Pinching my tongue between my teeth, I didn’t want to say something I might regret. “I’ve only just met you; you don’t get to know my deal. And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone about that. It won’t happen again.”
“Relax, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “As long as you’re not already with someone. I don’t see the big deal. It was just a kiss.”
I shook my head and looked back at him with those eyes begging me to join him in the hay and the wet clothes begging to be torn from his skin, at least, he’d need to remove them soon or he might catch a cold. “I’m not—I’m not married, I don’t have kids, I’m just not going to get into all of this right now. This can’t happen.”
He shrugged. “I think you actually leaned in first.”
“If that is true, it wasn’t meant to, I just—”
A giggle escaped his mouth. “I think it was me, but I felt something in the moment, and I’m sorry that you don’t feel anything.”
That wasn’t it at all. I did feel something, and surprisingly under the heft of the drenched clothing, I could still feel. I just nodded. “You should get home and out of those clothes. You’ll get sick, and I can’t have you getting sick when we’ve still got work to do.”
“Yes, Sir,” he said, saluting me and then holding his hand out. “But I’m gonna need your help getting out of this.”
I helped him to his feet as another roll of thunder came crashing down. Mary let out a whinny. I cooed her to lay down and gave her a little stroke on her head as she got comfy in her pile of hay.
Jace had been behind me the entire time, adjusting his Stetson and rubbing away the hay from his wet clothes. I’d tried telling him to leave again, but it wasn’t until his mom arrived with umbrellas and raincoats.
“I figured the two of you might be stranded up here,” she said, clearing her throat and taking a look at us. “Oh lord, Jace get one of those one and get back to the house. You’ll get sick if you stay in those.”
“I’m not gonna get sick,” he said, accepting an umbrella from his mom and an oversized raincoat. “We were just finishing the stalls.”
“Then how did you get caught in the rain?” she asked. “Mhmm. I thought you were old enough to know not to play out in the pouring rain.”
Something stirred in me at the comment. “In his defense, ma’am, it was a nice relief after hauling hay,” I said. “But she’s right, I’m about to head back to the guesthouse now.”
Martha hummed and nodded. “Lolo, do you a multi-vitamin?”
“What for?”
“In case you get sick,” she said. “I swear by my one a day vitamin, if not, that’s ok, I’ll have Max send up some of those dissolvable vitamin C tablets.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Wilde, I don’t get sick.”
Jace laughed. “That’s what people say right before they get sick.”
And while I might’ve agreed, he was wrong about me.
Once I was back at the guesthouse, I took a long warm soak in the tub and made sure to put my boots by the radiator.They wicked water away so well, but you could never be too careful about wet boots. I enjoyed more of my book, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. It didn’t help that I was reading about men kissing, and now, every mention of it in the book had a vivid image of Jace’s face against mine.
I’d tried to push the moment away, but every push was also a pull, forcing me to remember it, and the error I’d made just by getting too close to him physically. It wasn’t something I wanted to be defined by. Sexuality wasn’t something I needed people to think about when they saw me, it was a distraction from who I was as a person, because at my core, I was just a guy who liked to work with animals.
My feelings were nicely bottled up and lined neatly, almost like wine, aging, they’d been right there in my mind, and I never tried to uncork a single one. And yet, here they were, bubbling to the surface.
The first was an ex-fling. We were out one night at a dive bar near the ranch I’d been working on. Someone hurled a slur at us, and we hurled fists. He broke someone’s nose, I had a bottle smashed over my head, and the glass cut through my palm where I could now still see the silvery lines of where it had been stuck together with some gauze, tape, and some glue I was told was for skin.
It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten into a fight with someone, but my sexuality was some heated weapon that riled people up to the point of paranoia. I had to put my Kindle away after that, and take a couple deep breathes as the warm water soaked over me, hopefully helping me unwind.
That night, I binged all the baked goods Jace had brought over the other day, alongside two tins of soup after the first tin barely warmed me. And once those things were done, and my mind still continued to uncork bottled feelings, I turned the TV on in the corner of the lounge and let the mind meltingstations flicker in and out from the reception, but at least it was something to occupy myself with while I tried not to spiral.
I knew Jace wouldn’t tell anyone, but now, I didn’t know if I could work with him. I couldn’t trust myself to think he might want to kiss me again, and I might’ve wanted to kiss him again. In fact, I absolutely did.
This place was different. This was almost a new world now. People were proud, people were happy, and nobody hurled slurs like they were part of their everyday speech. Maybe I could let down some of my barriers here? It was one of the reasons that came into moving after all.
The TV came back from the static fizz. A competition show with bright colors and buzzers that dinged. Almost signaling a ding of my own, and there it was.
I had no reason to hide behind the straight persona I’d allowed people to create of me in my silence. I had a voice, a voice that these people seemed like they wanted to hear. A true burning smile appeared across my lips and cheeks.
