I shoved him back, pressing him against the wall and shoving my leg between his. Tyler widened his stance and ground his erection against my thigh. When he moaned, I did the only thing I could think of to protect our privacy.
I threaded my fingers into Tyler’s hair and sealed my mouth over his. His lips parted on a gasp, and I took that as invitation to deepen the kiss. It was sloppy and wet, with tongues wrestling and teeth clanging. My mortification evaporated knowing he wasn’t any more experienced than I was at this.
Tyler shoved his hands into the back pockets of my jeans, holding me tight against his body as we made out behind the softball equipment shed. Cars drove by in the distance and fair goers shrieked in fear and excitement on the rides a short distance away, but none of that mattered.
As far as I was concerned, there was only the two of us and I’d be damned if Tyler spent another minute feeling like he had to hold onto his secret. The weight on my chest lifted with the realization that he was the reason I hadn’t wrestled with the typical teenage boy hormonal urges. It seemed I was just biding my time until my best friend looked at me with nothing short of lust in his eyes.
I whimpered in protest when Tyler gripped my shoulders, forcing me to break the kiss. “Owen, we can’t do this. Your dad will whoop your ass if he finds out and coach will bench me.”
At least he’d had the dignity to use my dad as his first complaint. Of course he worried about coach not letting him play football if he heard the faintest whisper that Tyler wasn’t straight.
Even though Tyler’s parents were better off than mine, that didn’t mean they were rich. They’d always told him he’d have to get scholarships if he wanted to go to college. Being openly gay in a small town was a surefire way to fuck up the carefully crafted plan he had for his life.
“You’re right,” I conceded as I backed away. Tyler tried to follow but I held up my hands to stop him. “No, you’re absolutely right. We can’t do this. I’m not going to be the reason your dreams are shattered.”
I walked home that night, trying to block out the sound of Tyler yelling my name. Eventually, he gave up and left me to wallow in peace.
I’d like to think I would have handled things differently if I knew my life would implode just a few days later, but we’d never know for certain. When my parents told me to pack up my shit because we’d been evicted from the rickety trailer that was little more than a leaking roof over our heads, I took it as a sign that I was supposed to get far, far, away from Tyler Jernigan before my problems ruined his life.
That didn’t mean a single day passed when Tyler didn’t cross my mind.
CHAPTERONE
TYLER
It was barelyafter eight in the morning and the sun was already blazing overhead. The local fair started in two days, which might seem like a long time to some but wasn’t nearly long enough when you were responsible for the smallest details. When I’d graduated with a degree in non-profit management, the last destination in my mind was returning to my hometown to run the failing community partnership.
If this year’s event didn’t go well, it would be the last annual Harmony Grove Fourth of July, and whether justified or not, the townsfolk would point their fingers at me. In reality, none of them knew the absolute clusterfuck I’d walked into my first day on the job. None of them realized how far in the red the community partnership was or how strained the past four coordinators had been that they’d resigned in less than a year.
In their eyes, I was the prodigal son returned home and nothing less than a miracle was acceptable to them. They expected a savior, not a twenty-eight-year-old who’d never found himself in this position before. The groups I’d worked with before this were all in urban areas and had plenty of corporate funding to help them stay afloat. Unless I could convince the two manufacturing companies in town to support the partnership, that wasn’t a feasible business model here.
The people of Harmony Grove wanted their community spirit and traditions to live on, but none of them wanted to put in the sweat equity to make it happen. The previous director had warned me about this problem but I’d honestly thought he was blowing things out of proportion. He wasn’t. Today was set-up day, and I was still trying to find new ways to beg and plead with people to give up just a couple of hours to help out.
After consulting with the director of parks maintenance to ensure the dumpsters and portable toilets would be where we needed them before the drive to the upper park was closed off, I jumped in my rusty pickup to drive back down to the office. The historic building at the edge of the park was pretty, but it was yet another money pit no one wanted to address. If I survived this weekend, I fully intended to research whether or not there were grants that could help us perform some necessary upgrades.
Knowing this would be one of my last chances to take a break, I signed the last of the checks, and dropped off my change request at the bank before heading over to my cousin’s house. Michael’s fixer-upper on Main Street would be my home for the duration of the weekend. There was nothing saying I had to stay within city limits during the festival, but I preferred being close enough to put out any fires before they turned into raging infernos that would have me looking for a job again.
“Hey, I was wondering if you’d actually take me up on my offer,” Michael called out as I stepped over the baby gate leading into the kitchen. Michael stood, reaching for an old bandana to wipe the sweat from his brow.
I tried to not gape at the utter destruction in the room. The back door was propped wide open and what remained of the kitchen cupboards was now in a pile on the back porch. “I told you to wait until after the festival and I’d help you with this.”
Michael waved me off. “I wanted to get a head start. I’m having a hard time deciding how I want things laid out so I decided to rip out at least the upper cabinets.”
“You know you're gonna regret that, don't you?” Michael used to be methodical in everything he did, but that changed around the time his last relationship blew up. “And really, how much do you think you'll be able to get done once Henry wakes up? You should've waited until my mom could watch him and I could help you.”
“I have to get used to doing things on my own at some point,” Michael protested. “I can't always rely on other people to help me out.”
“That's a bunch of crap and you know it,” I scoffed. “You purposely bought a house in town because you knew you weren’t going to be able to raise Henry without support.”
“True, but that was before I realized what a burden it was on everyone else.” He looked so dejected it made my heart hurt. Growing up, I’d always looked up to him as a force to be reckoned with. He knew what he wanted and he went after it. Ever since Danny left, Michael had sunk deeper into depression, to the point I barely recognized him some days.
“Man, if my mom heard you talking like that she’d whip your ass.” It seemed unlikely I was going to get that nap I so desperately needed. I peeled off my work polo shirt and flung it over the back of the couch before picking up a pair of gloves. “Come on, I’m sure it’s not going to be long before I get called back to the park to take care of some emergency. Let's see how much we can get done.”
I watched Michael carefully as the two of us worked in tandem. Seeing the fine lines across his forehead and at the corners of his mouth, along with the dark bags under his eyes from lack of sleep worried me. He was a shell of his former self. There was no doubt in my mind at least part of that had to do with the way he'd unceremoniously dumped Danny. The two of them had something good going on, but it was that same independent streak I used to admire that led him to pushing Danny away rather than leaning on him for support.
Now, he was paying the price with a broken heart. I understood a bit of what that was like, but in my case, there was nobody for me to talk to because no one knew how madly in love I’d been. In some ways, being responsible for the festival’s future felt like penance for that night so many years ago.
I’d called after Owen, but he pretended like he didn’t hear me. As much as I had wanted to chase after him and tackle him to the ground for kissing me like that and then running away, I was starting to draw attention to us. That was dangerous, given the way my dick throbbed for my best friend. So, I backed off, promising myself I’d try calling him so we could figure out what came next.
