Jeff was going to self-immolate. This was not at all how he’d ever expected this to go. He felt not just wrong-footed but impossibly young and unprepared. He’d spent fifteen years establishing himself, building a band, building a brand, forging this new identity out of the crumbling garbage of his past, and now all he wanted was the right to wear Carter’s name.
If he was honest, it was the same thing he’d been yearning for when he started the band in the first place—for someone to claim him as their own. For Carter, specifically.
If Carter didn’t mean that seriously, the way Jeff wanted him to—or if he did and it didn’t work out—this thing between them would destroy him.
Jeff was still trying to come up with words—not even necessarily words to address everything he was feeling; he’d settle for words that made a reasonable response to what Carter said—when he heard the scrape of gravel and then a clatter of aluminum. He and Carter exchanged panicked glances, and the words Jeff finally managed were “Did you lock the door?”
Carter shoved at him, and Jeff scrambled up, belatedly remembering he needed to help Carter up after him. Carter’s shorts were still around his thighs, which made his lopsided wobble toward the bedroom a bizarre combination of hilarious and erotic, with the firm bubble of his ass sticking out underneath his T-shirt. Jeff would’ve laughed at the absurdity, but he was too busy shoving down panic.
“Uncle Carter?” came a prepubescent voice.
Jeff stripped off the ruined shirt, then used it to mop up whatever he could. God, he was a mess. They both were. “Uncle?” he hissed. “I thought Brady’s kid was, like, six months old!”
“That’s Charlie. She’s Dave’s oldest.” He tossed Jeff a clean T-shirt.
Dave played professional hockey and was only in town through the off-season. “It’s May!” Jeff whisper-yelled as the front screen door banged open. “The playoffs are still on.”
“Not for the Devils,” Carter said wryly. “They must’ve gotten in today. They were going to come for the memorial if….” He waved a hand. “Otherwise we’d have postponed.”
Jeff pulled the clean shirt on. “I forgot nobody locks their door here. Or calls first.” He looked at his shorts, which seemed to have escaped contamination by way of a miracle.
Meanwhile Carter was attempting to pull a new pair of shorts over his walking boot. “Yeah, well, welcome to the family.”
Jeff didn’t have time to panic about that either, because the voice called again, “Uncle Carter?”
“Hey, Charlie,” Carter yelled back. “One second.” He glanced over at Jeff. “What’s our play here?”
Jeff looked up and met his gaze. “How old’s Charlie?”
“Twelve, I think?”
Old enough to be suspicious about her uncle coming out of the bedroom with someone else. “You want me to go out the window?”
Carter rolled his eyes. “Come on.” Before Jeff could protest, he opened the door and wobbled out. “H—oof!”
There was a spindly prepubescent clinging to Carter’s chest not ten feet from where Jeff just came his brains out.
“Ow,” Carter said after a moment. “Careful, please, my foot’s still sore.”
The kid pulled back and Jeff caught a glimpse of hair that was a few shades closer to peroxide than the usual Rhodes blond, shaved on one side and cut in a long bob on the other. She was wearing athletic shorts and a sleeveless shirt. It didn’t take a genius to guess why she might be anxious to see Uncle Carter. “Oh my God! What did you do?”
“Hiking accident.” Carter edged past her toward the couch.
Jeff was still considering making a break for the bedroom window when Charlie’s gaze moved up from her uncle and landed on him. “Oh.” She looked from Carter to Jeff. “I didn’t know you had company. Sorry.”
The window would have been a better choice.
“It’s okay,” Carter said quickly. His ears were red, because of course they were. He could casually introduce Jeff to the filthiest sex of his life without the faintest shred of shame, but as soon as it came to acknowledging it to someone else, bam! Instant flush. Jeff wished that weren’t so fucking adorable. “Charlie, this is my friend Jeff. Jeff, my niece Charlie.”
Charlie raised her hand in an awkward wave. “Hey.” Then her eyes widened and she said, “Wait, Jeff as inJeff Pine?”
Ohhhh fuck.“Uh,” said Jeff.
“Like this dumb hick town’s most famous queer person Jeff Pine?”
Please don’t hug me when I smell like come.“Guilty?”
“Oh my God,” she said. Then, obviously putting the pieces together, “Oh my God, Uncle Carter, are you—is this—?”
