“Mmhm. A twang. You know, like…” Jayne paused, and when he spoke again, he sounded like he was fresh off the plane from Georgia. “I ain’t never seen you ’round these parts before.”
The Honda sped up again, then slowed suddenly. It continued to drift over the line. Finally, Everett decided it was in his best interest to move. He flicked on his turn signal and merged left.
The Honda did the same.
“Well,” Everett slipped into his best Southern accent, trying not to let the asshole ruin his morning. “I can’t say I grew up balin’ hay, but I can tell you that—”
The Honda jerked violently to the left, clipping the passenger side mirror. Heart in his throat, Everett smashed the horn and jerked the wheel to the left, veering into the shoulder. Rumble strips rocked the Jag, their reverberations racing bone-deep up his arms and into his shoulders. Adrenaline, like cold sweat, sharpened Everett’s reflexes and eliminated all outside distractions. He pulled the Jag farther to the left, clearing the rumble strips and putting more distance between Jayne and the inattentive driver.
“Fuck!” Jayne choked. He clung to the hand grip on the door, knuckles white. “What the shit is that asshole doing?!”
Everett had no answer. At first, he’d believed that the driver was simply negligent, but the Honda showed no sign of backing off—it hogged the left lane and flanked them, purposefully keeping them off the road. Enraged, Everett tried to get a look at the driver, but the window was heavily tinted, and he saw nothing at all.
Visibly shaking, Jayne jammed his finger on the button on the side console, rolling down the window. When it was lowered all the way, he pushed out of his seat, no doubt to hang out the window and give the driver a piece of his mind. Before he could, Everett grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back. “No.”
“The fucker almost hit us!” Jayne growled.
“And if he swerves again while you’re hanging out the window, it’s not going to be the car he hits—it’s gonna be you.” Everett didn’t relinquish his grip. “Stay inside. Your safety is more important to me than getting even with someone we’ll never meet.”
In compromise, Jayne thrust his arm out the window and shot the driver the bird.
The Honda flanked them for a moment longer, keeping the Jag trapped on the shoulder, before it cut suddenly across two lanes of traffic and sped down an exit ramp, disappearing from sight. With it gone, Everett signaled and merged back onto the freeway. Jayne tucked his arm into the car and did up the window.
“I swear, the people in this citygetto me sometimes,” Jayne mumbled. He tugged at his seatbelt. It appeared to be locked. “Assholes like that drive me crazy. Your parents weren’t wrong to want to leave.”
“Yeah.” Everett let out a long, leveling breath from between his teeth, then filled his lungs with chilly, conditioned air. “You’re okay, right? You weren’t tossed around when I had to pull onto the shoulder?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Jayne shook his head. “Areyouokay? If you need to get off the freeway and take a break, we’ve still got time.”
“No, I’m fine.” If Everett stopped, the adrenaline that had kept him composed would wear off. He needed to see the rest of the drive through. “You didn’t catch that guy’s license plate number, did you?”
“No.”
“It’s okay.” Everett lifted his hand from the clutch and wiped the sweat from his palm on the leg of his jeans, then grabbed the wheel and repeated the process with his other hand. “It’s not a big deal. You’re not hurt, and that’s all that matters.”
“I don’t know.” Jayne glared out the window. “Swift justice for assholes matters, too.”
“Trust karma.” Everett squeezed Jayne’s thigh as reassuringly as he could, then set his hand back on the clutch. “It’s kind of like Caleb says—if you hold on to the negative, it’ll rot you from the inside. Let it go. The day can only get better from here.”
Jayne chuckled, and just like that, the tension broke. “You’re right—because while an invigorating day being patronized by the crotchety old doctors I work with awaits, after that, I get to come home to you, and while—short of a striped tie—there’s no stopping Caleb’s mouth, there’s no chance that we’ll be run off the road when we’re all in the living room.”
“Is that so?” Everett arched a brow. “You might want to confiscate Parker’s play gym. I’m pretty sure it has a steering wheel, and by now, Caleb’s probably outfitted it with an engine. By this afternoon, he’ll be teaching Parker to drive.”
Jayne laughed. “Shit!”
The breezy sound of Jayne’s laughter soothed the last of Everett’s frazzled nerves. He managed a smile. From the corner of his eye, a fleck of glitter hidden somewhere on Jayne’s body reflected the rising sun, and seeing it, Everett thought he knew why Jayne favored things that sparkled. It wasn’t for flamboyance, or a regression back to the happy days of his childhood—it was because, even in the dark, glitter found the light. No matter the circumstance, it shone.
Jayne lit up Everett’s world in much the same way.
46
Jayne
Following a long day of disappointment, Jayne pushed the clinic door open with his shoulder and left the arctic chill of the building’s climate-controlled interior for the swampy June afternoon waiting for him on the other side. Temperatures had risen all day, and while Jayne didn’t know the current temperature off the top of his head, it was hot enough that sweat beaded on his brow and his slacks stuck to the back of his thighs—which, come to think of it, was probably doing great things for his ass, but wasn’t so great for walking around.
In a bid to distract himself, Jayne took his phone from his pocket and unlocked the screen. For the last half hour, it had been blowing up with messages from the Single Dads, but Jayne hadn’t found a second to sneak away and check them. Usually when the chat blew up during regular working hours, it meant that something was going on.
Maybe Knot had found a boyfriend.
