Frozen Heart Read online

  This time when Kelly kissed him, Walter didn’t feel any guilt at all.

  Chapter Two

  WITH KELLY’S REASSURING him about the holiday and easing his fear on that score, Walter focused on second-guessing his decision to propose at Thanksgiving rather than at the movie until his head hurt from too much thinking. If Kelly wanted to make their viewing it together an event, if that was so precious to him and important they do it alone, maybe he should make a proposal part of that. Except he didn’t want to dilute either experience. And he couldn’t shake what Cara had said, that she wanted to see Walter propose, that everyone would want to.

  Though the other demon haunting Walter was his terror that Kelly might say it was too soon to get married. In which case Walter would rather hear the rejection at a movie theater in front of a few hundred strangers than surrounded by their closest friends and family. Everyone kept telling him Kelly wouldn’t say no, that he was as ready as Walter, but the closer Thanksgiving came, the more sick to his stomach Walter became. He deeply regretted his plan to ask Kelly during dessert. He wasn’t going to be able to eat a damn bite of the meal, he’d be so nervous.

  As Thanksgiving week started, between the food preparations and the proposal, Walter entered an altered state of anxiety and terror, the impending movie screening utterly forgotten. It didn’t matter how much his sister, Kelly’s sister, his friend Rose, or Cara reassured him. There were too many ways for Walter to get the proposal wrong, which meant he would get it wrong, a thought he couldn’t bear yet couldn’t manage to escape either. Kelly asked if he was okay a few times, and Walter lied and said it was school stressing him out. Normally Kelly would have pushed, because it was a pretty bad lie, but this time he was too caught up in the food prep and his own classes. To make things worse, Walter realized while Kelly was glad to see their friends and family, if he’d had his way, they’d have spent the holiday alone. Walter had assumed Kelly wanted everyone to come join them for a meal…but no, this was only what Walter had wanted.

  He was going to be a horrible husband. If the smell of smoke wouldn’t have disappointed Kelly all the more, Walter would have caved and bought a pack of Marlboros when he went out for soy milk Wednesday night after everyone had gone back to their hotels. He hadn’t lit up in years, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to inhale a full pack in the parking lot of Lund’s. He managed to refrain, but he didn’t sleep a wink, only alternated between staring at the ceiling and Kelly’s slumbering profile.

  His insomnia worked out well in the end, because it meant he could turn off Kelly’s alarm and start the turkey himself, beginning the labor-intensive walnut lentil loaf for Sue, Kelly’s vegetarian mother, and putting a last spit-shine on the apartment before everyone arrived. When a timid knock sounded on the door at seven thirty, Walter was surprised to find Sue standing there.

  “I had Dick drop me off. He and Lisa will be by around ten thirty, but I wanted to come help cook.” Sue bussed him on the cheek as she breezed into the apartment. “Besides, I had a feeling you’d be a little nervous.”

  Walter’s love for Sue, already deep and wide, carved new trenches to store the affection in his heart. “I still worry it’s too soon to ask him.”

  “Hush.” She dusted imaginary lint from his shoulders, then let her hands linger there as she looked him in the eye. “If it were anybody else, I’d agree with that statement. But if you’re the one asking? I say it’s a perfect time.”

  The very idea of anyone else asking Kelly to marry them made Walter feel like he could grow fangs. He didn’t say that, though, only thanked his hopefully future mother-in-law and gave her a big hug.

  The food prep occupied Walter’s mind the rest of the morning, and as the apartment filled up with scents and family, he felt like he was dancing on top of a strange cloud. It was wonderful to see everyone, even his mother and grandmother, who somehow didn’t manage to ruin everything. There were simply too many other people present who weren’t interested in their dramatic saga, making them wet blankets that did nothing but hiss and dry out in the home fires the others ignited.

  Kelly seemed to like having everyone around once the meal got going, and he told Walter as much when they were alone in the kitchen putting the last touches on the turkey and lentil loaf before bringing them out for the big reveal. “This is cool, having everyone here for a meal. It’s crowded, but it’s fun.” Kelly wrapped his arms around Walter’s neck, smiling. “Because it’s in our house.”

  He kissed Walter softly, spreading warmth out from Walter’s solar plexus in a slow, sweet burn.

  Once they started eating, Walter resumed feeling nervous, knowing what was coming. Rose and Cara kept giving him bolstering smiles and the occasional encouraging elbow, right up until the time they all three retreated into the kitchen to set up the proposal.

  “I’m going to throw up,” Walter murmured as Cara fussed with his collar and Rose queued the MP3 player and WiFi speaker.

  “You’re going to be fine.” Cara stilled his hand where it worried Kelly’s class ring and squeezed his fingers. “He’s going to say yes. Trust me on this.”

  “Yes, but is this the right way to ask him?”

  “Yes,” they replied in unison.

  Despite this, Walter still quaked as he waited for Rose’s cue. When it was time to bring out the pan, his whole body felt like jelly.

  He’d wanted to include an element from Tangled in his proposal to Kelly, and after hours of racking his brain and far, far too many viewings of the digital version on his laptop when his hopefully soon-to-be fiancé was sleeping beside him, Walter had decided putting the ring in a cast-iron frying pan was the way to go. Everything else felt too convoluted. But now that the moment was here, he wasn’t sure.

  “It’s fine.” Cara patted his arm as she tested the weight of the pan in her hand. “I didn’t know you guys had a cast-iron pan. It doesn’t even look like you guys have used this one.”

  This was because the sole reason they had a cast-iron pan was the role-play Walter wasn’t ever giving Cara details about. She’d assume Kelly did more than hold it, and that one time, he’d kind of…

  Thankfully, before Cara could read enough of his embarrassment to press for more detail, Rose returned from the dining room.

  “Okay. It’s time, I think.” She took Walter’s hand and squeezed it as Cara passed him the pan. “You’ll be great, don’t worry. And he’s going to say yes.”

  The pan was heavy, and Walter was grateful for every pound as he rearranged the towel, his free hand shaking. His ears rang as he heard his cue from the girls—There’s something wrong with the dessert…no, the other one—and he wobbled into the dining room feeling as if he too were made of heavy metal, stiff and unyielding.

  Then he saw Kelly’s face, bright and perfect and gazing at him in mild confusion, and the whole world came into focus. Walter knew, then, that it would all be okay.

  “See for yourself.” Walter held the pan out to Kelly.

  Kelly lifted the tea towel.

  Walter’s heart skipped a beat as Kelly’s gaze fell on the ring, as it dawned on him that he was being proposed to. Kelly pressed his hand over his mouth, looking as if he was trying not to cry. Then the girls started the music from the kitchen—“Waiting for the Lights,” one of Kelly’s favorite instrumental songs from Tangled—and Kelly did cry. And laugh.

  Walter took the ring out of the center of the empty frying pan. He held it up so Kelly could see it, hoping he was able to notice the swans engraved on the gold band through his tears. Walter did his best to smile rakishly like Flynn Rider, but he was too nervous, and it came out pretty much bald Walter Lucas instead.

  “Kelly Davidson, will you marry me?”

  Kelly wiped at his eyes and glanced around the room at his family, then back at Walter. Walter tried to keep himself steady, balancing the pan as he knelt on one knee, still holding out the ring. He squeezed the handle of the pan tighter, making Kelly’s class ring cut into his f
inger for reassurance.

  Please say yes, Kelly.

  “Well?” Cara prompted from behind Kelly. “Are you going to say anything?”

  “Yes,” Kelly said, beaming, laughing.

  The room broke into cheers as Walter set the pan aside, slid the ring on Kelly’s finger and stood, taking him into his arms.

  For the rest of the meal, Walter felt like he could fly over downtown Minneapolis. He remembered someone putting pie in front of him, but he wasn’t sure if he ate it or not. He knew he never let go of Kelly’s hand, that Kelly kept kissing his cheek, kept telling him he loved him, whispering it into his ear as if he couldn’t help himself. Walter leaned into every confession, letting his eyes fall half closed, drinking it all in.

  Mine. He’s going to be mine. Officially. Forever.

  When everyone left and they were alone, Kelly climbed on top of him on the couch and kissed him for an hour, murmuring how much he loved him, how perfect the proposal had been.

  “Walter—Walter, I never dreamed…”

  Kelly ran his hands over Walter’s face, which meant the ring scraped Walter’s skin, and he decided this was his new favorite kink. Walter slid his hands inside his fiancé’s shirt, teasing the buttons open one by one as the kisses changed to something deeper.

  “Maybe I should have done it in costume,” he said when they came up for air.

  Kelly smiled against his mouth, a wicked grin that made Walter shiver more than the fingertips trailing down his collarbone. “Maybe you should go put it on now.”

  Once upon a time Walter would have laughed at anyone who’d suggested he’d be the type of person to put on a cartoon character’s clothes and do kinky bedroom cosplay with his fiancé. He’d have laughed at the idea of having a fiancé, period.

  Once upon a time Walter didn’t know how to dream about once upon a time. Then he’d met Kelly.

  He kissed the man he loved, lingeringly, on the mouth. “Go get into your tower, Rapunzel, so I can break and enter.”

  Kelly kissed him back, biting him lightly on the lip. “Don’t keep me waiting too long, Eugene.”

  Chapter Three

  THE TANGLED BEDROOM cosplay had started out as nothing more than playful banter. Their apartment’s AC had gone out, Walter had kicked off the sheets, and Kelly had half removed them, then tangled himself in them until he’d become fully trussed. When they’d woken, Walter teased him he looked like Rapunzel. Sleepy, sexy Kelly had invited his Flynn Rider to ravish him, and…well, things happened Walter wasn’t apologizing for.

  When Walter had spied the blue vest in a shop window, he couldn’t resist it, knowing it would make him look that much more like his lover’s ideal cartoon hero. It got him epically laid too, and it turned out it was fun to play around like that. So who could blame him for hunting down a pair of boots and pants to complete the outfit?

  Kelly had a little harder time. He wanted to play too, but he was shy about wearing a dress.

  Walter did his best to urge him out of his reticence. “It’s just you and me. I certainly don’t mind. You’d be cute, I think.”

  Kelly kept saying no. Then one day, no warning, Walter came home and found the lights turned off, curtains drawn. Someone grabbed him, and he gasped. Then he felt Kelly’s lips by his ear.

  “Struggling is pointless.”

  A delicious shiver ran down Walter’s spine, followed by another as his vision adjusted enough to note Kelly wore not only a dress but a blonde wig. Long blonde wig. Not as long as movie Rapunzel’s, but long enough that Kelly had enough to bind his Flynn Rider and lead him to the bed and have his way with him.

  Walter had trouble focusing to this day, thinking about that afternoon.

  Since then, every so often, they got out their costumes and played the scene together. Sometimes Kelly suggested it. Sometimes Walter did. It had become a kind of ultimate wonder, not something they were ashamed of but something private and special, like their own secret garden.

  Tonight, the night they were no longer boyfriends but fiancés, Walter dressed in his Flynn Rider outfit with trembling hands. It was the first time he’d been alone with his own thoughts since he’d proposed, and the gravity of it all washed over him like a tide. He was marrying Kelly. Walter didn’t have words to describe the feelings inside him. Relief, yes, happiness, yes—but there was more, so much more. He felt as if he’d been floating in an ocean and the buoy he’d been clinging to had just anchored itself to the shore.

  His old advisor, Dr. Williams, had told Walter once that he was a shark who had to keep swimming or he’d die. Every day he spent with Kelly, he dared to let himself slow down, to consider stopping to test that fear.

  He gripped his blue vest tight, trying to bleed off the pressure in his chest.

  I want to be happy with Kelly. I want to let go with Kelly. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want to be the shark. But I don’t know that I understand how to be anyone else.

  He got dressed, pushing his snarled emotions aside so he could focus on this moment. As usual, the second he entered the bedroom and saw Kelly, all his panic faded.

  Kelly was glorious. He wasn’t in drag, exactly—he never put on makeup, and he never took pains to hide his natural hair under the wig, since both the dress and the hair all too soon came off once they got more than a few beats into their play. But this moment was always a rush, Kelly standing there, proud and tall, draped head to toe in shocking purple and straw-yellow hair, brandishing a frying pan and, this time, a gold band on his finger.

  “Who are you,” Kelly demanded in a haughty tone, “and how did you find me?”

  Walter did his best to get into his role, but he was a rather flaccid Flynn Rider, wiped out from his emotional roller coaster. “‘I know not who you are, nor not how I came to find you, but may I just say…hi. How you doing? My name’s Flynn Rider.’”

  Kelly stalked up to him and wrapped a lock of hair around Walter’s wrist as he pressed the frying pan into his chest. “Who else knows my location?”

  The hair on Walter’s wrist tightened, and he groaned, fighting the urge to shut his eyes.

  “My name’s Rapunzel.” Kelly pushed Walter’s chin higher with the pan and moved in so close their lips brushed. “I’m prepared to offer you a deal. You be a good boy and take me where I want to go.”

  Walter shifted his thigh so he could feel Kelly’s erection through the dress, and he groaned. God, this was his favorite part. “And what do I get out of it?”

  Kelly laughed darkly and moved the pan so he could lick Walter’s neck. “Before we leave, I’ll tie you up with my hair and show you how hungry a girl gets when she’s been locked in a tower too long.”

  Walter’s knees buckled—this was a new riff on the game, and he wasn’t prepared. Kelly, however, was into his role. He caught his faltering Flynn, inserting his knee so Walter could sit on it, using the pan to tip Walter’s face toward his for a lingering kiss. Then he pulled away, let go of the hair binding Walter’s wrist and stroked his face.

  “What’s your real name, sweetheart?”

  Walter shut his eyes. That was their code—they’d never discussed it, but it had become their signal all the same. If Kelly asked Walter for his real name while they were playing, or if Walter confessed as Flynn Rider he was Eugene, it meant they were switching. Because usually even though Walter had his hands bound with Rapunzel hair, he ended up doing Kelly.

  Except more and more often lately, they’d come to this moment. And Kelly had basically set the scene to play to it. As if he’d known.

  Am I that bald? Walter faltered. Then Kelly’s ring brushed his cheek. He squeezed Kelly’s class ring into his palm.

  “My name’s Eugene.”

  Kelly kissed the place where his ring had touched. “Come with me, Eugene. Let me take care of you.”

  At their bed, the costumes came off, every stitch of clothing, but the hair Kelly kept, removing it from his head but wrapping it around Walter’s wrists, the he
adboard of the bed, and when he pushed Walter’s knees back, his feet as well. The hair was already getting a bit rough for wear—at this rate they’d need a new wig every six months, maybe more often, and by God, Walter would pay for it. Maybe they could keep this one for bondage and a nicer one for Kelly to wear for the pregame show.

  Kelly’s mouth closed over Walter’s nipple as his lube-slicked fingers probed his entrance, and Walter stopped thinking about spare wigs and future plans and did nothing more than moan and gasp for his lover in the here and now.

  “I can’t believe you’re mine.” Kelly nuzzled Walter’s chest, drawing a line with his tongue down Walter’s sternum before swirling it over his abdomen, gazing through half-lidded eyes up at his lover. “Forever. I knew you were going to ask me. But it makes me dizzy, knowing it’s real.” Before Walter could catch his breath and think of an appropriately emotional response, Kelly’s eyes darkened with lust. “Oh God, Walter, but I want to fuck you.”

  The soft, gooey feelings inside Walter expanded—terrifyingly, but he couldn’t start swimming again now. Not with Kelly looking at him like that. “Then do it,” he whispered.

  He opened for Kelly. Not only his body, but his soul. When Kelly declared he wanted to take his time, when he drew Walter’s cock in his mouth and sucked him slowly as he finger-fucked him open, Walter tipped his head back and let Kelly have his way, shivering in the deliciousness of being tangled—hah—in that synthetic hair, at the mercy of his tender lover.

  When Walter trembled because he realized he hadn’t softened this much since his first time, since he’d been a foolish boy seeking attention he shouldn’t ask for from grown men, Kelly sensed his vulnerability and adjusted his approach. He loosened the bonds of hair and enveloped Walter in his body, giving him a different kind of tangle as Kelly moved inside his body and took him, as the movie said, to see the lights.

  Afterward, when they were sweating, spent, and spooned together, Kelly tenderly kissed Walter’s nape. “Are you all right, Walter? Was that okay?”