Chapter 6
“Have you ever had a crush on a man?” I asked my ex-wife, Mary, over coffee. The air was brisk, and the crowds outside the cafe were sparse. That served me just fine, as it wasn’t like I wanted the whole town to hear this particular conversation.
Not that I had a thing against gossip.
Hell, I was the king of gossip.
I was just gathering intel, that’s all. I’d run myself ragged the previous night trying to convince myself that I’d been wrong about Joe.
That I didn’t have a crush. That I’d been overwhelmed when he’d yelled at me—god, did I have a thing for when he yelled.
That Madison was incorrect. That the fizzle in my stomach when I’d held him was a figment of my imagination.
But I couldn’t escape the fear that I was firmly in denial.
One didn’t just…totally shake up the foundation of their life and have a sexual awakening in their forties. That was not a thing. Was it? And if it was…how did I confirm it? I hadn’t been lying when I told Joe I wanted to be his friend.
I could think of nothing in this world I wanted more than that.
But…did I want more?
And if I did…how would I know that?
Hence why talking to Mary before I picked up Marybeth from school was a good idea.
Mary had to head into the city for a meeting and she wouldn’t be back till later that night.
Because I was the best not-uncle ever, me and the kiddo were going to have a grand ole time after my half-shift at the grocery store.
A Christmas movie. Dinner. The whole shebang.
I was looking forward to it.
It was the perfect distraction after this conversation.
“Can you repeat that?” The look Mary gave me in response to my question was so sour it could’ve curdled milk.
“I asked if you’d ever had a crush on a man,” I said again.
“Yep. That’s what I thought you said the first time.” Mary arched a brow. “Jason…” She dragged every syllable of my name out for maximum effect. “You do realize I married you, right?” A lock of soft brown hair drifted across her brow as a breeze blew through the umbrella-covered tables.
She raised her coffee to her lips with a little head shake that conveyed just how fed-up she already was with my shit. Her eyes danced with amusement, proving she still enjoyed me even if I annoyed her.
“Right,” I nodded, once again attempting to cut to the chase, “true.”
“I am also remarried,” she added, sipping again. “In case you’ve forgotten.”
“How could I ever forget Daniel?” I sighed dreamily, just to make her laugh. “Hunky sweetheart that he is.”
“That’s two crushes at least,” she informed me.
“We’d hope,” I agreed.
“We’d hope,” she echoed. She knew I hadn’t felt the same way about her. We’d talked about it. In depth. Especially during the divorce. So those words nearly made me laugh. I knew she’d intended them as a joke, a gentle poke. A secret that was ours and ours alone.
Both of us had theorized, over wine on more than one occasion, that I might be on the aromantic spectrum.
Greyromantic, possibly. Or demiromantic?
I could have sex. I enjoyed sex. The release, the physicality.
In fact, before we’d been together, I’d had a lot of it, chasing away my perpetual loneliness in whatever way I could.
It scratched a physical itch, but the emotional aspect had always been lacking. Even with Mary. Besides that, there were a lot of ways we were incompatible. We were both too bossy for our own good.
Sex had never equaled feelings for me. It’d just…taken me a long time to realize that. That the endorphins I felt weren’t the warm-fuzzies everyone else talked about when they were physical with the person they loved.
Even when I’d been in my college-slut-phase, though, I’d never been interested in having sex with men. Which made my current set of warm-fuzzies and the fact my eyes kept straying to Joe’s ass (or chest) even more confusing.
“You’re kind of a crush expert then,” I started again. This time, Mary outright laughed. Which had been the goal, so I felt pretty accomplished. I grinned. “So…how did you know you had a crush?” I asked her. “Definitively.”
“Hmm.” She took another sip, mulling over the question. “Definitively? Because I wanted to jump into bed with my crushes.”
I wrinkled my nose, even though she was talking about me. Which—just felt weird. At this point, she was more my sister than an ex. “Mary—” I complained. “Be serious.”
“I am serious.” She set her coffee down for a moment. “Everyone is different. For me, the first thing I noticed was my sexual interest. I’m not saying you’d be the same if you had one—”
Abort abort!
“Ah,” I cut her off before she could continue. “I can see why you’d think I’m talking about me—”
“Are you?”
“But I’m not.” I walked my fingers across the table and snagged one of the pastries off her plate.
“I am only asking out of the goodness of my heart on…behalf of...” Lies, lies.
“A friend. Yes. A friend. Not me. Someone else. A man. In his…mid…life years. Who has maybe, possibly, developed a thing for another man for the very first time. For backstory: he has never had a thing for another guy before. Never. Is that…weird?” Mary blinked, and to cover my tracks I added, “I said it wasn’t. ”
At this point I had no idea what was coming out of my mouth.
It wasn’t very convincing, probably.
I squinted at her, trying to gauge her reaction. My heart was about ready to leap out of my chest.
“Is that…possible?” I asked.
Truthfully, it wasn’t Joe’s gender that was throwing me for a loop, but the fact that I was interested in anyone in general.
There was no way Mary believed this lie, but she let me bullshit anyway—charitable as she was.
“Of course it’s possible,” Mary said. “Humans are ever evolving. You and I know that better than anyone.” She was a lawyer. She saw a lot of different kinds of people in her line of work. I did too—manning the only grocery store in town—but in a totally different way.
I was constantly surprised by the best in people, and Mary? Well. Mary was constantly surprised by the worst.
“But…” I started. “What about if…the…ah…man? The object-of-affections man, not the crusher-in-his-forties man, was young.”
“How young?”
“Late twenties.” I waited for judgment. “Would that be weird? To be interested in someone…younger?”
“Not necessarily, no,” Mary shook her head. “So long as the arrangement was mutual and both parties are adults, I don’t see why a relationship with a ten-plus-year age gap would be that odd. It happens more often than you’d think. Compatibility transcends numbers.”
“Huh.” That was enlightening. I nodded along.
“How could my friend confirm he has feelings? I think…his biggest concern is that because it’s a first-time experience, he worries he’ll shake up his life and find out that he was simply misunderstanding himself.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done that. ”
“The only way to gather more data is to…gather more data,” Mary said. “Tell your friend to spend more time with his crush. Time can be enlightening. Get to know one another. Try not to overthink things.”
“I’ll tell my guy. My friend-guy. Person. So he knows. That’s pretty sound advice.”
“I’m surprised your friend-guy-person cares what I think.” She had a point there.
“Why wouldn’t he?” I huffed, cheeks going hot. “You’re very intelligent.”
“And this…totally random person we’re talking about knows that I’m intelligent? Knows of me? Enough to value my opinion on the matter?” God, she was pushy.
“I was just consulting you,” I admonished. “No need to read between the lines.” I took a long sip of my drink to stall.
“I see,” Mary said, cocking her head to the side. “Because for a moment there, I thought you were alluding to the massive crush you have on Joe Milton.”
I choked.
Then dodged the conversation as quickly as I possibly could.
“Ha! No.” I stole the pastry again and shoved it into my mouth, munching through the buttery flaky bread and not tasting a damn thing. When I swallowed, my throat felt like sandpaper. “Why would you think that?” If my voice was a little shrill, that was totally intentional.
“No one, least of all me, would be surprised you have feelings for Joe.”
“Except that I don’t,” I glared at her. “And my questions were obviously asked to help someone else. Not me.”
“Mhm,” Mary’s eyes glittered with mischief.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I huffed, crumbs spraying across the table.
“Like what?” Mary’s lips curled upward.
“Like you know something I don’t.”
She cocked her head to the side, smug as hell.
I added her to my shit list along with Madison.
And then I headed to work.