If I wanted to build a kick-ass deck on the back of my sister’s house as a surprise, there was nothing
stopping me. And I could help out the buddy who had stealthily kept an eye on my family when I was
gone without having a rigid schedule. Really, it was a pretty perfect life.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” she remarked.
Pot, meet kettle. But I knew better than to point out how long it had been since she’d dated. When
Jayden was younger, she didn’t have time. As he got older, her excuse shifted to not wanting her son
to think he was being pushed aside. Now, there was nothing holding her back, but she still spent her
nights hunched over the kitchen table, looking up recipes and tweaking them.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
No way in hell was I going to tell her how easy it was for me to find a boy to play with when the
urge struck. That was one piece of me I kept carefully hidden from my sister. She knew where I
disappeared to when Jack needed help at The Lodge, but I didn’t think it prudent to tell my baby sister
how it got me off to hear someone call me Daddy. It wasn’t that I thought she’d judge me, but some
people were a bit twitchy about certain kinks.
“You’re not,” she argued. “You spent most of your life in the closet, and not by choice. Now, you
have the opportunity to be out and you’re still hiding.”
“I’m really not,” I scoffed. “Just because I’m not parading down the streets with a man on my arm
doesn’t mean I’m trying to deny my sexuality. And how in fuck’s name did we go from you bitching at
me for doing shit around the house to dissecting my sex life.”
“It’s not that much of a leap,” she explained. “Whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re restless. The
more you do around here, the less time you have to think about the fact you’re lonely.”
“I’m not—”
She sliced a hand through the air to silence me. “Don’t give me that shit. I can remember when
you used to come home on leave and we’d barely see you because you were hitting up the bars. When
was the last time you did that?”
“I hate to break it to you but there’s not an abundance of guys looking for middle-aged dudes who
live in a garage apartment.”
“Yes, because you’d have to share your life story before letting them—”
“Woah, hold it right there,” I interrupted. We were not talking about the gritty details of what may
or may not happen in the bathroom at some of the seedier bars I used to frequent. “Fine. You’ve made
