He narrowed his eyes.
“Besides,” I continued, “don’t you have your big tech job or whatever in San Antonio? You can’t stay with me.”
“I’ve got it all set up. I’ll be working remotely, which I’d already started to plan.”
“Really?”
Glancing at my parents, he answered, “I, uh, bought a piece of land out by my parents’ place last year. Now that my brother and sister have kids, I don’t wanna miss anything. I’ve been working with an architect to finalize the plans, and then with the city to get on the grid. It’ll take the better part of a year, so this just gets me into Seguin a little sooner.”
I tilted my head. “Am I the only one who didn’t know you were moving back?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t want to say anything until it was all in place. My parents and I have been steadily working on our relationship for a while now. They’ve progressed so far in their acceptance of me that now I want to live closer by.”
“This? This is why I call you Agnes. You overthink every-fucking-thing.”
My father snorted. “He’s carefully considering his next steps while, I might add, taking care of you. Whereas you once set off a cherry bomb under my police cruiser—in full mascot regalia—because someone dared you.”
Heh. That was a fun memory. What my father didn’t know was that doing it netted me a blowjob from a football player on the down-low.
“So?”
“Being thoughtful isn’t the same as overthinking,” my mother said, looking into my father’s eyes before turning to me. “Just something to ponder while Sawyer helps you to recover after you spent years flitting around the globe without any attention to your personal well-being.”
Sawyer’s mouth twitched as he raised his damned brow at me, a nonverbalI told you so. Dick.
“Fine. I do tend to jump from one thing to the next. But I still maintain that he has no goddamned reason to be dressed like he’s ready for court.”
Sawyer didn’t take the bait, though he seemed to relax a hair at my admission, which made me feel guilty. Hewas sobeing bossy, but maybe I’d scared him more than I’d realized. Also—not that I would ever admit this to him—I understood his wanting to come home, now that things were good with his parents.
My mom looked between us, tapping her nose the way she used to whenever she was trying to figure something out. “I thinkSawyer taking care of you is a good thing. You need someone who knows how to manage the details.”
I blew raspberries at the thought. It was strange, though. She’d always been the one to take care of me, and on some level I’d thought she’d offer to take over. Yet here she was, feeding me to the wolves.
“Thank you, Ms. Cavanaugh,” Sawyer said, giving her a slight bow as he darted another haughty glance my way. Swear to God, that eyebrow of his was a paid actor.
Side note: Sawyer sometimes tended to admit things when he was drunk, so I happened to know that he went to a professional for both his perfect brows and his pubes, which was beyond ridiculous since—another drunken confession—he was also an exclusive top.
I mean, I got my business waxed and bleached on the regular, but at least my smooth, perfect hole made some goddamned sense—I loved being rimmed and fucked into the mattress. I’d bet my right nut he got a Brazilian every third week on the dot, and I doubted that a mouth or a dick had ever been in the vicinity of his ass.
Truthfully, I’d never understood how Sawyer fit in with our group. I had frequently wondered if we were too much for him, but he kept hanging out with us. Even now that we were adults, he still showed up. Given my current circumstances, I found myself grateful for his stubbornness.
Things I’ll never admit out loud for a thousand, Alex.
“You know I’m the world’s worst roommate, right?” I warned. “I leave my clothes everywhere, I hate doing dishes, and I burp. Very loudly.”
“And what part of that is news?” Sawyer picked a piece of lint off his dress shirt, giving me a bored look.
Mom laughed—traitor—as I rolled my eyes. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”
The smell of garlic perfumed the air, and Sawyer ducked back into the kitchen while Mom and Dad caught me up on their lives. Dad kept his arm around Mom’s waist the entire time. It was something I’d typically call out, but I held back.
My coming out had destroyed my family, a fact that fucked me up whenever I thought about it. Mom, of course, would deny that I’d caused their divorce till she was blue in the face, but I knew better. I loved my mother for her immediate, unbending support when I came out… and God, it had hurt to watch her shut down her feelings for the man I knew she adored. If his arm around her today was a sign that they were repairing something I’d torn apart, I wasn’t going to mess with it.
Besides, I’d missed my dad something fierce. I would never have owned up to that as a teenager because, ew, emotions or whatever. As an adult, though, I could admit that I liked having him around.
I’d been a difficult kid, always getting into things and testing boundaries, but until I’d come out, I’d always thought my father kinda admired my don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. He’d never encouraged my mischief, of course, but I could see it in the glint in his eyes whenever I’d gotten into trouble.
Not that I’d thought through my coming out, at all.
