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“I’ve thought a lot about that night, and I think he just made up the part about hitting on women, so he could go out with me, to be my wingman or whatever. He never hit on anyone that night.”
Dalton tapped my foot with his and turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. “Did you?”
“Brett dragged me into a few conversations. And …”
“And?”
“I may have spent some time in the bathroom with a townie.”
He bumped my shoulder, and I dropped my head, focusing on scratching off a drop of paint from my ring finger.
“You would have been around twenty then?”
“Uh-huh, nineteen or twenty.”
“You know, I came out around that time.” Dalton appeared to be coming to the same conclusion I had.
“I’ve thought about it since I met you. Brett’s my best friend, and I love him, but I think maybe, at the time, he reached out to the one gay guy he knew after he found out his little brother was gay. He’s always been so supportive of me. You know, just like a brother.”
“Jesus. Who knew my brother could be such a softie? Who knew he cared? We, like, never talked about it. Not once.” Dalton bumped my shoulder again, and like earlier when he’d rested his leg atop mine, and we’d both just ignored it, he didn’t pull away. All I could focus on was the point where we touched, and the ripples of heat it sent throughout my body.
“So, like, you got your best friend because of me,” he teased, a wonderful lilt to his voice. He patted my thigh, once for each word: “You’re welcome.”
He didn’t remove his hand. I froze, my hands still slightly raised and tangled, the fleck of paint long gone. Slowly, I lowered them to my lap, where one just happened to brush the hand on my thigh.
“I mean, my best friend is Brett, so … should I really be thanking you.”
“Point. But you’re stuck with him now and at least we get Mallory out of the deal!”
“Love Mallory.”
“Right? What does she see in him?”
We laughed but then quieted. “Maybe it’s that whole softie thing. They seem really happy together,” he finally spoke.
“Yeah, that,” I agreed.
“And anyway, long story for me to say that if I hadn’t met Brett, I wouldn’t have come to Breakwater. That first Christmas, we were at the Three B's, and he so casually talked about you and Austin being out, right in front of your mom—and was your dad there?”
“Probably not.”
“I never had anything like that at home. My parents are very involved in their church. I even went to the church school my whole life. My entire community was very homophobic and very … isolating.”
“I know I said I remember that visit, and I do remember dinner at the Three B’s. Martin made Austin and me be the servers, then gave us a huge tip. But I don’t remember Brett talking about us being gay. I would definitely remember that.”
“You weren’t there when we talked about it. You were helping Martin, I think. Brett implied that you and Austin might be dating. And it was just a topic of conversation at the dinner table. Even though I’d been out at college, I definitely wasn’t at home. It was overwhelming for me to hear that casual conversation in front of your mom. To be part of it. It’s one thing being out in a college town to a handful of college students, but it’s a whole other thing to see someone, to have seen you and Austin, so simply and easily accepted by your families, by this whole town.”
“I’m glad you had that moment. Glad it gave you a place to come back to.”
To come home to, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. I wasn’t staring at our sneakers anymore, I was staring at our hands, our fingers barely touching, my leg burning under his touch. The flames danced through me, through my entire body. Was he looking at our hands as well? I couldn’t tell.
Dalton eventually filled the silence that followed while my body sparked.
“I didn’t know Brett was so interested in my love life! Geeze! You go to one prom with a guy!” Dalton laughed, but I didn’t.
I looked at him then, and he was in fact staring at his hand on my leg. “So you and Austin …”
Dalton didn’t answer right away. Then he didn’t answer that question at all. He looked up at me, and our eyes locked.
