Too late to back out now, but honestly? I didn’t want to. I was lucky he wanted to be seen with me at all, even like this.
Everything I’d seen of him—pierced cock included—told me he could have anyone he wanted.
Women like it, I remembered.
While we’d been driving, Aiden had mentioned menandwomen he’d been with, and on the one hand it made all the sense in the world—of course he could have anyone, regardless of gender. He was funny and clever and there was a kindness about him that ran deep.
On the other hand, the thought had been surreal. Like even though I knew intellectually that it happened all the time, my brain was still struggling with the idea that it wasallowed.
“That’s uh. I mean, no judgement on your love life, but have you neverwantedto kiss anyone?”
I had no idea how to answer that. I must have, right?
Ilikedbeing kissed. This was like the ice skating all over again. I didn’t have a specific memory of it, that was all. It wasn’t that I’d never really wanted to kiss anyone. Itcouldn’tbe.
For once in her life, my mom came to my rescue, waving eagerly at the car as Aiden pulled into the hotel parking lot.
“Brace yourself,” I said. “Family incoming.”
Aiden laughed as he got out of the car.
6
Aiden
I could feelCarter practically vibrating with nerves as we got out of the car, his mom’s face falling as she approached, a crease forming between overplucked brows when she looked at me.
One thing to come out to your family, another thing entirely to come out to your family when you weren’t actually queer in the first place.
Hell, I hadn’t even needed to come out to my mom. She’d sat me down and told me my feelings were okay before I’d even thought to wonder if maybe they wouldn’t be.
Carter’s mom wasnotgoing to be like that.
“Who’s this?” she asked, stopping in front of us in the biggest scarf I’d ever seen. Mrs. Kowalski was slight and short, but there was areasonfew people ever crossed her.
“You don’t recognize me, Mrs. K?” I asked, grinning at her. We’d had more than one run-in in my life. The shirt incident barely even scratched the surface of her long-running disapproval of me.
If Carter’s aim was to piss her off—and I thought it was, even if he hadn’t said so in as many words—then I was the perfect man for the job.
She blinked at me a couple of times, like her brain needed a moment to recalibrate before she could accept that her son had brought the neighborhood delinquent to a family wedding.
“You remember Aiden, mom,” Carter said. She did. Sheobviouslydid.
She was just still processing the fact that I was here.
“I… yes, but…”
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed Carter’s hand. “The invitation saidand guest,” I said.
I hadn’t actually seen the invitation, but that seemed like a reasonable assumption to make. Besides, this was herson. They weren’t going to throw hisguestout of the wedding.
Even if it was me.
“Carter,” another voice boomed from behind us. “Aiden?” Carter’s dad asked as we turned to look at him. “Is that you? I remember you being shorter.”
Carter’sdad, on the other hand, I liked. He’d let me help him around the yard a few times, raking leaves or pruning plants, that kind of thing.
As a kid who still missed my own dad, it’d meant a lot.
