It’s easier than I’m prepared for, but my mom doesn’t need to know that. She won’t give two hoots if my sexuality has evolved into something different, but whatever me and Joss are living through right now, I don’t want to share it. Not even with my mom. What the hell would I say?Mom, I’ve been making out with my super-hot British roommate and now I can’t go five minutes without thinking about his dick in my hand. Does that make me gay?
Dumbass. I don’t care if it makes me gay, bi, pan, or whatever. I care that I haven’t seen Joss for a hundred million days, and it’s making my chest ache. “I’ll let you know.”
My mom lets me go with a promise that I’ll at least swing by her neighborhood dinner and say hi. She tells me Rowan is invited too, pretending she’s forgotten that he lives in Zurich now, and I forgive her because she’s a better human than I’ll ever be. “Bye, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too, honeybean. Be happy.”
Happy. I’m not really sure I know what that means. Everyone assumes I washappybefore. That every day since is me fighting to get back to what I was. I drop my phone on the passenger seat and let my mind drift to how my life used to be. Was I happy? Or just too fuckin’ busy to notice I wasn’t ready for the shitshow coming my way? Tanner says it doesn’t matter.“Day by day, dude. Don’t worry about anything else.”
Heh. I’m trying.
I take the truck back to Wildfoot HQ and leave my tools in the trunk overnight. It’s a long walk home in the Vermont summer sun, but I don’t mind. It’s good to be out. I cross the street. Try not to eagle-eye the death-trap construction site, but the teetering pile of crap leaning against a vulnerable wall has gotten bigger. At least, I think it has. The rest of my brain knows I’m looking for disasters that aren’t there. Analyzing risks that aren’t mine. Heavy lumber on unfinished girders and weakened floors—
Think about something else.
Joss.
No.
Fuck it. I try not to thinkat all,and it entertains me all the way home.
I luck out when I get there. The bar is quiet, and I walk through it without suctioning the air from my lungs. Without the heat of a phantom fire on my face. I don’t consider barging into the kitchen to find Joss. I just fuckin’do it. Gives me less time to wonder what I’m gonna do with my sad, pining self if he’s not there.
And fuck if I don’t lose a fifty-pound deadweight of tension the moment I lay eyes on the wild tangle of hair at the nape of his beautiful neck. The flex of his shoulder muscles as he reaches for a heavy pan. Even the scowl marring his handsome face is sexy as hell.
I lean on the doorjamb, watching. Joss bangs the pan onto the stove with undue force, and it takes him a moment to notice me. “That burner offend you?”
His glare deepens, but it’s softened by other things. Guilt? Relief? It’s hard to tell. He hides nothing, but he’s complicated. “Sorry. I’m not trying to break everything you built.”
“I can fix it if you do.”
“Shouldn’t have to, though, eh?”
“They’re just things, dude.”
Joss grunts. Then seems to shake himself. He doesn’t light the flame under theslightly dentedpan.
He comes to me instead. Takes my hand and tugs me into the kitchen, letting the door slam shut before he pushes me against it. “I’m sorry.”
It comes out in a rush of frustrated breath. I put my hands on him—on instinct—and feel the excess energyvibratingthrough him, simmering beneath his heated skin. God, I want to put my lips on that skin. My tongue. I want to taste it, absorb the spirit and vitality that make him so fuckin’ special.
But I want to be his goddamn friend too, not a dry-ass bucket of thirst that just takes from him.
So I give him a hug instead, hauling his slimmer frame against mine and wrapping my arms around him. I don’t even tangle my fingers in his silky hair. Don’t bury my face in his neck. I hold him while he presses his face into my shoulder and just fuckin’ breathes, because Iknowhow much he needs to.
And I know how good he is at it. At digging deep to find the calm other people take for granted. It’s a lesson I’m learning from him, every day, every minute.
Every hour if that’s how long it takes for him to come back from whatever’s buggin’ him.
It doesn’t take that long. Joss knocks his head on my shoulder one more time, then gifts me a soft and rueful grin. “I lit the kitchen schedule on fire.”
“For real?”
“Yup. Tanner asked me to finish it, and it pissed me off.”
“He’s anal as fuck. He’ll have another copy.”
Joss shakes his head. “It was the handwritten first draft, now he’s hired the staff to wash the dishes and clean up around me.”
