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"You've got the pick of the litter, son," my dad had said to me. "Any female you want, you can get. Make sure you choose wisely, though, otherwise you'll taint the family name."

This was incredibly ironic of my dad to say, unbeknownst to him, considering how my future would turn out. He echoed similar sentiments to me years later, but under different circumstances relating to the aforementioned irony.

"Thank God I have another boy who can make good of the family name," he told me when I begrudgingly visited him while he was dying in his ice cold cell. Of course, this statement was brought on by him discovering that I had been in a relationship with another man at the time.

Another fact about narcissistic parents that I quickly learned was that they could tear you down a lot easier than they could build you up. Even in my case where my father spent years attempting to manipulate me into becoming the perfect son for him despite my obvious and consistent failures.

From my vague recollection of the events that followed his hate-filled declaration, I believe I said something along the lines of, "Eat shit and die, I'll piss on your grave, I hope my boyfriend one day takes our family name because then it will actually mean something to me again, et cetera."

"You didn't," Everett says in utter disbelief. His lips are parted in shock and his eyes are blown wide as he peers up at his husband through his reading glasses. He is sat at Beau's office desk in their condo, gazing up at the man who is attempting to muffle his laughter at Everett's surprise.

Beau's arms are crossed over his broad chest and he shrugs nonchalantly at the contradiction. "I might have."

Putting down the rough draft of the memoir he has been skimming through per Beau's request, he readjusts his glasses and looks back at the man standing over him. "You told him you'd piss on his grave and that you wanted to marry me someday?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"Well you checked at least one of those things off your list," Everett huffs out a light, breath of laughter.

Tilting his head to the side while maintaining his devious smirk, Beau says, "We also got married, snook."

Shaking his head at his husband's dumb attempt at a joke, Everett smiles as he asks, "Did you actually piss on his grave?"

Beau sighs in a dramatic manner before pulling at Everett's arms so he stands up out of the comfortable leather, maroon chair at the desk. Smoothly sliding in behind him, Beau takes a seat and tugs at Everett to sit on his lap.

"I went there with the intentions to, but it felt a little fucked up," he reveals, placing his arms firmly around Everett's waist.

"It's a relief to hear that your conscious took control for once," Everett responds. He leans over and grabs for the unfinished memoir once more.

Flicking through the pages, he rests his head against Beau's chest. "Would he really be pissed if he knew I took your last name?"

"Oh, Rett," Beau chuckles. "He'd be livid. I've never known a more intolerant man in my life."

Everett finds the page again that talks about Beau visiting his dad in jail and rereads it. Although the topic of this particular section of the book is heavy, he still gets butterflies thinking about his then-boyfriend telling off his asshole father about their relationship. Declaring that he wanted to eventually marry Everett that early into their relationship nearly causes his cheeks and ears to flush red.

"I'm happy that my name would give him a heart attack," he states matter-of-factly.

Laughing softly at this, Beau says, "If he ever resurrects from the dead, just reintroduce yourself as Everett Coleman and he'll go into cardiac arrest."

The decision to get married was not made overnight. Everett had been incredibly vocally cautious about the topic of marriage anytime it was brought up. It was evident to Beau that he was lightly traumatized by the divorce that Everett and Charlotte went through and that he never wanted to go through anything like that ever again. He had been burned by love once before and made it clear to Beau that it—respectfully—wouldn't be easy to convince him to say 'yes' to a proposal from him.

After several discussions throughout the seven years that they were together, they both agreed that neither of them want children. They would have a maximum of two pets at a time. Moving can only be discussed after living in their current arrangement for five years (unless anything dire comes up in the meantime). Lastly, if they were to have a wedding they would both need to be employed so they could financially support a large celebration of their devotion to one another.

On year seven of their relationship full of love and warmth, Beau finally gathered the courage to pick out a ring and create a plan to propose. Knowing his partner's infinite passion for sweets, he decided to put the ring on top of a piece of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. He briefly considered putting the ring inside the cake before having visions of Everett scarfing the cake down and not noticing the ring until it was already down his throat. As a result, Beau went with safely placing the silver band atop the decadent dessert instead.

Beau panicked when Everett didn't immediately notice the ring, blinded by his excitement for the cake and immediately taking a fork to the sweet treat. He was about to interrupt to point it out when Everett's fork came down for a second bite, but clattered onto the table as soon as he spotted the jewelry propped on it.

Sighing in relief, Beau gently grabbed his fork-less hand. He nervously stuttered through the speech he prepared to give for that moment and ended up ad libbing the middle section of his monologue by rambling about the many times he had wanted to propose previously, but held back. Luckily, the script for the end part of his speech rematerialized in his mind just in time to deliver it to Everett.

Luckily–again–Everett had turned into a sobbing mess and said 'yes' about a million times when Beau finally asked the Big Question.

They chose to get married in Columbus with close family and friends in attendance. Everett had never felt more certain about a decision in his entire life.

Now they have upgraded from their first condo in Harrisburg to a slightly bigger, but much nicer condo five minutes down the road from their old place. They were well off before with Everett's cushy programmer job and now they are practically upper middle class with Beau's recent success as a self-published author.

He started writing in secret when he worked at the bookstore and the library. Nothing too serious, a short story here and an amateur thriller there. His college classes, however, encouraged him to broaden his horizons and dabble in different genres. It was actually a romance novel loosely based off of his and Everett's relationship that his professor edited for him and pushed him to publish. The story ended up gaining some popularity on social media which effectively created a group of loyal readers for Beau.

Since then, he has successfully released a thriller series, another fictional romance story and is now currently working on a memoir in which he dissects his father's behavior from what he remembers growing up. Everett convinced him to go to therapy a couple years ago and his therapist explained narcissism and the impacts it can have on children being raised by them. It intrigued Beau enough to the point where he began writing down everything he could remember in relation to what his therapist would say to him.

Meanwhile, Everett has been sitting back and enjoying the passage of time with his favorite person. Only a few years ago he couldn't imagine going through life with anyone other than Charlotte. He envisioned a timeline where they stayed together in Sinting and had the typical two and a half kids. She was a perfectly fine partner while they were married, but he doesn't believe he would have been truly happy staying in that relationship and raising children with her.

Why would he want any of that when he can wake up in the strong arms of his husband who will then make him breakfast as he gets ready for work? Besides their jobs, the biggest responsibility that they have is to remember to feed their dogs and take them outside for exercise and to go to the bathroom. Muffin and Pudding are the three-year-old bulldogs that they rescued from a local shelter two years ago—they are the absolute center of Everett and Beau's world.

Speaking of which.... Jingling sounds of their collars tinkle into Beau's office all of a sudden, announcing the arrival of their beloved babies.

"Muffin Alexander Coleman, Pudding Grace Coleman—I'm so glad you could join us," Everett greets them as he gets up off of Beau's lap in favor of joining the dogs on the hardwood floors. They snort excitedly and lick his face as he laughs while petting them delightedly. "I'm sure your estranged grandfather would not be happy knowing that you share a last name with him either."

Beau gazes down at his husband as a smile pulls at his lips. This ridiculous man still somehow manages to bring a feeling of warmth to him in moments like these after eight whole years together. He doesn't quite understand the magnetic pull that Everett seems to have on him, but he's learned to stop questioning it after all of these years.

Getting up from his office chair, Beau joins his family on the floor. "Grandpa would not be happy with this house of Coleman's if he were around today. That doesn't matter, though," he explains to the dogs who are panting and wiggling in front of him. "I wouldn't trade any of you for the world."

He makes eye contact with Everett who has a bright smile on his face. Rocking forward on his knees, the smaller man presses a kiss to his lips before pulling back to continue petting Pudding who is now draping herself across his lap.

"Life doesn't get any better than this," Everett says with a look of complete adoration on his face.

Muffin chooses that moment to sneeze, spraying Beau with the contents of his little bulldog nose.

All he can do is laugh because he knows that he truly wouldn't change anything about any part of his life right now.

"Life doesn't get any better than this."

-

AN: Book #2 is now finished! This is definitely a different tone from Unsportsmanlike Conduct, but I had so much fun writing it. I hope you all enjoyed the story and I'm truly grateful to all of you for taking the time to read it!

I appreciate you all!!!💕✨