“Right.”
“So, what’s changed? You refused to talk about this when I asked you. Matter of fact, you ran away.”
“I didn’t run away. I was just removing myself from the conversation because you were being difficult.”
He turned away, proving my point. At least I wouldn’t have to see his striking face. On the other hand, the view of his strong back and broad shoulders didn’t help matters.
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to talk about it now,” he said. “Not if you’re going to bring up the things you did last time.”
“I didn’t want to. Ihadto.”
Laughter spilled out of his mouth as he turned back to me. Sure, you’d swear he wasn’t taking me seriously, but you’ve got to understand how the Kaydens of the world operate. It meant I had him on the ropes and should make my move.
“Youhadto bring that up?” he asked.
“I did, yeah. And we need to talk about that more than ever.”
He rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“We don’t just bottle things up on the farm. We deal with them head-on.”
“Okay, De Ruiter, we can’t have a good, long talk about it after we’re done milking the cows and filling the slop troughs.”
“You’re scared, Kayden.”
“I am not.”
You would’ve sworn a lightning bolt had struck. His eyes practically darted at me.
“Yes, you are,” I retorted. “Scared shitless. You’re making fun of me to cover up for it.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“When you think about it, what we did wasn’t that weird. It’s sort of normal.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“I spent some time thinking and remembered a human sexuality class I took in high school. The teacher gave us statistics on how many people have had a homosexual experience. Guess what? It’s like six or seven out of ten.”
“Oh my God, now you’re getting into statistics? You’ve got to get all geeky on me?”
God, of all the guys in the world to kiss, why someone as hardheaded as Kayden Preston?
“You don’t feel better knowing this happens to a lot of people?” I asked.
“I guess what we did qualifies as a homosexual experience?”
“Not quite. For it to qualify as?—”
“Would you shut up about this already?”
You should’ve heard him. His voice must’ve jumped an octave. He turned away again and combed his fingers through his hair. Of course he would deny feeling threatened by this topic. He wouldn’t be Kayden Preston without a double dose of stubbornness.
“Look,” I said, “I didn’t believe it either. Like if a guy kisses another guy, then he can’t really be straight. Not one hundred percent. And the number of guys who’ve supposedly done a lot more than that is nuts. But when we kissed, I started thinking.”
“If you’d done any thinking, bro, you wouldn’t push your luck like this.”
Only he would find fault in someone thinking through a problem rationally. His voice didn’t sound as strong and authoritative as before. He couldn’t deny that the kiss had impacted him every bit as much as it had me. He couldn’t put on this act forever.
