Page 175 of Dissolving Prejudice

He was quiet for a minute before answering me, “I don’t mind, actually. But wouldn’t it require lots of work?”

I shrugged. “Now that the fashion show isn’t happening, I’ve got a lot of free time.”

Camilo ground his jaw, tightening his hold on me. “I still think you should do the show.”

Shaking my head, I nuzzled closer to him. “I told you that if it’s not with you, I’m not doing it.” The Renieri show would take place in June; there was no scenario in which Camilo was fit enough to prepare for it, let alone participate in it. “Besides, I already told Vito about it, and he promised there would be other shows on other stages.”

Camilo shifted beside me before he sighed. “I hate that I ruined it for you.”

“Hey.” I opened my eyes and poked his cheek. “You didn’t ruin anything for me. If anything, you’re my muse. So stop being such a hard-ass and accept my decision.”

“Your muse, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I laughed.

“Don’t let it get to your head—”

He cut me off with an unexpected kiss, and slowly, I closed my eyes as he pushed his tongue between my parted lips. On instinct, I wrapped my arms around him as his right hand slipped to my waist. My temperature rose, my body already filling with excitement, when he winced in pain, the sound switching on the alerts in my brain.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, a bit out of breath, while he put his hand, the one that wasn’t in the cast, on his stomach.

“Nothing, I just understand why Doc said no sex,” he panted, his skin covered with a sheen of sweat. “Fucking shit, what if I’m never able to have sex again?”

We both froze on the spot.

“Don’t even joke about it!” I slapped his right arm and got up from the bench.

“I mean it. A fucking kiss makes me feel like a bulldozer ran over me.”

Bending down, I cupped his jaw and held him close. “You’re going to fuck me, and you’re going to fuck me hard, just the way I like it. It might not happen tomorrow, but eventually, it will, and when it does… I’m going to ride your cock and face like a motherfucking cowboy.” My smile grew cockier, and I narrowed my eyes as I got a bit closer to him, my breath fanning his ear. “How about instead of crying, you start taking advantage of your free time to think about all the new positions you want to fuck me in.”

Camilo’s eyes widened, his lips slightly parted, and satisfied, I let him go.

“I fucking love you,” he muttered.

“As you should… Now come, we need to go back.” I patted the wheelchair seat.

Camilo checked the chair and then me. “Only if you’re gonna tell me how Oro cried again.”

I told Camilo about everything that happened, not leaving a single detail out. After all, I had no intention of keeping secrets from him. And while he was worried as fuck at first, now we mostly laughed about how we both got fucked over by the same twink. That little shit thought he’d be able to tear us apart. Who’s laughing now, bitch? While Camilo and I were at the start of a new beginning, Oro had been downgraded to fucking hell, where he hopefully shared a bench with my dad and Orson.

Oh, isn’t Karma sweet when served cold.

“You know I love this story,” I said as Camilo moved his ass to the chair.

We began making our way back, somehow jumping from one story to another. Camilo told me a fun tale from when he’d been to jail, while I told him about how I used his gun as a boomerang. If a stranger were to hear us talking, they might be disgusted or repulsed. They would definitely think we were missing one or two screws in our heads, and they’d be right, too. After the shit we went through in life, Camilo and I were, well, a complicated case. Two high school boys who hated one another to their core, only to fall in love as strangers in a brothel. We went through hell, spent years apart, and finally got back together, despite everything. Our story didn’t sound right. In fact, it didn’t even sound possible, and yet, here we were, together. We’d beat all the odds, and I had a feeling we were about to beat them in the future again. Why? Because even though it didn’t seem like it at first, he and I were perfect for one another. A sick combination that somehow worked. An unexpected explosion that slowly dissolved into a love story, taking with it any prejudices we might have had at first. Camilo wasn’t just a bad boy who’d joined the wrong high school with a scowl and eyes that could kill. He was kind and gentle, the most gentle man I’d ever met. He was also fierce, unconditionally loyal, and above all—mine. And the same went for me.

Today, I was no longer a broken shell of a child who’d never known love, but a man whose eyes had been opened to a beautiful fucking world.

And while I knew we were fucked up for life, in one way or another, I wasn’t about to let Camilo sink back into depression, nor was I willing to neglect his clear PTSD. Just because we were happy and in love, it didn’t miraculously heal him, or me, for that matter. We had a lot of work ahead of us. Work that would require patience and understanding but mostly time. Because what turned bleeding wounds into healed scars was time. That, and a bit of care, as well. And after years of struggle, I finally learned that loving Camilo Gómez meant loving every scar he carried—on and beneath his skin—the same way he loved all of mine, even the ones buried deep within my heart.

“There’s Blaire,” Camilo said, pointing my attention to our therapist, who waited for us near the lobby entrance.

I knew it wasn’t conventional for a couple to see the same therapist, but as I said many times before, nothing about us was conventional. The trust I’d built with Blaire was one almost impossible to replace, and Camilo had such a good rapport with her that we decided he’d continue the therapy they’d already started.

“Hey, guys,” Blaire said with a big smile after she stopped in front of us. “You’re looking better,” she told Camilo, who rolled his eyes in response.

“I look like shit—”

“Ignore him; he woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” I cut him off.