"We are not talking about my family right now," he said in the most aggressively emotionless tone I'd ever heard. It wasn't an invitation. "And I believe you when you say it's not a step you're ready to take. I'm not about to tell you how or when or what to do."
That drew a snicker from me. "You tell me what to do all the time and you enjoy it."
Tom didn't share my humor, still staring at the road ahead, his lips pursed in a grim line. "Every family is different and the internal mechanics are, as you said, complicated. I understand and accept these things without question. But"—he shot me a quickI really fucking mean thisglance—"I am not your dirty little secret. If that's how—"
"It's not," I interrupted. "Whatever it is you're going to say, it's not. No."
We were silent for several miles, during which time I debated the likelihood I'd survive if I simply opened the car door and performed a basic tuck-and-roll maneuver onto the highway. I figured the fall wouldn't kill me but the oncoming traffic just might, and that seemed like a better way to go than asphyxiation-by-cold-shoulder.
Then, as Tom merged onto an exit ramp, he asked, "What are your trivia strengths?"
I peered at him, pausing for a long moment. "My-mytriviastrengths? Trivia as in…what?"
"I usually circle up with friends on Saturdays for game nights and dinner parties. Tonight, we're going to a pub for trivia and I'd like to know you'll be useful for more than your pretty face because I play to win. So, what are your trivia strengths?"
"I've been to every continent, I know how to pickle any fruit or vegetable and my undergraduate coursework was in anthropology." I didn't know what the hell just happened here and I was honestly afraid to ask. "The rest is classified above top secret."
"I have a lot of questions about the pickling which we'll save for later," Tom said. "How much of that anthropology degree do you still recall?"
"I can tell you almost everything there is to know about the Yanomami people in the Amazonian borderlands and the lost colony of Roanoke, I can explain the difference between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans, and I can pick real artifacts and antiquities from the fakes at fifty paces. I'm fluent in a half dozen languages, conversational in another half dozen. I know where to eat in Aleppo and where to drink in Sarajevo and where to people-watch in Odesa." Glancing at the back seat, I continued, "I can also build a serviceable bomb with the junk you've got back there."
"I do not havejunk," Tom replied. "And while it's wonderful to know that, we aren't likely to get any questions about bomb building tonight."
"If it comes up, you know who to ask. It's not a good idea for me to talk about it but if you needed to know eight ways to kill someone and make it look like an accident or natural causes, I have that quadrant covered too."
"Assassination techniques, bomb building…this stuff rarely comes up in trivia categories," he said. "But thank you. It's good to know we're covered on all ofthat." He took a breath before adding, "Wes, please know I'm not asking you to make any enormous life decisions right now but I am saying I won't be with someone if they can't be open about their relationship."
And there it was. That was the line. If I wanted this, if I wanted him, I had to find my way across it. "All I can promise is I'm working on it. I'm working on myself. I don't want to live like this and I don't want it to spill over onto you in any way."
He drove for several minutes without responding. I revisited my previous contemplation of jumping out of the car.
Eventually, he said, "Okay. I get it. Growth and healing take time. No one understands that as well as I do."
I was thrilled I could stay inside the vehicle and in his presence but I couldn't stop myself from peering at him and wondering what the hell he meant about knowing something of healing?
13
Tom
Despite the factWes wasn't out to his parents—how did I always find myself in perfect situations made imperfect by life and reality?—I took him to trivia. Introduced him to my friends. Marveled at the way his big paws grasped his pint of beer. Admired his depth of knowledge in the liberal arts. He'd warned me about that in advance but it still shocked me when he showed up with the skills.
And I fell for him a bit too. When he ran his hand down my back while we waited for our table, when he pulled out my chair for me. When he engaged Max in a detailed discussion of the leading rugby teams and then when he let Bryce vent about issues with his mother's hospice care and a little more when he indulged Flinn's questions about the Navy. When he draped his arm over the back of my chair and leaned into me while giving Pawl and Joseph recommendations for their trip to Croatia this summer. When he hugged them all goodbye and said he'd see everyone again soon, even promising Max he'd join his intramural softball team as soon as his arm was cleared for such activity, and he seemed to mean all of it. When he hunched close to me as we jogged against the howling wind toward the T station and when he buzzed his hands up and down my arms when we finally made it inside.
I fell for him a little more when he tucked me against his chest while we waited for the train, his chin on my head and his heartbeat steady under my ear. And I fell even farther when he closed his hand around mine, a lopsided grin on his face and that glorious entitlement shining in his eyes as we walked from the station to my apartment.
And then I fell the rest of the way when he layered his body over mine and trapped me against my apartment door while I fumbled with my keys, saying, "If I don't get you out of these clothes and on your back in the next minute, I'm going to die."
It wasn't the statement about wanting me naked or the foreshadowed promise of fun and games while naked that checked the last of my boxes as far as this man was concerned. It was the way he wanted to fuck me straight through the door but slipped a steadying hand inside my coat, flat on my belly and not moving lower to prevent me from pitching forward and hitting the floor when I got this door open. He didn't know it but he was one of the good ones, the thoughtful ones, theI'm going to be cautious with youones.
He didn't know it at all and if pushed on the matter, I was certain he'd deny it in at least four different languages. And that was why I didn't have to mention it to him.
"Please don't die," I murmured. "Not on my account."
The bolt disengaged. I turned the knob. We stepped inside. And that was when we lost our minds.
The hand Wes had anchored on my belly to prevent an ugly fall fisted in my thin sweater as he freed me of my outerwear. The keys skated across the hardwood floor and he slammed the door shut. Still holding me by the sweater, he swung me around and jerked me flat against his torso. We stumbled over the collection of winter boots I kept seated beside the door and took out the coat rack and my antique umbrella stand in the process. An awful clanging noise filled my dark apartment but we didn't care. I looped an arm around his neck as we treaded over that mess, bringing him down to meet my lips while I ripped his coat open and rucked up his shirt.
Groaning, I ran my palm down his torso. "I get so stupid when I see this."
