Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Don’t blame yourself.” I gave the same advice I’d give my siblings. I supposed he’d lump me into the emotionally unavailable category, whatever that meant. Which was laughable because I’d felt so damn much for him that senior year of high school. And if he’d gone forth and chosen badly with dating, I’d take my own advice and not blame myself for his bad luck. “Marriage takes two to work and two to fall apart. You can’t put it all on yourself.”
“Thanks.” He regarded me quietly for a long moment. “You and Betsey seemed to have made it work.”
“We had our years,” I allowed. Maverick’s guarded gaze said the real question was whether I’d been happy, which was a far more complicated answer. “Had a great kid to raise together. That helped. Foundation of friendship to fall back on when times were tougher.”
“I’m glad you had that. Truly.” Maverick sucked hard on the corners of his mouth. “I wish—” He cut himself off with a firm shake of his head. “Never mind. Glad you had each other as partners.”
“We had our differences too.” I had no idea why I was admitting something I didn’t talk about with anyone else. “Willow was asking earlier about siblings. I would have happily had a house full. Further, I worried a ton about Betsey’s intense travel schedule. And I never did see eye to eye with her folks. But I loved her, took our vows damn seriously. All that.”
“And you still…?” He shook his head again. “None of my business.”
“Ask what you want to ask, Maverick.” I gave him a pointed stare. The topic of my own sexuality had been as inevitable as his.
“Would you call yourself bi? Hetero-flexible? Straight?” Rather than a harsh demand, his voice was uncertain. His eyes held a certain vulnerability. He wanted to know if our time together had meant something, or if I’d spent twenty years pretending it hadn’t happened.
“You know as well as me that straight isn’t it.” I blew out a breath, leaning harder into the fridge like that could help me find words for something I’d only recently reasoned out. “Back when we were kids, I didn’t have a word for not thinking about sex all the time but enjoying kissing my best friend. And then later, my other best friend.”
“There’s a lot of different labels that could cover that.” Maverick’s tone was more thoughtful.
“Like I said earlier, representation matters. There’s this time travel show I watch, and reviewers kept going on about how this one character had a demisexual awakening.” The back of my neck went itchy and hot. I hadn’t shared this with another soul. “Looked pretty normal to how attraction worked to my uneducated eye, so I looked the word up, and there it was, a word just for me.”
“I’m glad you found a label for your identity that works for you.” Nodding, Maverick lightly patted my upper arm. He seemed to think better of the touch, immediately dropping his hand. “Also, that certainly makes things back then make more sense.”
“It made sense of my whole damn life. Even after I got together with Betsey, I still felt broken in a fundamental way, like I was missing a key part of being a guy. Or hell, human.” I stared down at the floor, memory of the years of shame and silence making my brain buzz and my chest hurt. “I only seemed to care about sex when I was already in a relationship. Knowing there are plenty of others like me who have to like and care about someone to want to have sex with them, that’s everything.”
“That’s awesome you found that clarity.” Maverick’s hand twitched like he wanted to touch me again. I wished he would. But instead, he swallowed hard. “I’m… Would it be weird to say I’m honored to have been your first?”
“Likewise.” If nothing else, I’d always carry the knowledge that I’d been Maverick Lovelorn’s first kiss and several other firsts. We’d never gotten beyond hand jobs and rubbing off together, but I’d been the first person to make him come, and that meant something to me.
I stepped closer to him, intending… Hell, I didn’t know. Something. An acknowledgment perhaps of everything we’d been to each other. But then Hannah’s voice stopped me.
“Dad!” she called out from the great room. “Do we have time for another episode?”
“We better be heading home.” I turned away from Maverick. I couldn’t afford to be foolish here. Letting him go the first time had been difficult enough, and I wasn’t sure I could survive the heartache a second time.
Chapter 14
Colt
Then: Graduation
We made quick work of setting up camp. Since the weather was predicted to stay clear all night, we’d sleep in the truck bed with sleeping bags, same as our last few outings. Likely, we’d zip the bags together again, a thought that made prickles race up my spine. I’d raided the food table at my graduation party and Mom’s fridge for dinner options, especially since I hadn’t seen Maverick eat since he’d arrived at my party some hours before. We had a fire circle from previous camping trips and a nearby pile of kindling, and I easily built a small fire and set the metal grate we’d liberated from a shed at the ranch over the fire circle.