Hold Me Tight
By Alexandra Dixon
Copyright ©2012 by Alexandra Dixon
SMASWORDS EDITION
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and should not be sold. It can, however, be distributed so long as it remains in its original form. Your respect for the author’s work is greatly appreciated.


Dale froze as he stared at the figure on the other side of the threshold. The familiar brown eyes, the shoulder length black hair and the strong masculine features that had haunted him for years were back again. He couldn’t help staring.
Lucas gave a small, forced smile and stepped closer to the bewildered man before him. Dale still looked as beautiful as ever; his short brown hair was spiky and a few strands curled around his ears, just like they had back then. His light brown eyes still sparkled, even though he was shocked out of his mind. 
“What are you doing here?”
Lucas smiled a little. “I was in town and dropped by; Maria told me you were here.”
Dale made a mental note to scold his older sister for doing this to him; of all the people Maria Parish chose to send his way, she had to send his number one enemy Lucas McDonald.  “Well she should have told you I wasn’t in,” he said, not even trying to disguise the anger in his voice. “I’m about to leave right now.” He’d been putting on his suit to go to work when the doorbell rang and he’d answered it without getting the chance to eat breakfast. 
Lucas frowned, a black brow arching at Dale’s comment. “You don’t even have a minute to spare?”
Dale shook his head, holding back his sound of disgust when he saw the sad expression in Lucas’ eyes. Once upon a time he would’ve fallen for the older man’s painful look, but now it only managed to upset him some more. “So please, leave.” 
He made to close the door in Lucas’ face when a hand shot out and pressed on the door. Dale pushed the door with all his strength but Lucas had it wide open with the matter of one push with his hand. He was stronger than Dale; always had been. 
Dale stood his ground as the man approached, the look in his eyes filled with anger, shame and love. Dale steeled himself against the look and refused to back down.  “Get out,” he said through gritted teeth. 
Lucas looked down at the shorter man and almost laughed. Dale was always so fragile; he still hadn’t put on any more weight so he was still as thin as a girl and his soft face wasn’t helping matters either. He, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of Dale. He was tall, a little past sinewy with muscles upon muscles from working in construction and boxing over the years. 
“Just two minutes, Dale,” he pleaded. “Two minutes and then I’ll leave if you don’t still want me around.”
Dale went to speak but Lucas cut him off, irritating him even more. “Just two minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”
Dale took several short breaths and huffed in anger until he finally decided that maybe listening to the older man would allow him to leave. He still didn’t want him in the house but he knew that if he tried to put him out Lucas would’ve overpowered him. The last time that happened well…it ended with them both lying in Lucas’ bed, sweat-soaked and remorseful.
“Fine,” he said his tone icy. “Two minutes and then you’re gone.”
Lucas frowned but nodded in agreement; he hadn’t expected Dale to treat him this way. Then again, he hadn’t expected anything less either. There was a time when Dale would’ve had a bright smile on his face when he saw him, but Lucas messed that up.  
He took the seat Dale offered on the couch and sat down, eyeing the other man with caution. How could he phrase everything without making it sound as if he was being an idiot, or an asshole? He opted for small talk. “So, you look well, Daley,” he started. He noted Dale’s raised eyebrow and the way his jaw flexed in anger. “How’s it been going?”
Dale scoffed and leaned against the back of the couch, making sure he was very far from Luca’s arm which was draped over the back of the couch so he was looking at Dale. “Cut the crap, Lucas. Why are you here?”
“I told you, I was in town,” Lucas said in a soft voice. “Just thought I’d drop by.”
Dale’s anger, which had already been at a boiling point, rose in temperature and was almost ejected as steam from his ears. He whirled around and poked Lucas in the back of the head. “’Drop by’ after four years, Luke? No, when you leave someone without so much as an explanation you don’t just ‘drop by’ their house after such a long time.” He poked Lucas’s shoulder this time. “They don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms either.” 
Lucas launched himself off the couch and stalked around it with all the grace and hidden violence of a hunter. He faced down Dale, but the shorter man wasn’t cowering. Instead of anger in Lucas’ eyes, Dale saw hurt and love, the same expression he knew from that night they’d spent together in their hometown. 
“Dale, stop it.,” Lucas said. “I didn’t come here to hurt you again; I came to make things right.”
Dale stepped closer to the man and poked his chest several times, feeling better every time Lucas winced and took a step back. “You don’t get the right to say that,” he told him. “You don’t get the chance to come here after so long and expect me to forgive you. You can’t make things right, Luke.” He poked him again then lowered his hand. “So leave.” 
Lucas grabbed Dale’s wrists in his hands and held the younger man so he couldn’t walk away. “Dale, please. Hear me out!” He was at a loss; he loved Dale so much and it almost killed him to know that he would never have his trust again.
Dale yanked his arms away and stepped back, but he still didn’t back down. “Hear you out? I’m done listening to you!” He flared up, thinking that it was better to get everything out in the open once and for all. “I admired you, looked to you for guidance. I fell for you, over and over again and I thought you loved me too!” Tears gathered at his eyes and he struggled to keep them at bay. “I gave you my body, my heart, but you threw them away. You took everything away from me and left me to rot in my shell,” he accused. “I hate you.”
Over the years Lucas had imagined how Dale would react to seeing him, react to his attempts at apology; he’d even imagined how he would feel if Dale had hated him. But to hear the words straight from his love’s mouth hurt more than a dagger to the heart. He was torn, and he knew it was his own fault. For the first time in four years Lucas was on the verge of tears, him a grown ass twenty-seven year old brought to tears by a twenty-one year old. “Dale, come on,” he whispered. “You can’t mean that.”
Dale lifted his jaw and blinked away the tears. “I do mean it. I hate you. I hate you for making me love you, I hate you for leaving. I hate you for not being there for me.” The tears finally fell and ran over his cheeks, down his chin and fell unto his grey shirt. “”You left me all alone and you never even bothered to tell me why,” he sobbed. “I hate you and I want you gone!” The pain that made his heart clench so tightly was too much to bear and Dale’s knees buckled. He fell to the floor and sobbed his anguish into the carpet.
Lucas was so torn between comforting the man and giving him his wishes and leaving that he just simply stood there looking down at Dale for the longest time before he walked close and fell to his knees. Dale looked up at Lucas just in time for the older man to wrap hold his shoulders and pull him close. 
“Luke…” 
Lucas held Dale so tight to chest it was as if he wanted the other man to merge with himself, for them to become one. Again. “I’m sorry, Dale. I didn’t mean to leave. I shouldn’t have.”
Dale struggled to get away from Lucas but the man wasn’t about to let go. It made Dale feel both happy and sad; if only Lucas had held on like this before. 
“Dale, listen. I shouldn’t have left you alone. Trust me, it hurt like hell because I didn’t want to do it but it had to be done. I’m sorry for hurting you so much. I never wanted you to hate me like this.” Lucas was done pretending; if Dale wouldn’t believe him he didn’t know what he was going to do. He let his tears fall freely, done with hiding them. “I left my heart in Tulsa, Dale. I shouldn’t have.”
The pressure on Dale’s heart was so intense it hurt and made him cry even more. He hated the man holding him for making him so angry and sad again. He also hated him for making him remember how much he really loved him. “Stop it, Luke. I can’t do this again.” But for all his struggling he found himself holding Lucas’ arms and burying his face in the man’s neck, sobbing like a baby. The older man smelled of after shave and expensive cologne and Dale couldn’t help but drink the scent in. 
Lucas held onto Dale like a lifetime, determined not to let him go again. “I know I hurt you, Dale. God, I want to kill myself every day for doing it.” He took a deep breath and continued to talk; he knew he was almost rambling but he was certain Dale needed to hear everything. “I love you. I never stopped loving you. Even after I left I wanted to come back. I missed you so much, missed how you looked at me with those eyes of yours and how you used to smile whenever you saw me.” Lucas grabbed fistful of Dale’s hair and tilted his head up so he could look into Dale’s tear reddened eyes. “I love you. I love you so much I hurt. I just need you to forgive me,” he whispered. “I need us to move forward.”
Dale shook his head as much as he could with the steel grip in his hair. He couldn’t forgive Lucas for anything; he wasn’t obligated to so he didn’t plan on forgiving him. But…seeing Lucas crying and begging him for forgiveness made his heart melt. Lucas had been and always would be the only person who could make him feel irritated and happy at the same time. Make him want to be a better person, and to make him feel as if he could do anything. “You hurt me so much,” Dale told him. He wasn’t looking at Lucas’ eyes; if he did he would have no choice but to forgive him. “For years I shunned everyone who came around me. I couldn’t stay in my relationships for any long period of time because I still loved you. The one guy I found that could replace you effectively…I didn’t want anymore.”
“I’m so –“
“No.” Dale pressed two fingers to Lucas’ lips and shook his head. “No, you listen to me. I didn’t know I was sick all those years ago.”
Lucas’ brows furrowed. “Sick?”
Dale nodded solemnly. “I had cancer, Luke. But you left me and I was so heartbroken that I put myself in a shell for so long that when I found out it was almost too late.” Dale gave one brief sob. “I needed you to be my rock, my protector. But you were gone and I had to deal with it on my own.”
Lucas held Dale to his chest again, even more tightly if it was possible, and sobbed for them both. Then he kissed all over Dale’s face, noting the way Dale flinched each time. “Oh, God, Daley. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have left but I had to; there wasn’t any choice.” He sighed and pressed a light kiss to Dale’s forehead. “When did you find out?”
Dale shook with the force of his pain and the memories he’d buried as they came out in his tears. “Just a year after you left,” he said in a soft voice. “The doctors told me I was stage two; non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. After radiation for two years I finally got a clean bill of health.”
Lucas felt worse than shit. He’s missed so much and felt so terrible about it all. All this just made him more determined to hold onto the one person who had, and still did, mean the whole world to him. “Dale, I should’ve been there to be your rock through everything. I’m sorry.” He really didn’t know what else to say. “Can you forgive me? Ever?”
Dale sighed. This was what he’d always been afraid of: what exactly would happen if Lucas ever found him. He’d imagined cursing, and shouting and screaming how much he hated his ex-lover. But at the same time, he thought about telling Lucas just how much he still loved him and that he was glad to see him again. He’d effectively buried his emotions in a deep hole which he hadn’t expected Lucas to dig out. Now he ached with the pain of his memories and the love he felt with the man.
“I’ll forgive you for that,” Dale said softly. “But I won’t forgive you for leaving. I can’t.”
This time when Dale pulled from his hold he didn’t stop him. He let the younger man move away and stand, and then allowed him to walk to the door before he stood as well. “I know I let you down,” Lucas said. “I know I don’t have a right to come here and act like everything is perfect. I’ll admit it; I was a dick. I hurt the one person who meant more to me than some stupid scholarship and I haven’t forgiven myself.” Dale had stopped, frozen just by the door. Lucas used that opportunity to walk up behind him and rest his hands on Dale’s shoulders. “But that’s why I left, Dale. I gave it all up so I could come here for you. I love you so much that I…” He wasn’t certain Dale was listening anymore but he wasn’t going to stop. He didn’t enjoy irritating the other man, but he certainly didn’t enjoy Dale ignoring him and he was determined to let out his emotions until Dale responded. “…I left my life in England; I left my scholarship and a placement in the hospital because I missed you. I did it all for you and if you aren’t there to appreciate it with me then I don’t want it.”
Dale’s eyes widened. Lucas left his job? After all his parents did to put him through school he just left it behind? “You’re such an idiot,” he mumbled. “Why did you come back for me?”
Lucas snickered, but Dale knew he wasn’t amused. “Didn’t I already tell you? I love you. Always have, always will.”
“You’ve always been a corny asshole,” Dale told him. 
This time Lucas’ laugh was genuine. “I know; but that’s why you fell for me in the first place. C’mon, Daley.” He used the hand on Dale’s shoulders to turn him around so he could look into his light brown eyes. “I wasn’t here before, but I’m here now. Count on me now, because I’m never leaving again. I can’t leave you again.”
“You ripped out my heart,” Dale said softly.
Lucas’ heart broke at the gentle words that filled him with so much pain. Entirely his own doing. “I killed myself that day, Dale. I’ve never forgiven myself, and I won’t force you to forgive me. I just need to know that you’ll try.”
Dale stood there, the tears running down his cheeks to darken spots on his shirt. He so upset with Lucas, and yet…he still loved him. For four years he was lost, he got good jobs but couldn’t keep them because he was always too distracted, and his parents shunned him for being gay shortly after Lucas had left. All of this, the older man had missed…all this he hadn’t stood with Dale for. He still didn’t forgive Lucas, but he knew it was a work in progress. And he knew Lucas was trying his best. 
“On one condition,” Dale said. 
Lucas placed his hands on Dale’s cheeks to lift his love’s head so he was staring into his eyes. “What is it? Anything you want and I’ll do it.”
Dale smirked and went on tiptoe to place a light kiss on Lucas’ lips. “Marry me; at least that I’ll be certain you won’t get away this time.”
Lucas’s eyes shone brighter than the sun as his arms curved around Dale’s waist and he lifted him off the ground, spinning him around on the spot until they both got dizzy. “Of course we can get married –“
“It wasn’t up for debate,” Dale mumbled. 
Lucas didn’t waste any more time; he just dipped his head and captured Dale’s lips in a kiss so hot his knees shook and his heart thundered in his chest. When he released Dale to catch his breath the younger man looked up at him and smiled, whispering the words Lucas had waited four years to hear. 
“I love you.”
Lucas nodded and grinned like the biggest idiot on the planet. “Don’t worry; I won’t ever leave you again. I learned my lesson. Life sucks without you annoying me every day.”

THE END