“Okay, I get it.” He held up his hands in surrender, and for the first time since I’d met him, Dax looked uncertain. “It’s just kids not knowing any better. A bunch of them were talking about the lunches theirmomsmade—”
“Oh hell.” I’d gotten so used to it just being the two of us that I hadn’t thought about how different it made him to not have a mom at home.
“Yeah, so one of the kids thought it was weird that Jagger’s dad made his lunch,” Dax finished. The sound of water in the bathroom stopped and Jagger bounded back down the hall into the kitchen. Now that it wasn’t just the two of us, he was the bouncy, bubbly kid I was used to him being. “Really, I think he’ll be fine. It’s an adjustment for all the kids. And remember, it was also the first day he was away from home. He’s trying to figure out his place in the pecking order at school, he’s getting used to not having you there when he needs you, and he’s overwhelmed trying to adjust to the new routine. It’ll get better.”
While we ate, I listened to Jagger and Dax talk about their day, including Jagger working hard to convince Dax that there needed to be more playtime and less time wasted on boring stuff. After everyone finished eating, I excused myself to get Jagger into the bath. He was fading fast, which Dax said was pretty normal from what he’d been told. School was hard, especially on those who weren’t used to it.
He was right. The same little boy who usually fought bedtime curled up between us on the couch and was sound asleep by shortly after seven. I moved him to his bedroom and immediately missed him. Even though I still doubted my parenting skills on a daily basis, today had reminded me how much I loved having him around. He was my buddy, even during those times when he frustrated the hell out of me. I hoped tomorrow would be a better day for him.
Before joining Dax in the living room, I grabbed two bottles of beer out of the garage. There was a weird tension between us lately and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. It was something that had never bothered me in the past—I usually accepted that people came together and drifted apart—but this felt different.
“Are you going to tell me what was so funny earlier?” I asked as I handed over his bottle. He stopped with the bottle halfway to his mouth, surprised that I’d not only remembered him blushing like a schoolgirl, but that I’d brought it up.
“You really don’t want to know,” he warned me.
“I do,” I assured him. “I’ve never seen you flustered before, so I’m trying to figure out what did it for you.”
That made him choke on his beer. “Okay, but you asked for it.” He paused, watching me, and I could practically hear the fight going on in his mind. He still didn’t want to tell me. “Tell me something… Do you think it’s weird that since the day I helped you get Jagger out of the tree, I’m here every day or you guys come down to my place?”
I ran my hand along my jaw, making him sweat my answer rather than blurting out that I loved having him around. If I was too eager to make him see how much I needed his friendship, he might figure out that there were other thoughts swirling around my head. Thoughts I had never had for a friend. Thoughts I’d never had for anyone.
It felt like a betrayal to admit it, but I needed to see him every day in a way I’d never even needed with Erica. Finally, I let him off the hook. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, it might be to some people, but you’re new to town and I don’t exactly have a line of people banging on my door to hang out, so we’ve gravitated toward one another.”
“Okay, but how many friends can you count on to just be there for dinner, whether or not you invite them?” Dax pressed. I wondered where he was going. “How many would drop what they’re doing to take care of your kid without a second thought?”
None. But that wasn’t because my former friends sucked, it was because I did. It really said something that I hadn’t already managed to push Dax away. It would’ve been so easy, given the fact that we hadn’t exactly hit it off when we first met.
Obviously, he saw the answer written all over my face. “That’s what I thought. It’s the same for me,” he admitted. “So, when you asked if I was going to be here for dinner, and after spending the entire day trying to avoid hovering over Jagger like he was my own, the first thing that popped into my head is that we’re like an old married couple. We’ve fallen into this routine where, every night, we are together for dinner, then we hang out with him for a while, and after he goes to bed we veg out in front of the TV. And on the nights you’re working, we have dinner, Jagger and I send you on your way, and then I take care of him until you get home. Hell, if I added it up, I’ve probably spend more time at your place than my own.”
“You don’t have to spend all your spare time with us,” I reminded him, in case part of it was that the routine was wearing thin for him. I couldn’t blame him; he was young, really good-looking, and had better things to do than waste his time on us. He should be out meeting people.
“That’s what you’re not understanding here,” he pointed out. “I don’t mind it a bit. In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, and it was nice knowing that you wanted me to come over after school got out. I’m not used to having someone to come home to, so to speak.”
His cheeks pinked again. If possible, it made him even more adorable. “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be better for you if you went out and met a girl? I can’t imagine this is how you saw your life playing out when you were offered the job. You obviously love kids, so you probably want some of your own eventually.”
“God, you’re almost as bad as Mrs. Batterman,” he teased. I had no clue why he was bringing his neighbor into the conversation. “Every time I’m over there, she asks if I’ve found someone yet. She seems to know every car in town and she points out the ones that belong to girls she’s sure would be perfect for me. But it’s not just me. She wanted me to help you find someone, too, because she’s worried about how the two of you can manage without a woman to take care of you.”
“I don’t need anyone,” I protested. I clamped my mouth shut before I admitted to him that I wasn’t sure what I wanted at this point. I tugged at the neckline of my shirt, suddenly roasting despite the central air blasting cold air into the room.
“Believe me, I feel the same way,” Dax admitted. “Okay, maybe not exactly the same, but I’m not in the market for a wife. I’d like someone to share my life with, but when that happens, it won’t be a woman keeping my bed warm at night.”
“You mean…” I couldn’t finish my question. I’d been sitting here freaking about how he’d react if he knew how it affected me every time he touched me, and here he was telling me that maybe I hadn’t been misinterpreting the way I thought he looked at me sometimes. But it wasn’t my place to ask. “Sorry, it’s really none of my business.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” he responded bluntly. “I am who I am. This is the first place I’ve lived where I haven’t been out and proud, and that’s mostly because I’m trying to figure out how it’d be received.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked a bit louder and more gruffly than I’d intended. My heart pounded and I suddenly couldn’t drink my beer fast enough. Marshall wasn’t perfect, but we also weren’t the home of Westboro or anything like that.
“It means a lot of people may not be thrilled about a gay guy teaching little kids.” He fidgeted in his seat and I could tell this was something he didn’t like talking about. Well, that was too bad because it pissed me off that he thought he needed to hide who he was. “I’ve heard stories about school boards finding ridiculous reasons to let teachers go because parents complained. And where I’m new, it’d be easy to say I wasn’t meeting their expectations. This may not be where I saw myself when I decided to become a teacher, but it’s where I wound up so I have to make the best of it. I can’t risk my career by making some big statement. Not yet.”
“Man, that’s messed up,” I told him as I picked at the label on my bottle. Now that I knew he wouldn’t knock me to the ground if I ever grew the balls to tell him I thought I was attracted to him, I was nervous as hell. I’d basically been given the green light and was on my way to being honest with him, but then he had to take the conversation in a completely different direction. “No one’s going to care. Hell, I know for a fact that you wouldn’t even be the only gay teacher in the elementary school. No one’s said a word about him, so I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” he scoffed. “Being gay is one of those things that’s more acceptable than it used to be, but there are still a lot of people who think it’s cool as long as it’s no one they know, and sure as fuck not the person their kids spend the entire day with. As for anyone else, they’re not new to town. People already know them outside of the school. I don’t have that luxury.”
“Who cares? You’re around Jagger every day. You like men, not little boys,” I argued.
“Yeah, but I still can’t risk it. I need this job.”
“I don’t think you should hide it,” I insisted. “I mean, what if you met someone? What would you do then? Don’t you think it’d be more suspicious if you hadn’t said anything?”
Dax shook his head. “I’m not denying who I am. If someone comes up and asks me point-blank if I’m gay, I’ll tell them. Until then, I don’t feel the need to rent out that billboard on the edge of town to let everyone know the new teacher is gay. See, and we wouldn’t even be talking about this if I was straight, because then it wouldn’t matter. Don’t you get it? This is exactly why I don’t make a big deal about it.”
He drained the last of his beer and stood. I had to fight the urge to reach out to him and ask him to stay. I didn’t want him walking away thinking I was ignorant or that I was pissed he hadn’t said anything sooner. Okay, so I had been mildly irritated, but only because it’d taken me by surprise. I thought we knew one another pretty well, but now that I thought about it, he’d always been guarded about sharing pieces of his own past and he’d never mentioned dating anyone, male or female.
“It’s getting late,” he told me as he slipped into his shoes. “Thanks for dinner. I’ll see you in the morning.”
This was my chance to make him see that I wasn’t upset about him being gay. I followed him to the door, trying to figure out what I could say to him that wouldn’t seem insincere. There was nothing. I ignored the nervous flutter in my stomach as I opened the door for him.
“Have a good night, Dax.”
