I shook my head to clear it. I’d completely lost track of theconversation.
“I… Sorry, no, it’s fine. This isn’t hard for me to discuss.” I shrugged. “I just don’t find women sexually attractive at all. I notice the things that make them attractive, obviously. They’re soft and firm in nice places, comfortable to hug. They’ve got appealing lines.” I thought of my mother, who was an unstoppable force and who loved her kids so fiercely. Of Moira who worked atFanailleand was the snarkiest person I knew. Of my friend Kara, whose laugh was like sunshine. Of Kathy, my assistant, and the way she’d rest her hand on her pregnant belly. I shrugged. “Ilovewomen. Just not in a sexualway.”
“Not ever? Not even, like, oneperson?”
Daniel seemed serious, like this was more than just a casual conversation, so I took a deep breath and let it out, thinking about thequestion.
“Not really, no,” I said. “I know lots of guys who identify as gay who have, though. I’m personally pretty far along the Kinsey scale. There wasn’t a time when I dated girls or had to figure thingsout.”
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and I found myself saying, “What aboutyou?”
Daniel scratched at his nose and frowned. “I honestly never thought about it growing up.” His green eyes met mine. “Me being straight was just…obvious.”
I nodded and turned around so my ass rested against the counter. “Sorta like me, but opposite.” And wasn’tthatthe saddest truthever?
Daniel held his coffee cup closer with two hands, like maybe he was finally feeling the chill in the air, despite the fact that the kitchen had warmed considerably. “So do you think you ever could…change?”
“Change? You mean, like, fall for a woman? Uh, no.No. I can’t imagine that at all.” It was so far out of the realm of everything I knew about myself, I chuckled. “Definitely not in a sexual way,no.”
“Saynoa few more times,” Daniel suggested. “So I reallyunderstand.”
I blinked at him in surprise. He sounded almost pissy, and Daniel hardly ever got pissy. I mentally ran through everything I’d said. Had he thought I was saying something negative about being straight or likingwomen?
“I’m just talking aboutmyexperiences. I mean, it’s awesome that you like women,obviously. I think I’ve even heard of a couple other people like you,” Ijoked.
Not surprisingly, the joke fellflat.
Daniel jumped down from the counter. “I think I’d better take that showernow.”
“Oh. Sure.” I felt like he was upset with me, and I couldn’t think why. “And then maybe while it cools, we can take awalk?”
He paused in the doorway. “Very Goldilocks,” he said. He turned his head and gave me a brief smile. “Iapprove.”
* * *
By the timeDaniel got out of the shower—dressed in weather-appropriate layers and hiking boots this time—the pie was done baking. Without discussion, we walked out the back door and around the side of his house, past the battered old truck he had parked there, to the little trail we usually walked together. It was basically a three-mile loop with a bunch of smaller, half-broken trails branching off it; a nice easy walk that made conversationeasy.
Excepttoday.
Daniel didn’t seem overtly angry, but there was a lingering tension in the air, almost like the tangy smell of an approaching lightning storm, and for maybe the first time ever—well, the first time everwith Daniel—I wasn’t sure how to talk normally. It seemed impossible to avoid stepping on the same conversational landmine when I wasn’t sure what had triggered the firstone.
“So…” Ibegan.
He held up a hand to shush me and cocked his head as we continued walking, like he was listening to something. The wind was blowing, making the leaves rustle in the canopy above us, and I think I heard a car going past on the Camden Road, but otherwise the woods were silent. And then I heard what he’d been listeningfor.
“It’s a chickadee, right?” heasked.
I nodded and I felt my lips quirk up. “Yeah. Goodear.”
“Better be, after all the times you’ve pointed them out to me. Chickadees, woodpeckers, the redthings…”
“Cardinals,” Isupplied.
“See? You think I’m not paying attention when you give me yourAnimal Facts with Juliantalks on these walks, but I am,” he assuredme.
“Yeah? Sometimes I can’t believe I don’t bore you to death. I’m always shocked you want mearound.”
Jesus. Listen to the shit coming out of my mouth. The equation wasn’t a new one: uncertainty plus Julian Ross plus conversation equaled verbal diarrhea of the worst kind. But it was so rarely like this with Daniel. I rambled, sure, but not thisway.
