“Safe to say, I think you’re queer too.” I smiled, but my words didn’t erase his frozen stillness.
“I’m not out,” he muttered.
“Well, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t know why I did that.” His eyes darted back and forth.
“Tired of hiding? Or maybe you couldn’t resist my total magnetism and hotness.” I grinned to show that was a joke.
Callum shook his head. “No way. Although you are hot. But I shower with hot guys all day long and I don’t kiss them. Not even the two I know are gay. Although only Docker’s out to the public.”
“You don’t need to explain. You’re fine. We’re good.” His breathless delivery suggested he was freaked, and I wanted to calm him.
He dropped his gaze to my forearm. “I think… you showed me something painfully personal and I… I had to…” He raised his eyes to mine, looking scared.
“And you gave me a vulnerability to balance mine out? Babe, you shouldn’t do that. People will eat you alive.” I didn’t hear what I’d called him until it was out of my mouth. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice.
“Hah.” He turned away to yank up another big handful of the dried weeds, struggling to haul a root up from the soil. “No one gives me trouble. I know how to punch real hard.”
I figured he knew I hadn’t meant the kind of problem you could punch in the mouth. But whatever vulnerability he’d shown, he was stiff and cold now, with everything buttonedaway. He pushed to his feet. “Gotta dump this bucket in the compost. Later.”
“Sure,” I called to his back as he strode away. “Your grandpa has my number. Send me the name of your tattoo guy and I’ll text you when I have an appointment.”
He waved a hand to show that he’d heard before disappearing round the corner of the house, but he didn’t reply.
Well, that went well. Not.My own fault for taking a closeted guy up on an offer. Callum might appeal to me on every level, from his tall, muscular body to the moments of vulnerability and the lost-boy look I’d seen come and go. That didn’t mean kissing him had been a good idea, at all.
I should’ve probably reassured him again I had no intention of outing him. But as several minutes passed and he didn’t reappear, it became clear he didn’t want to talk to me. Best thing I could do was pretend that never happened.
So I headed back inside to figure out what Krystal had been paying for furnace maintenance, while tracking Josiah around the neighbourhood on my phone app. The kid stopped at a gas station for ten minutes, probably for that tire, and then went into the local mall, which meant I didn’t have to worry about him freezing. Once school was out, he headed to Brayden’s house, and I relaxed a bit. I’d call him if he didn’t come home before dinner.
Was that app stalking? A breach of privacy? Maybe, but after three months of working with people who had no hesitation making others disappear, Josiah was stuck with my paranoia.
He’s stuck with me in a lot of ways.I sent out a wish into the universe—let me learn how to live with a twelve-year-old and keep him safe, and not drive either of us crazy.
CHAPTER 5
CALLUM
What the fuck did I just do?I bent over Grandpa’s compost bin behind our house and hyperventilated.
I told Zeke I was gay.Hell, I’d proved it, way beyond being able to take it back.
Inevercame out to people. Well, Grandpa, but he got the picture after I dated zero girls in the first twenty years of my life. I didn’t have to do anything except nod when he asked. And Koda, to whom I spilled the tea after I saw someone hitting on them outside a bar one night, not taking no for an answer.
Koda’d only been working for Grandpa two weeks at that point, and we were still calling them he/him. I saw them wrestling some big guy off, pulled over and shoved open the door, and they jumped in. Then, when I told them I was cool with drag queens, they felt they had to explain that the makeup and the dress weren’t drag. In the ten blocks to get them home, they gave me their pronouns and I said something about, “Cool, I’m gay, but not out, like, at all.” They’d kept my secret since.
Come to think of it, there might be something to Zeke’s idea that I didn’t know how to deal with someone exposing their vulnerabilities to me except by exposing my own. Zeke was also right that it wasstupidas hell.
I kissed Zeke.That was the height of ridiculous insanity. Nothing excused that kiss. Not my grandpa saying Zeke was a good guy, or his kindness defending his brother from the witch. Not my year-long crush in ninth grade, or how much he appealed to me now, all grown up. And certainly not the fact that random making out behind the bushes in our yard fit right into the hottest of my fourteen-year-old fantasies.I’m lucky he didn’t punch me.
Although no, we’d both consented just fine. I could still feel the heat of his hand against my face and the way he kissed me, open-mouthed and eager. Neither of us had been reluctant.
Until I got my sanity back.
I shook the weeds out of the bucket into the bin and spent much longer than necessary stirring up the pile with the pitchfork. The deep layers were nice and damp, a good, heavy load that let me strain my muscles and sweat a bit.
Zeke had some muscles. He made you sweat with just a kiss.
