Page 23

He shrugged. “I read a lot.”

Of all things, that got me, and I laughed. It tickled me to no end, and I snorted, nearly choking on a sip of my spritzer.

“Hey, there, that’s not so bad. Got a cute laugh.” He reached over to nudge my shoulder. “Okay, I got a question!” He perked up as he turned on the couch to face me.

And here goes… The awkward fucking questions. Hole in the bedsheet? The giraffe conundrum? Free pork. Bacon-related shit.

“How was your family when you came out?” He stared at me expectantly, and it was not the question I was expecting.

“Oh, I think they just kinda knew. My best friend came out before me and when Mom and Dad started trying to talk to me about dating all vague-like, I realized that I didn’t like girls like that, and they’ve just told me to be sure to adopt or something. They’re older, so they’re not super expecting to be grandparents.” I gave a half smile. “And they’ve got plenty of nieces and nephews.”

His grin widened. “I love hearing that. Family that accepts it.”

“How did your famil—” I hesitated. “I guess that’s a loaded question.”

“Never knew my mom. My father, we just called him Mister in the house. He half ass parented me, but the nanny kept me at her side.” He shrugged. “The missus didn’t quite like my mama after I popped out, so they sent her to another plantation.”

I read between the lines. Sold her.

“So, yeah. Nobody to come out to. And way back then, I kissed a boy and felt so guilty about it. They kept trying to give me a wife to spread the genes, as it were, but I couldn’t, you know? The mister’s son ended up popping out a kid with the laundry maid, and I took the fall for it so people would quit bugging me.” He gave me a wink. “I think he kinda knew and was just happy I wasn’t going to ruffle his wife’s skirts.”

“I’ll toast to that.” I held up my drink, finding it empty. He was easy to talk to.

“But it wasn’t looked down on like it was back then. Sure, people talked, and if you buggered the wrong man…” He waved his hand. “People forget we had transgender people back then, too. The Apache had loads of them. Didn’t have no name for them, I think, but we saw women out on horseback, men in the camps weaving and wearing a dress. Women with wives.”

I hadn’t known that.

“And we had a woman in the local brothel that we all knew wasn’t born that way and plenty of men visited her. Something changed, though. People changed; society changed. It’s worse and better in ways. Sure, things weren’t safe, but it wasn’t spoken about. We minded our own business.” He offered to take my bottle and took it to the kitchen to drop it in my recycling bin. He peeked in the fridge and frowned. “Only one left.”

“You can have it. I’m good on one.” I offered him a smile, and he waved me off. “Nah. I have to drive back home.”

“You can stay, watch a movie.” I found myself eager to have him there a little longer, not wanting to be alone.

“Oooorrrr…” He gave me a wicked grin and migrated to my bookshelf, perusing the titles. “We can dive?”

He pulled out a copy of one of my guilty-pleasure romances and waved it at me as my cheeks burned. “Yeah, not that one.”

Post-apocalyptic monster-fucker romance was not on my to-do list. I liked it in theory. Would I want to fuck a ten-foot-tall demon with a schlong big as my arm in real life? Hell no. Would I superimpose myself as I imagined it and convinced myself the much more realistic dick I envisioned in my head canon was the same? Hell fucking yes.

He glanced at the cover and read over the blurb on the back with a frown. He flipped it open as his brows raised. “Yeah. Not this one. Not for beginners.” He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like holy shit under his breath before he tucked it away.

He perused again and found something with hockey in it—because, of course, I followed the trend for a minute. “This one?”

And I grudgingly shrugged.

“Maybe we should order some dinner before we—”

“After. You’ll be starving, then.” He sat down with me and scooted close, opening to the first page. I relished his body heat against me and accepted the second drink he pushed in to my hands. “Drink, and I’ll start us out.”

I tilted the bottle back and chugged, almost eager to sink into the book. Two wine coolers wouldn’t mess with my judgment, but damn did it feel good when I tucked the bottle to the side of the couch and listened to his smooth voice reading aloud.

I leaned in as his arm wrapped over my shoulders and watched the text as the words took shape. And, like always, I felt this fuzzy connection, my mind vividly playing things out, but moment by moment, it grew more vivid until we were standing in the middle of a college quad in an eerily empty campus.

“Not a lot of side characters…” He glanced around, watching as the slender blond, I’d envisioned the lead to be, jogged across the quad to go sneak into the arena to watch the players practice.

And so we snuck into the arena too, watching as Brendan watched Jayce score a goal against a teammate, the hidden smoky glances, the simmering heat between the two so apparent in person that it was a wonder nobody noticed them eye-fucking.

Zeke waved his hand as if to turn a page, and it was like time fast-forwarded to us watching the main characters sneak a make-out session until one of them looked up at us in a half panic and they bolted.