“Yeah.”
She came to rinse her mug and put it into the washer, too. Then she turned to me and hugged me tightly.
“You know I love you, right?”
I kissed the top of her head. “I know. I love you too, Si.”
“Good. Now try to untangle your not-crush a little. It’ll make things easier in the long run.” She patted my arm and left to finish her tasks for the day.
As I stretched out on the comfortable AF couch and pulled one of the thin fleece blankets over myself, I battled the part of my brain that tried to keep me from doing what Sierra had suggested.
I closed my eyes and threw one arm over my face for good measure. Sure, I could tell Rey was easy on the eyes to say the least, but I felt icky about even thinking about that, because he was a minor. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that he was a child, because if I knew anything, it was that the boy had gone through shit that made you grow up fast.
I wasn’t sure what exactly about him called to me so much, though. Of course, he made my caretaker protective instincts flare up, but so did many other people. He was a caretaker, too, whether he realized it or not. He seemed happiest when he was learning something new or making sure someone else’s needs were met.
My guess was that he just wanted to give others the stability he hadn’t had since his mom died. That’s part of why he was so inquisitive about cooking and why he wanted to help animals, too.
But what got to me the most about him was the easy way he took care of me. Of all people,me. Not only had he cleaned my feet, but he also made sure I know how much he appreciated the emotional support I’d given him today. With that, he’d taken care ofmyemotional needs, and that was…a lot.
See, when you’re a big, easygoing guy, people tend to forget you have emotions. Sure, people close to me knew I had PTSD that flared up in the most random, idiotic intervals, and that I could be, in a way, emotionally fragile because of that.
However, people who had just met me often thought I was just a big guy who liked to cook and take care of others by making sure they were fed. I’d had some jobs where bosses or coworkers seemed surprised when I took part in any conversation that went past first grade level.
It wasn’t that they didn’t know I’d gone to culinary school that was an accomplishment in itself, because of course they knew. But big equals stupid, I guess.
Either way, I liked that while Rey had initially been apprehensive about my size, he’d quickly judged my character and seemed to feel safe around me now. And sure, he clearly found me attractive, but it wasn’t just…that. There was so much more to how he acted around me and toward me.
So many people had treated me like either a sex object—which could be fun in some cases—or an oaf just capable of cooking.
I really needed to find someone closer to my own age to feel like Rey. He’d grow up and change, and maybe his minor hero worship would change and we’d be friends like I was with everyone else here. Right now, though, I felt awkward about…whatever feelings these were.
Because I could easily see that if Rey was even a handful of years older than he was, we could be so damn good together. The pull that was there now was something I hadn’t felt with anyone else, ever. The fact that he was too young was kind of tragic, but also something I planned on respecting, because I wasn’t a horrible person.
I would do what I always did when something didn’t happen in an ideal way: I’d ignore the issue and soldier on, because that’s what had kept me going since I was a kid.
* * * *
Rey managed to narrow down the kitten applications and had Sierra call a couple of them. The kittens were old enough to be rehomed now, so the first people drove over from Chicago about a week and a half after I’d come home.
Rey and I had gotten halfway around the house twice now, with only one panic attack on his part. I’d concentrated on the same thing as the first time, just keeping him distracted so that he made progress without thinking about it too much.
We’d chatted about things we’d seen and been to and I’d gotten more pieces of the Rey puzzle. It just felt like he was a fifteen-hundred piece one, and I had twenty-five pieces now, all from different sides of the picture.
The problem with the kitten thing was that we didn’t really want people in the house because it was our home—everyone agreed on that—but it was also the only place Rey could go and he was in charge of the kitten adoptions.
Sierra would handle the paperwork at the office, but the meeting of the people and vetting them face to face was Rey’s responsibility, one he’d taken on gladly. Except that he was nervous because he hated to be a bother and he saw the way we had to allow the strangers to come into the house as his fault.
Which, obviously we were all okay with. We were fully prepared to work with everyone’s needs and limitations here. It took Theo taking Rey’s narrow shoulders into his hands and looking down at him seriously.
“Ruth would only care about you being comfortable and about the kittens getting the best homes you can find them, okay? That’s all. This is about you and those fuzzballs and not the rest of us. Besides, people used to come through here occasionally before, too. It’s not like we didn’t have contractors and other people stopping by for coffee. Volunteers did that too, sometimes. This is fine, kiddo.”
Rey looked tense for a moment, then relaxed and nodded. “Okay.” He sighed. “Okay.”
“Good. Now make me a coffee.” Theo turned him around and gently pushed him toward the coffee maker.
There was something almost fatherly about Theo now, which was wonderful to see. He and Lake were a great match, and I could tell Theo knew how lucky he was for having found Lake and vice versa.
That discussion had happened two nights ago, and now the kittens were running amok downstairs while Rey was in the bathroom peeing because he was so nervous he’d drank too much tea.
