Chapter 18
Oakley
The last day at camp is filled with nonstop rain. The kids spend most of their time in the mess hall, playing games and avoiding the downpour.
I spend most of my time eyeing Lawson.
What are we doing? What am I doing?
I know better than to let myself fall down a rabbit hole with the man. There’s a good chance any single step will send me tumbling too far to ever come back up again.
I know this. And yet I can’t bring myself to tell him no or discourage him from seeking me out when he wants touch and comfort and to feel good.
But I haven’t told him about my own feelings. How they’ve changed, or maybe simply made themselves known now that they’re not buried under years of carefully placed dirt. I haven’t even admitted it to myself, not fully.
I can’t keep that up forever. Sooner or later, it’ll slip or need to be said.
And what then?
Do I lose this? Him? Do I watch my best friend find someone else to make a life with yet again?
Lawson gives me a nudge as the kids start filing out of the mess hall, our time at camp coming to a close. “Ready?”
I guess it’s back to the real world we go.
I offer the best smile I can manage. “Ready, Teach.”
We’re quiet on the ride back to Darling. Wendy is on her phone in the back seat, catching up on whatever social media the kids are using these days. My eyes keep straying to Lawson.
His hair is a bit unkempt after camping for three days, not his usual style in the least. It makes me want to haul him into my shower and then my bed, curling around him while we catch up on much-needed sleep.
And then wake him up with my mouth wrapped around his cock, showing him how damn good a blowjob can feel when it’s my lips doing the worshiping.
Fuck, I want to know what the man tastes like. His cock. His cum. His lips.
I forcibly tear my gaze away from Lawson’s resting pout, the man clearly preoccupied by whatever thoughts are in his head.
What would he think if he knew my own?
This is such a disaster. How did I think I could remain impartial about all this?
How did I think shacking up with my friend of forty-three years wouldn’t be the most monumental thing to happen to me in…well, ever?
Lawson drops Wendy off first at her mom’s. I grab her bag from the back of the truck as Lawson heads to the door. Wendy gives me a fierce hug when I hand her things over.
“All right?” I ask, smoothing down her somewhat messy hair.
She nods against me before letting go. “Yeah. Just… You’re pretty great, Oak.”
“Shit, kid.”
“Language,” Lawson calls.
I huff a laugh, and Wendy rolls her eyes before heading for the door. Laura is there now, her gaze on me before it flicks to her daughter. Lawson exchanges a quick word with his ex before hugging Wendy goodbye.
I get back in the truck as Lawson comes my way. “All good?” I check.
He nods, buckling in and starting the vehicle. “Fine. Let’s get home.”
I eye Lawson before my gaze returns to the front of the house. Laura is still standing there. I raise a hand in greeting, and she shuts the door.
Well, then.
Lawson doesn’t drop me off and leave for home like I expect him to. He hops out of the truck, grabbing his own things before making for my door.
My pulse is erratic as I follow after him.
He heads through the house to the back hall, opening the door to the yard and calling for Bell.
My cow tromps inside, her tail swooshing, her nose immediately pressing against Lawson’s bag in search of goodies.
He rubs between her fuzzy black ears, the two trailing into the kitchen.
When Lawson pulls a box of crackers out of the cupboard, Bell perks up.
“The fuck,” I mutter as Lawson proceeds to give my cow treats like she’s a dog. “What are you doing?”
“She asked nicely,” he answers.
“She did not. She didn’t say a goddamn word. Those are my crackers.”
“You’ve got plenty.”
When the hell did this man decide he would just start…
playing house with me and my damn cow? Except…
it’s always been like this, hasn’t it? Lawson inserting himself into my life, not that I ever tried to stop him.
Claiming my home as his own, claiming my free time, claiming nearly every ounce of my attention and, unintentionally, my affection.
I knew, I always knew, Lawson and I had fewer boundaries than most. But I never let myself think too hard about it. Because Lawson was—is—my closest friend. He never wanted anything more.
Except now he does. Or at least he wants something from me.
Which makes him acting like he’s right at home inside my home so much more complicated than it ever was before.
Lawson’s voice pulls me back to my kitchen, the crackers put away now and Bell wandering toward the living room to sniff the bags I dropped there. “Wanna start us something for dinner while I go wash up? I’ll finish cooking so you can do the same.”
I stare at him for a long moment, wondering what’s going through my best friend’s head. Wondering if anything at all has changed for him. Or if, to Lawson, this is all just…rote. “Sure,” I finally manage. “You can, uh, use my soap.”
“Yep.”
He’s already walking down the hall.
Christ.
As Lawson strips down in my bathroom, I pull sausage links out of the freezer and get handmade biscuits started. By the time the man emerges, hair damp and cheeks rosy, I have our breakfast dinner mostly complete.
“Scramble the eggs?” I ask him, sliding the bowl his way. “And take the tray out when the timer goes off.”
Lawson rumbles out an, “Mhm,” before stepping up right behind me. I freeze as his arms come around my chest, my heart beating furiously. “If I didn’t say it before, thank you.”
“For what?” I croak, trying to keep my breaths even.
He lets out a soft sigh, smelling of cedarwood and amber from my soap, another scent I can only describe as him mixing in to create a heady combination I wish I could bottle. “For coming with me this weekend. I know you’re happy to, but having you around makes everything better. So thanks.”
Well, fuck.
“I’m surprised you’re not sick of me yet,” I joke, hoping my tone doesn’t sound as strained as it feels.
“I couldn’t ever get sick of you, Oak. Not possible.”
It takes everything in me not to turn around and kiss him. Not to take his mouth with my own and ask—beg—that he stay, then. That he stay with me. Choose me. ’Cause I will never, not ever, have enough of Lawson Darling.
I want all of his soft, thoughtful smiles and the way his voice rolls through me like a gentle earthquake.
I want his body pressed to mine and under mine, want to lick and kiss and nibble every inch of his skin until I know it all by heart.
I want him to look at me like he can’t imagine losing me.
Not because I’m his friend, his…person. But because he knows no one in this entire universe could love him the way I could.
I love him. I love him.
And I was kidding myself if I ever thought otherwise.
Lawson steps back, the loss of his body heat feeling like the worst thing. “Go,” he says. “I’ve got the rest of dinner.”
I nod stiltedly, not quite meeting his eye. My mind runs circuits as I shower off the grime of camping. Possibilities. Contingencies. Every scenario, good and bad. They sit like a ball of lead in my stomach.
Lawson has dinner on the table when I get out of the shower. I join him, the kitchen quiet as we start to eat. Bell is lounging in the last of the evening sun.
“Was Laura upset earlier?” I ask, her disapproving stare still on my mind.
Lawson rocks his head side to side, finishing his bite of sausage before speaking. “Just doesn’t get it.”
“What?”
“You,” he says plainly.
My heart thumps. “What about me?”
“Why we’re so close. She’s never understood it. It’s a double standard. Laura has plenty of friends she’s close with.”
Right.
I clear my throat. “Does she know about…”
Lawson’s whiskey eyes meet mine. “The sex?”
I nearly cough, amusement warring with my incredulity. “Yes, the sex. Jesus.”
He shakes his head. “No. Haven’t told her any of it. Not sure I want to.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, working on a biscuit as Lawson thinks over his words.
Finally, he heaves a sigh. “I don’t owe it to anyone.
To explain myself. To try to…justify how I feel.
I’m not even sure I understand half of it.
Physically, I’m not attracted to anyone.
Sexually, I feel comfortable with men, with you, in a way I now recognize I never did with women.
Romantically, I don’t know what I am. If I even…
feel things the way other people do. I’m realizing so much of what I thought I knew was other people’s experiences told to me from the outside.
I need the chance to figure it out for myself.
To trust what I feel and find my own words for the person I am.
Trying to explain all that to Laura with three simple letters—gay—feels like only a partial truth.
And she’ll see it as me giving an excuse for why we never worked, not me finally… finding myself. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” I say thickly, my chest so tight I have to hold back my impulse to rub the ache away. “It makes sense, Law. You’re more than someone else’s interpretation of a label.”
His gaze holds mine, so much appreciation there I’m floored by it. His voice, when he speaks, is nearly a whisper. “Yeah. We all are.”
I manage a nod, that lead ball in my stomach twisting.
“Romantically, I don’t know what I am.”
I give Lawson a tremulous smile and go back to my dinner. It’s hard to finish, the food tasting ashen on my tongue.
It’s not exactly a surprise when Lawson makes it clear he’s staying the night. He brushes his teeth in my bathroom, picks out a pair of pajama pants from my dresser, and then grabs a t-shirt. Dressed comfortably, he climbs into my bed without a care in the world.
I’m slow to follow, taking my time in the bathroom, my pulse quick and a million different thoughts flitting through my head.
Could I be happy with what we have now? We’re practically acting like a couple already. Do I need it to mean more to Lawson?
Is this enough?
When I get back to the bedroom, Lawson looks halfway to sleep already. He turns his head my way, watching almost passively as I tug off my shirt. There’s no heat in his gaze, not that I expected there to be. No perusal of my body as my shorts join the pile on the floor.
“You mind?” I ask, indicating the boxer briefs I’m wearing. Frankly, I don’t know how Lawson sleeps with so many clothes on, especially in the heat of summer.
He shakes his head. “Why would I mind?”
Jesus, this man.
I climb onto the bed, the comforter already tossed down near the bottom, a sheet covering Lawson’s hips. The lamp is still on, but Lawson doesn’t turn over to shut it off. I can feel his stare like a palpable thing, and I finally turn my head to meet it.
It never ceases to amaze me how much life has passed while looking at this face I know better than anyone’s.
I know every curve of Lawson’s cheeks and brow and jaw.
Know how his beard hair grows and which spots are toughest for him to shave.
I know that he’s never much thought about his eyebrows, yet he’s meticulous about keeping his hair tamed and off his face.
I know which locks curl stubbornly in front and every line beside his eyes that grew over time, like a marker of the years he’s lived.
I know, now, how his cock feels when he’s hard.
Know the way every muscle in his body relaxes when I’m getting him off, like he can finally, finally let go of all the tension and responsibility in his life and let himself enjoy a few moments of pleasure.
I know how his neck tastes. His sweat. I know the sounds he makes are masculine, grunts and hard breaths, and that he gives himself over wholly and fully, as if there’s no thought in his head I might harm him.
I’ve known Lawson for ages. From the time he was a young boy with more wisdom in his brown eyes than maybe a kid that age should possess.
Through adolescence, teen angst, college, marriage, having a kid of his own.
We’ve gone through so many changes, together, separately, but never once has he lost his sense of dreamlike wonder.
That conviction that fairy tales are real because magic can be found anywhere if you look for it.
I can see it now in his eyes. That he’s witnessing something I don’t think any of the rest of us are even capable of seeing.
“What is it?” I ask, my throat dry.
“Nothing,” Lawson says, his hand coming up to run along my temple. It’s a fleeting touch, soft, warm, and then gone. “It’s just… You have the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen, Oak.”
It takes me a long, long time to answer him. “You think so?”
“Always have. Everything is right in the world when you’re looking at me.”
Lawson doesn’t glance away as he says it. Isn’t self-conscious about the admission or embarrassed to have revealed something so absolutely…raw.
I can feel it, the whoosh of air past my ears as I fall clean down that rabbit hole. I’m gone. Utterly tumbled. And there’s no going back.
I’m head over heels in love with my best friend.