How the heck did those switches get flipped so quickly?
And what the heck do I do now? I mean, I know I shouldn’t chase after him, should I? Am I the one that needs to apologize here? I’m his employer for crying out loud. I shouldn’t have given in. I shouldn’t have fallen for that stupid ‘Please, Reckless.’
“If You Give An Evan A Chance” by Brooks Gallagher. Narrated by Brooks Gallagher’s seriously confused mind. If you give an Evan a chance, he will kiss the ever-loving dickens out of you. If he kisses the ever-loving dickens out of you, he’s going to want to dry hump—well, er, wet hump—the bejeezus out of you. If he dry/wet humps thebejeezus out of you, you’re going to realize that you’ve got it down bad for him. If you realize you’ve got it down bad for him, well—
You’re well and truly screwed over, because he’s going to leave you standing in the lake… baffled and alone.
No, you know what? He begged me to be reckless, and right now, I’m feeling like I need to be. He owesmean apology after that. Time to grow a backbone.
I wade out of the water, fueled by annoyance, and I stomp my behind up the hill, straight to the staff cabin. “Hi, Sherri,” I say brusquely, when I startle her by flinging the door open so hard it bangs off the wall behind it. Her novel clatters to the floor.
I must look like the Loch Ness Brookster right now, all dripping and seething.
“Uh, hi?” she replies, obviously taken aback even more, because I don’t think that she’s seen me this annoyed in the many years she’s worked here. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I reply curtly as I march up the stairs, towards Evan’s room, ready to get my apology. My fake Crocs squawk under my feet—none too menacingly, I might add—as I make my ascent.
I’m getting a dang apology. He’s not going to hang his head in shame and retreat like he did that night when we almost kissed in the stream. I won’t let him; I’m standing my ground.
The door to the space he shares with Sully. Feeling reckless, and fairly certain Sully is still in the mess hall, I barge in, figurative guns blazing.
“What the he—” I start, but then fall silent when I see the sight in front of me.
Evan—burly, surly, macho-man Evan—is intears. His hair is all mussed, like he’s been fisting it and trying to tear it out. He’s twirlinghis wedding ring around in his fingers. His bed is soaked beneath him, from him sitting there still in his wet shorts.
In an instant, all the annoyance that was boiling within me vanishes. Like hot water being thrown into the air on a subzero degree day. Everything freezes. His twirling stops. Our breathing stops. Even the tear that was slipping down his cheek refuses to budge.
“Evan…” I sigh out. “What happened back there?”
I take a few steps into the room, closer to his bunk. He doesn’t lean away, or cower like a scared animal, so I take that as permission to sit next to him. He quickly wipes his cheeks and swipes under his nose, collecting himself—something he looks well practiced in, reigning himself in.
“What if Colton had caught me doing… ya know… that?” he asks, his voice gravelly.
“What, it’s that hard to say? Hard to say we were kissing?”
He nods. “That. Yeah.”
Back to being a man of few words, I see. Closed off. It’s plain to see now that he shuts down when he’s scared. Goes cold, looks hard. He’s not angry, like he appears to be on the outside. He’s terrified on the inside.
Of what, though, I’m still not sure.
He shakes his head. “That wasn’t—what we did—ugh,” he stammers. “What just happened… it was a mistake. I got all fuckin’ confused and out of touch with reality for a second. I just—ugh! I don’t know!” He fists his hair again.
My gut roils with frustration over him calling what we did a mistake, because it doesn’t seem like he’s being honest with me right now about that, but I tamp the feeling down. He doesn’t need my frustration on top of his own; he needs understanding. Understanding that I can’t give to him, if I don’t have it myself.
“Are you worried what Colton might think if he sees you moving on from Miranda?” I press, throwing darts out and seeing what sticks, trying to figure out what the source of his confusion is.
“Of course I am,” Evan scoffs. “That, and the fact that he just lost his mother a little over two years ago. I had been with her since high school.” He twirls the ring around loosely in his fingers again. “I think he’d be hurt if he thought I was moving on.”
I hesitantly try to think of how I want to word my response, that way I don’t give too much away regarding the sessions I’ve been having with Colton. “Well, firstly, I don’t think anyone expects a man who has lost a spouse at this age to continue a life of celibacy afterward. There is no set time frame that needs to pass, before one explores intimacy again. I think if you’re personally feeling like you could be ready, you need to communicate that with him, so he’s not taken aback when you do.
“Him being the age that he is, however, you would want to do that by telling him, rather than asking his permission. Ultimately, this is your life, and you share it with him, but it doesn’t need to be tenuous. Kids—well, teenagers—are a different generation than we are, and we’re a different generation than our own parents. They tend to be more accepting, more open-minded. The world is changing, evolving.”
“Not my world,” he murmurs.
A slight knocking on the door has both our attention snapping away from finishing that conversation. “Uh, hey, boss,” Sully says. He hikes a thumb over his shoulder. “I can, uh, just give you guys someprivacy…”
“Nah, you’re okay,” I tell him. “Evan was just going to get changed and head up to my place for some supper anyway,” I say, not giving Evan the option to back out on finishing this.
