“My dad?” Rafe said again. “Barrel chest, attitude the size of a small country, full of shit opinions. That guy?”
She smiled. “The very one. He said he knew the truth about you and me. Had sorta guessed there was something up from the day we got married—”
“Wait, sorry,” Rafe interjected. “Just one more time. This is myfatheryou’re speaking of. Big Rafe, mayor of Whispering Key?”
Aimee laughed. “Yup. He said he’d always figured Jay wasitfor you, your one and only, and that Jay felt the same. He didn’t see how he could’ve gotten that wrong, so it must’ve beenyouwho did something wrong, by marrying the wrong Rollins—”
“Ahhh.” Rafe nodded. “Now it sounds like the same guy.”
“So he told me whenever I was ready to leave, I should make a clean break. But he offered to help me with anything I needed, too… which is why I made him my emergency contact.”
So many birth date–related details suddenly fell into place. But I was still so confused.
I turned to Rafe. “Yourdadknew about you and me?” I demanded. “Jesus,wedidn’t even know.” Christ, the man had guessed I was gay when literally no one else had?
“Whatisgoing on between you two?” Aimee demanded excitedly, looking back and forth between us.
Rafe stretched his arm out along the back of the sofa, and his hand accidentally-deliberately brushed the back of my neck. Reminding me he was there. Reminding me that he’d back my play, however I chose to play this.
I grabbed his hand and wove our fingers together. “Big Rafe was right, as it happens. That there was always something more between me and Rafe, even though neither of us admitted it to each other.”
“Or even to ourselves, really.”
I nodded and squeezed his fingers apologetically. “And now we’re… together.”
“I knew it.” Aimee let out a relieved sigh. “That was the worst part of this, you know. Thinking maybe I fucked things up for the two of you by asking Rafe to help me out and keep my secret. Dave and I have talked about this, and he helped me see how I was isolating myself by keeping all this inside. Hiding, like I’d done something to be ashamed of, because I didn’t know how to talk about my condition openly and own it.”
“From what it sounds like, you’ve all been keeping secrets trying to make each other happy, and you’ve actually made each other miserable instead,” Dave said. “So maybe stop lying to each other? That would be my professional suggestion.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking honesty is the key from now on,” Rafe agreed.
“You know, this whole conversation reminds me of a song called ‘Trust,’” Dave said wistfully, “by an artist called Ari Friedr—”
“No!” I shouted, jumping to my feet in instinctive response. “Absolutely not. You shut your whore mouth right this instant and do not ruin this moment for me!”
Rafe grabbed the waistband of my pants, pulled me back down to sit next to him, and clapped a hand over my mouth. “Excuse him. He’s a massive Ari fan.Huge.”
Dave smiled complacently.
“You know, Dave,” Rafe said, “I think you and I are gonna get alongjustfine.”
I made a retching noise behind his hand and glared at Rafe hard enough to burn the worddemeritsinto his brain, but he just smiled hugely like he wasn’t worried one bit.
13
Rafe
“Holy shit.” Jay threw himself on the king-sized hotel bed so hard he bounced, then stretched out his arms and legs like a very sexy starfish. “I feel so light right now!Damn. You know how they say you don’t know how good things are until they go bad? Well, the reverse is true, too, because I didn’t know how much all this stuff was holding me down.”
I leaned against the dresser and watched him. Hedidseem lighter. So light he might fly away, when I really wanted him to stay with me.
I’d tried to be as honest as I knew how to be about what I wanted from him in the future, but it sure would be nice to get an idea of how he saw things working out long term.
Ifhe saw them working out long term.
The end of summer and the Extravaganza were coming. And for all our talk of “boyfriends,” I couldn’t help feeling like my seventeen-year-old self, counting down my remaining days with Jay.
He toed off his boots and rolled on his side to face me, where I stood against the dresser.
