The resentment welled up inside me. “My fiancé stole it out from under me, because his rich-as-hell family waved enough money to get a new wing built, and suddenly it was cash over merit. And then hedumped me, or maybe I dumped him, doesn’t even matter anymore. I spent a month in shock, and out of the blue, I get this call that my great-something-cousin-uncle left me this place, and I ran, and now I’m stuck here.” I sounded so fucking bitter. I tossed the gray pencil to the book and sat back in the chair. I’d gone from explaining what I’d planned for to being fucked off in nothing more than a few sentences.
What is wrong with me?
“You were engaged?” Wes asked, surprise flickering across his face. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t go around telling people any of this,” I said, wishing I hadn’t let it slip. The words felt heavy in the quiet between us, my bitterness still hanging in the air. I dropped my gaze back to the coloring book, shading in stones while draining the last of my cocoa, trying to ignore how raw my voice had sounded. Part of me braced for Wesley to jump in with another question—he always did—but this time he stayed quiet. The silence stretched, filled only with the scratch of pencils on paper, and I realized he was giving me space. It was unexpected. Almost… considerate given how much he loved talkingatme about things.
Then it shifted. The silence stopped feeling like kindness and started to feel heavy, pressing in on me. Uncomfortable. I wondered if he was doing it on purpose, psyching me out like in those cop showswhere silence is a vacuum that forces the perp to talk. I sighed and set the pencil down on the paper.
“I’m okay,” I said finally.
“Okay,” he replied, but his tone carried doubt, as if he didn’t believe me for a second. And suddenly I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, heat crawling under it as if every crack and fault was visible to him.
“You can go,” I suggested.
He wrinkled his nose at me as though he were thinking about what I’d said, and then tidied away half of the pencils, leaving the other half next to my book. “Let me know when you need another coloring book. I have some fish ones, and you’d be able to use orange and red, and they’re happy colors.”
“I’m not ten,” I snapped, the words sharper than I intended, and regret punched me the second they were out. It felt like I’d just kicked the most sunshiny, waggy, cute puppy in the entire damn world—and that puppy was Wes. The bitterness in my tone echoed back at me, making my chest ache. I groaned, dragging my hands over my face before burying my head in them. “Sorry. Shit.”
“I get it,” he said, as he gathered up my pencils and laid them in a neat group to one side of the table. “My life plans changed the moment I told my family who I was. College, friends, my brothers…” He gave a half-shrug; eyes fixed on the pencils instead of me. “I wasn’t just outed, Hunter. I was branded. Caught with someone I loved, and he panicked—said I’d forced him into it. My father took his side, the school expelled me, and I was out on the street before I’d even packed a bag. One kiss, and my life as I knew it was over.”
“Wesley—”
“I thought I’d lost everything the day I told them I was gay… but I didn’t. I found different dreams. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell, though.” He glanced up at me. “So, yeah, I get it when it feels as if you’ve lost everything.”
Compassion, sadness, and regret tangled inside me. For a moment, I couldn’t speak, just watched him fuss with the pencils. “I’m sorry, Wes,” I said, the words rough in my throat. “You were being kind to me, and you didn’t deserve me losing my shit, and fuck, you didn’t deserve your family doing that to you. None of it.” My chest ached with the weight of it—his loss and my stupid bitterness. I wanted to reach across the table, to close the gap between us, but I stayed where I was, because he didn’t need me reacting by wanting to hug him.
I didn’t want to be the person who upset him.
“Can I be honest with you?”
Christ, that was a leading question. “Of course.”
“I’d miss you if you left Wishing Tree,” he half-whispered, and then he smiled down at me, a little shy.Before the moment could settle too heavily between us, he added with a crooked grin, “I kind of like your face, and who else is going to listen to my theories about angels and aliens, huh?” Then he stood, the joke lightening the mood even as his words lingered in my head. He liked my face. I liked his face, and I’d never told him that, and he’d told me, and maybe I should tell him back, because despite my bickering with him, and trying to debunk his mad-ass theories, he was a kind man, a sweet and sexy man, and I needed him to know.
Now he was leaving. I followed him down to the back door, not sure what to say. He stopped by the door and pressed a kiss to my cheek, the same as he had done the other night, and I don’t know why I moved so our lips brushed, but I did.
One moment, he was leaving, the next, he was staring up at me, confused, and then I pulled him into my arms. It started as the briefest, gentlest brush of lips, my hand tentative on his shoulder. But instead of pulling away, he lingered, and the kisses deepened. I untangled the tie holding back his hair, letting the strands fall free as my fingers slid through them. I cradled the back of his head, drawing him closer, extending the kiss until it was heat and want, snow and cocoa, and everything I hadn’t let myself feel in the longest time. He melted against the press of my chest, and the world narrowed down to this—his mouth onmine, his breath warm, and the wild, terrifying thought that I didn’t want to let go.
He stiffened in my hold, and the realization slammed into me—I hadn’t asked, hadn’t even thought to. Consent mattered, and I’d stolen a kiss without giving him the choice. I released him and stumbled back.
“I’m sorry, I should have?—”
“No. I… why…” Then he shook his head, and I had an armful of smiling Wesley. He kissed me, firm and sure, and this time there was nothing tentative about it. His mouth was warm and insistent, and my hands found his hair again. The kiss lingered, deepened, turned into something hungry. He clutched at my shirt, anchoring us together, until he broke away, breathless.
“Night,” he whispered, and then—before I could think or pull him back—he was gone, the door shutting behind him.
What just happened?
Chapter 9
Wesley
I didn’t wantto leave, but I had to, and then it had taken ages to get to sleep, and my dreams had been a confusing mess of Hunter and Nordic goats—dark eyes, steady hands, heated kissing, that was the fun part. Nordic goats with mittens, antlers strung with fairy lights, dancing across frozen lakes that made no sense and left me waking up hot, flustered, and unsettled? Not quite so much.
I’d gotten myself off twice in the night trying to quieten the storm. My body knew what my heart wanted, even if my head screamed at me to be sensible.
And now, in the weak morning light, I lay staring at the ceiling, telling myself to move, to get up, to do anything other than replay every second of last night. But replay it I did: the way he’d tugged my hair free, how he’d cradled my head as if I was somethingprecious, the heat of his breath, the way my chest had ached when I pulled away first.
