ***

  THE CANDLES HAD long since flickered and gone out, and the last track on the last of the CDs had come to an end. The light of the early dawn was gradually filtering in through the lone window in the small bedroom.

  Rush stretched and sighed happily, blanketed by the warmth of his fiancé’s body. Making love with Tadder had always rocked his world, and this past night had been no exception, but somehow, it had been even more. Maybe it was because they’d committed themselves to each other.

  He reached down to smooth a hand over Tadder’s firm butt. Tadder’s hum of pleasure turned to a yelp when Rush pinched it.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for?”

  “I wanted to make sure this was real, that I wasn’t dreaming.” He held his hand up and studied the ring on his finger. He’d seen more ostentatious and expensive rings—his mother, for instance, wore a platinum band encrusted with diamonds whose weight totaled more than three karats—but as far as he was concerned, this ring woven from hemp was the most beautiful ring in the world.

  “Aren’t you supposed to pinch yourself?”

  “Maybe, but I figured it would be just a valid if I pinched you.”

  “And not as painful.” Tadder ran his fingertips over Rush’s ribs, knowing after all this time how ticklish he was, and digging in with just enough pressure that Rush convulsed beneath him.

  “No more! No more!” Rush finally begged, breathless.

  Tadder stopped immediately. He slid off Rush and pulled him close. “I love you,” he whispered in Rush’s ear. “I’m gonna tell you that so much and so often you’re gonna get tired of hearing it.”

  “I love you too, Tadder, and I’ll never get tired of hearing you say those three words to me.”

  Tadder kissed him, and then put Rush at arm’s length “We’ve got to make plans.”

  “Must we?” Rush stared at Tadder’s mouth.

  “We must.”

  “All right. What plans?”

  “Well, we have to decide when we’re getting married, for one thing. Oh, babe, I can’t wait to see you in a tux. You’re gonna look so hot.”

  Rush blushed and pressed a kiss to the corner of Tadder’s mouth, then ran his lips along the side of Tadder’s throat, nipping and licking.

  “You’re distracting me,” Tadder said hoarsely, but before Rush could pull away, he continued, “I’ll give you about an hour to stop.”

  “No, no, never let it be said that I did anything that interfered with your plans for our wedding.” Rush’s laugh was joyous as Tadder wrestled him under his body and plundered his mouth.

  ***

  “IT JUST KEEPS getting better and better,” Rush murmured afterward. This time he was lying on Tadder.

  “It does, doesn’t it? We’ll have to check our class schedules.”

  “Excuse me?” The sudden change of topic confused him. “For what?”

  “Choosing the day we get married.”

  “That’s right; we’re getting married.” He wriggled against Tadder.

  “You’re gonna start something.” Their dicks nudged each other but were too sated to respond.

  “Okay.”

  Tadder nipped his shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  “Someone has to be the adult.”

  “I guess that would be me.” He knew his put-upon sigh didn’t fool Tadder, though. “Okay, seriously. Our wedding. Hmm. I don’t have any plan
s for next weekend.”

  “I love you so much!” Tadder hugged him. “No, we’ll want something longer than a weekend so we can have time for our honeymoon.”

  “Our honeymoon?”

  “Yep. I’m thinking maybe around winter break?”

  Rush felt all squishy inside that his boyfriend—no, Tadder was his fiancé now—his fiancé wanted to take him on a honeymoon.

  “Could we… could we get married at maybe five minutes to midnight on Christmas Eve, so that when we say I do, it’s Christmas Day? If… if you wouldn’t mind?”

  Tadder took his hands. “Why would I mind? That’s a great idea.”

  Rush freed his hands and wrapped his arms around Tadder’s neck. “Thank you,” he whispered against Tadder’s neck. “You’re giving me the best Christmas present ever.” But then some of Rush’s joy faded. “We’ll have to invite my family. Mother and Father won’t be pleased.”

  “How did they react when you told them we were dating? Rush?”

  “Don’t… please don’t be mad at me, Tadder. I… I never told them about us.”

  Tadder growled something under his breath, and Rush thought it was just as well he couldn’t understand it.

  “I’m sorry. But never think it was because I wasn’t proud you were my boyfriend. I promise you, it was never that!”

  “Oh, baby, I know.” He rubbed Rush’s back and sighed. “Momma and Grandpa Eleazar aren’t gonna be happy either. Grandpa Eleazar probably won’t say much, because he knows after all the grief he gave Daddy and JT I wouldn’t have a problem cutting him out of my life, but Momma will pitch a hissy fit to end all hissy fits.” He shrugged. “We’ll worry about that when we have to. You just make sure I’m with you when you tell your parents we’re getting married. If they give you a hard time…”

  “Thank you.” Rush nestled against Tadder and bit down hard on his lower lip, trying to prevent tears from falling. No one had ever stood up for him to his parents before. “I love you so much,” he whispered.

  “Just remember, Rushboy. You’re not alone anymore.”

  No, he wasn’t. Not only did he have Tadder, but there was Mr. Jack, and Becca, and…

  “Tadder, I want JT to be our best man.”

  “What a great idea. He’s gonna love that. I’ll bet he cries when we ask him. He’s such a softy, you know.”

  “Smile when you call him that!”

  Tadder gave him a look. “Do you think I’m nuts? Becca may be able to get away with calling him that to his face, but I like my balls right where they are, thank you very much.”

  “As if JT would ever hurt you.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  “I do know what you mean, though. The last thing I’d want to do is insinuate he’s anything but the rough, tough leather daddy that he is.”

  “You’re a sweetheart, you know that?”

  It was Rush’s turn to give him a look, but his heart gave a little flutter as well. “How did I wind up so lucky?”

  Tadder pounced on him—that was the only way to describe that action—and brought their mouths together in a soft, luscious kiss. Rush hummed in pleasure. He did love it when his… his fiancé kissed him.

  Tadder drew back enough to say, “Y’know what? Maybe we can get JT and Miss Lizzie to play the piano for us.”

  “Could we?”

  “Why not? They used to play together when they were little; JT told Becca and me about it once. And Daddy bought that baby grand just for him.”

  “That would be great.” Back before he and Tadder had started dating, Rush slept so poorly he would often hear the soft music coming from the far end of the house after everyone had gone to bed. A few times he’d slipped out of bed to listen. Sometimes he’d found Tadder there too, as well as Becca and Mr. Jack. JT had been so lost in the music—Gershwin, Mozart, Ravel, even the Beatles—that he’d never been aware of his audience.

  “We need a song for him to play especially for us. I was thinking ‘The Look of Love.’”

  “Uh…I always thought ‘You Take My Heart Away’ when I thought of us.”

  “Huh? Which one is that?”

  Rush sang a few lines of the chorus. He could feel the blood heat his cheeks. He wasn’t one of those people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but Tadder’s voice was much mellower.

  “That sounds familiar.” Tadder hummed along for a bit, speeding up the tempo. He stopped abruptly. “Wait a second. That’s the theme from Rocky!”

  “Actually, it’s the love theme from Rocky.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s pretty. But…” Tadder was silent for a few minutes.

  Rush sighed. “If you prefer ‘The Look of Love,’ that’s fine with me.”

  “No. I was planning to surprise you by having JT play it on our wedding day, but I don’t want you to think I value your opinion so little. We’ll go with your choice.”

  “I’m so lucky.”

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  “I won’t argue with you over it.”

  “Smart man. Now, I think we’ll get some of the guys to be ushers, and Becca and Jan can be bridesmaids.”

  “But we don’t have a bride.”

  “Don’t be pedantic.”

  “Thaddeus! You speak erudite!”

  “Wiseass.” But Tadder pounced on him and kissed him until they were both breathless and limp in each other’s arms.

  Finally Rush was able to gather his thoughts and say, “And maybe Babe and Denny might be interested in being part of the wedding party?”

  “That sounds good.” Tadder almost seemed to quiver with excitement. “Come on, Rushboy. We can give that more thought another time. Let’s go tell Daddy and JT.”

  “Okay, but we’d better shower first. And… um… maybe we should change too?”

  “Are you insinuating that we smell as if we’d spent the night doing unspeakable sexual things to each other?”

  “Not exactly unspeakable, since we speak of them quite freely, but otherwise, yes, I do believe I am.”

  “Okay, just making sure.” Tadder’s grin was like a little boy’s, and Rush couldn’t stop himself from dipping his head for a kiss.

  “I love you, Tadder-my-Tad.”

  “Me, too, you. Let’s go. I can’t wait to see Daddy’s expression when we tell him.”

  Rush worried his lip. “Do you think he’ll be okay with it?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “He might think I’m a… a gold digger.” Although Rush’s family was well-to-do, he himself only had the salary JT paid him. He didn’t want people assuming that he slept with the boss’s son to get a cushy job that didn’t entail much work on his part. That wasn’t true; he worked his tail off, and even if Tadder hadn’t become his boyfriend nine months ago, even if he had broken up with him last night, Rush would have continued to work his tail off, because he… he loved this family.

  Tadder kissed the corner of his mouth. “No one’s gonna think that of you, Rushboy.”

  Jan did. Ever since she’d broken up with her jock, she’d been calling him Tadder’s boy toy when no one else was around. She knew he didn’t like it. He’d told her, and she’d stopped, but only until the next time, and when he told her again, she’d simply said, “I’m teasing, Rushboy. Can’t you take a joke?”

  He hated when she called him that. It felt so… condescending. Not at all like when the rest of the family did.

  Rush pushed his worries out of his mind. Tadder loved him and wanted to marry him, and that was the most important thing. “Let’s go shower.”

  There wasn’t a bathtub in the pool house, but the shower stall was roomy enough to comfortably fit two men, especially if they were in each other’s space.

  “Let me scrub your back,” Rush murmured. He took a sponge and added a squirt of body wash.
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  “Knock yourself out, babe.” Tadder grinned at him and presented his back.

  Rush rubbed the sponge over the long, elegant lines of his fiancé’s spine. Every once in a while he’d press a kiss to a shoulder blade or a vertebra or even an elbow, and Tadder would sigh in pleasure.

  “My turn,” he said, turning and placing Rush in front of him. Instead of taking the sponge, though, he pressed himself against Rush, bending his knees so his cock nestled against the crease between Rush’s buttocks.

  “Feels good,” Rush murmured.

  “Good.” Tadder folded his arms around Rush’s waist and began rocking gently against him. “And we’ve got the rest of our lives to do this.”

  “Do you know something, Tadder-my-Tad?” Rush leaned back against him and turned his head, enabling him to press a brief kiss to Tadder’s chin. “This makes up for everything.” All the… the bullshit in his life—his parents’ obvious disdain, his brothers’ disregard, the mockery of his schoolmates… none of it mattered as long as he had this man in his arms.

  “Well, I’ll have to see that it does. For the rest of our lives.”

  ***

  RUSH RAISED HIS hand to tap politely on the door of the master suite, but Tadder just twisted the knob and bounded in.

  “Daddy! JT!”

  JT groaned and slid off Mr. Jack, who whipped the sheet up to cover them. “This is a nightmare, isn’t it, Jack? I shouldn’t have had that extra piece of cheesecake before we went to bed.”

  “You had cheesecake and didn’t share?” Tadder teased.

  “They didn’t have to, Tadder,” Rush whispered. “We still have our cheesecake in the fridge.”

  Tadder waved it away as immaterial. “We’d have shared!”

  “You’re silly.”

  “But you love me anyway.”

  JT, never his best in the morning, groaned again and buried his head under his pillow. “I’m going back to sleep. Would you two go discuss your love life somewhere else?”

  It didn’t matter that JT and Mr. Jack were naked, Rush mused to himself, even as he blushed to have caught the two older men almost in flagrante. He’d seen them both naked in the shower in the gym, and as good as naked when they went swimming in the pool out back, but….