I didn’t even get the full sentence out before Joshua took off at a full sprint. I didn’t expect him to be so damn fast, but that kid had wheels.
We took a short break to watch a breaching whale out in the distance and turned around to go back. When we got back to the trailhead, Joshua put his hands on his knees to catch his breath and then straightened up.
He seemed like he was gearing up to say something important, so I waited without saying a word.
When Joshua finally opened his mouth, he had a look of wonder on his face that made me want to hug him. "Thank you."
He’d already thanked me a hundred times for the shoes and clothes. This better not be one hundred and one. "For what?"
He was quiet for a second, like he was trying to find the right word for something he didn’t know how to describe. "I’d forgotten what this feels like." He looked back at the water andthen at me. "Being out with someone I could trust, working myself to exhaustion…but in a good way. I wasn’t in my head at all. At least, not over bad things."
“First of all, you’re welcome. This does feel pretty great, and I’m happy you’re here with me.” I clasped my hands together and lowered my chin, weighing whether or not I should push forward. I should have stopped there, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t like me to leave an opportunity unexplored. “And secondly, what are the good things you’re in your head about?”
7
JOSHUA
I thought about how to answer him the whole walk back to his house.
What are the good things I’m in my head about?
The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. Not yet. More importantly, I wasn’t ready for Matthew to be pissed at me when I did. Because the thing I couldn’t stop running on a loop in the back of my mind was Matthew in the kitchen with a pump in his hand and milk moving into a glass jar.
Dr. Arthur had been careful not to mention Matthew specifically, but he obviously knew that I knew. In his steady and nonjudgmental voice, he explained that it was a rare but natural phenomenon that I should research if I was curious about it. He also mentioned that most men who experienced lactation were open to answering questions from an open-minded friend. And, of course, when the time felt right.
When the time felt right.
That was the kicker. Nothing ever felt right for me, but being sweaty from a run and out in public was definitely not the right time.
So I lied. I didn’t want to lie, but it just came out. "I've been thinking about how lucky I am," I said finally.
Matthew was walking beside me, but he stopped and raised an eyebrow when I turned back to him. “Lucky, how?”
"That you saw me." I kept my eyes on the path and kept walking. When I could hear him moving behind me, I continued. "That you’re the kind of man who cared enough to stop…and that Jeanette cared enough to say something to you." I shook my head a little at how quickly my life had changed. "A hundred things could've gone differently and we wouldn’t be standing here right now. I just keep thinking about that."
Matthew was quiet before he exhaled. "Yeah, I keep thinking about that too."
We walked mostly in silence back to Matthew’s house, and when we got there, we both washed up and changed into sweats before meeting up in the living room.
Gerald was making his rounds along the baseboard, so I stepped over him on my way to the couch.
Matthew pulled out his phone and started tapping the screen. "What do you like on pizza?"
Pizza? I hadn’t had pizza in ages. "Anything except anchovies."
"Finally, something we agree on." He winked and then finished the online order. "It’ll be here in forty minutes."
I glanced out at the side of the house where Matthew had put my bike earlier. "Hey, where's my bike?"
"Garage." He jerked his chin toward the door at the back of the kitchen. "She’s safely in bed for the night."
Something in my chest loosened at the way he took care of the only thing I cared about. "Thank you."
“Of course.” He grabbed the remote and plopped down on the couch. “You wanna watch a movie?”
I sat down on the other end and folded my legs beneath me. “Yeah, I love movies.”
We settled on an action movie about a beekeeper who was some ex-military vigilante guy. And he was fucking jacked. Hot, but not as hot as Matthew. Mostly because Matthew was real and beside me and smelled so damn good.
