Michael blinked once. Then he exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath without noticing.
“No,” he said. “Not my first time.”
Something in my chest loosened…and something else tightened, quick and sharp.
I hated that reflex. Hated the part of me that wanted to turn it into a problem before it even existed.
Michael’s eyes narrowed, catching it instantly. “Daniel.”
“I’m not—” I started, then stopped because the lie tasted stupid. “I just didn’t know.”
“I know.” His fingers resumed their circles, slower now, grounding. “It’s a fair question.”
I stared at him, trying to read the line between calm and guarded. “Okay. So… you’re?—”
“Bi,” he said, like the word didn’t carry any shame in it. Like it was just a fact, like the color of his eyes. “I’ve been bi.”
My breath caught, soft and quiet. “Did Anna know?”
Michael’s mouth twitched—half smile, half something tender that made my ribs ache. “Yeah. She knew.”
“From the start?”
“From the beginning,” he confirmed. He shifted, propping his head on his hand so he could look at me properly. “She clocked me in, like… a week.”
I huffed a laugh. “Of course she did.”
Michael smiled, warmer now. “She did that thing where she pretended it was casual, but it wasn’t. Like she was collecting information and deciding what to do with it.”
“That is exactly what she did,” I muttered, and my chest pinched with the memory of her.
Michael’s gaze softened. “We were sitting on the porch one night. She asked me something completely normal—like if I wanted more iced tea—and then she just… looked at me for along second and went, ‘You don’t look at men the way straight men look at men.’”
I barked a laugh, surprised and a little wrecked by it.
“Yeah,” Michael said, grinning. “I almost choked. And I did that whole stupid thing where I tried to deny it. Like she hadn’t known me for years.”
“What did she say?”
Michael’s smile went quiet at the edges. “She said, ‘Good. I’m glad you can admit that to yourself. The world doesn’t get to take more from you than it already has.’”
My throat went tight.
Because that sounded like Claire. That sounded like my wife, fierce and stubborn and incapable of leaving people alone when she knew they were hurting.
Michael reached up and brushed his thumb across my jaw, slow. “She didn’t make it weird. She didn’t make it a confession. She just… held it like it was mine to carry, not hers to judge.”
I swallowed hard. “And you… you were with men before.”
Michael nodded once. “A couple times. Nothing serious.” He hesitated, then added, gentler, “It wasn’t like this.”
That hit me in the sternum.
I stared at him, trying to act like my heart hadn’t just tripped over itself. “Like this how?”
Michael’s eyes flicked down to my mouth, then back up. His expression was open, unguarded in a way that still caught me off balance.
“Like this is… real,” he said quietly. “Like I’m not just blowing off steam or proving something to myself. Like I’m here. With you. On purpose.”
