Wes Danvers didn’t think he’d ever live a life like the ones he lived now.

Not long ago, his world was filled with dangerous missions and murder, sharp edges and tighter routines. He was thirty eight now—veteran in the world of the Mafia—and though he’d never admit it out loud, he was tired in ways that didn’t show up in bullet wounds or bruises.

His body still worked. His drive hadn’t dulled. But inside, things worked differently.

Then came Emery—the twenty one year old college student who somehow cracked him open without even trying.

They had met by chance at a grocery store Emery was working at, working to pay off his college tuition. Wes had just stared at him, unable to look away from the innocence in the younger boy’s smile.

Wes wrote his number down and discreetly slid it towards Emery, like he was a fucking teenager. The older man didn’t expect him to call, but he did.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did. A crime lord pushing forty, and a college kid still figuring out his major—it should’ve been a fling or a mistake. But it wasn’t.

It became the most stable, honest thing Wes had ever known in his whole life.

They didn’t live together, not yet. But the toothbrush in Wes’s bathroom, the hoodie left on the back of his couch, and the way his fridge always held the younger boy’s favorite things—it all told a different story. Their story.

Sometimes, Wes would wake up early on his rare days off and just watch him. His boyfriend always curled up against his side as he slept—an unconscious kind of trust that Wes didn’t think he’d earned.

He would lay there, fingers resting lightly on the warm, lightly freckled skin, wondering how the hell this had happened. And more terrifying—how he’d go on if he lost it.

Because this wasn’t just a distraction or some fantasy. He loved the kid. All of him.

He loved the way he got excited about the smallest things: seasonal drinks, new books, weird animals in documentaries. He loved how unguarded he was, how every emotion played across his face in real time, no masks, no games. Wes had spent his life walled-off and armored, but this boy made it easy to open the gates.

Wes had even quite smoking and drinking for the boy.

They hadn’t slept together yet. That was something Wes thought about more than he should. Not out of frustration, but out of respect. This was his boyfriend’s first—and hopefully last—relationship: First kisses, first hand holding, and first time being loved like this.

Wes remembered how reckless his own early years were, how often people rushed things they weren’t ready for. He wasn’t going to be another mistake. So he waited. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He wanted the moment to come from him.

In the meantime, there was more than enough. Long phone calls at midnight, lazy Sunday brunches made together in oversized t-shirts and hands intertwined under the blanket during movie nights. His boyfriend made him feel like a man, not a weapon. Like it was okay to want soft things.

And yet, some nights, the doubt still crept in.

The age gap. The different stages of their lives. The fact that Wes was still hiding what he did for his line of work because he was terrified he would scare Emery away.

The nagging whisper that said, ‘he deserves someone who isn’t scarred, someone with more time, someone who didn’t build his whole life on rage and discipline and regret. He’s not safe around you.’

But then he’d come home after a long day, and there would be a note on the counter; a blanket already warmed in the dryer; or a sleeping, little body in his bed. no demands, no expectations. Just love. Quiet and steady.

He wanted to tell Emery the truth—that he killed people for money—but the thought of losing Emery was just too much.