“Yeah?”
I hum and jump over a log, just because. “I mean, not if just anyone does it, but I like being touched. Hands on my skin, that connection, you know? It’s better than sex. It means more.”
A small smile warms Kai’s face. “I get that. Took me a while to understand when I was younger—what I was looking for when I was hooking up every night and feeling empty about it afterwards.”
“Did you find it in the end? What you were looking for?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think so. It’s always been one or the other for me. Sex or comfort. Never both.”
“That’s a complicated answer.”
“Is it?”
Is it?As I think on it, I’m not sure, and we’re coming to the end of the circular trail. Up ahead, I see the shack Kai once called home and the sense of running out of time hits me hard. A fork in the road. One path a dead end, the other an ascending minefield with a pot of fucking gold at the summit.Don’t do it. You have to live with this bloke all summer long. Let him figure his shit out in peace.
It’s the easy option, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the end of the world, and I’m not here for that.
I don’t want it.
Kai idly spins the fallen branch he found for me. I think about the mess that it came from. Of the fate of the tree we left behind. The earth will reclaim it. Take something dead and make it live again. But it’ll take time.
Months.
Years.
Centuries.
Not everything has to take that long.
I stop and catch Kai’s free arm. At least, that’s my intention, but my hand finds his, slotting our fingers together as if it’s the most natural thing. He doesn’t flinch, and my heart does a little skip, cos Iknewhe wouldn’t, perhaps more than he knew it himself. “Can I askyousomething?”
Kai wets his lips with that damn fucking tongue. “Um. Sure. I mean, yeah. Of course.”
His rambling is as sweet as his smile.
Ismile, before I sober and find my words. “How are you feeling right now?”
He frowns, confused, not annoyed. “About what?”
I squeeze his fingers. “About holding hands with a dude. I get straight vibes from you, but…something else too? And I’m thinking that maybe it’s the first time this has happened to you?”
His expression clears. Then floods with relief and he expels a breath that seems a week old. Or however long it’s been since we met. “You caught that, huh?”
“A little. I mean, I’m not the sexuality oracle, but I recognize the struggle.”
“You don’t think I’m a bit old to not know myself that way?”
“Hell no. I didn’t know I liked girls too until I was twenty-one. I had to un-come out. It was a scene, mate.”
“Really?”
“No. I mean, I didn’t un-come out. But the rest of it’s true, so my point about age still stands. Also, opportunity. Everyone’s different, but I never knew I was bi until the right girl blew my mind.”
“Are you gonna blow my mind, Joss?”
“You want me to?”
We both grin, joking. Lightening the air. But our hands are still clasped, and Kai is close enough that I see his chest rise with each breath. See his throat work as he swallows, and I know he’s watching me too.
