Kendall
THE TRIP TO the Kensingtons’ cabin had been just what I’d needed to come back refreshed and recharged for work.
I’d only been back a couple days, but already I’d filmed a bunch of content for my socials.
On top of that, my schedule was looking pretty well booked up for the summer.
Things were definitely going well, and I had very little to complain about.
Pushing my little cart through the aisles of the store, I snagged my regular purchases off the shelves and tossed them into my cart.
In the baking aisle, I eyed all the seasonal items. Alongside the sunshines and flip-flops, there was stuff for pride month, too.
Smiling to myself, I picked up a sheet of edible cake decorations, rainbow hearts and flags.
With my fingers tapping to the beat of the pop song playing through the speakers of the store, I continued my trek to the pharmacy section.
I needed to replenish my supply of seasonal allergy meds.
My allergies were triggered by pretty much everything in existence.
Pollen, dust, pet dander, you name it. And having various liquids constantly leaking from the orifices in my face was not exactly comfortable or sanitary, especially when most of the time I was either on camera, or preparing food for other people.
Maneuvering my cart into the aisle and grabbing my preferred brand, my eyes popped wide as I saw Rhys standing at the other end of the long shelf.
“Oh! Hey!” I said, mostly out of surprise, before I could really consider whether he’d want to see me or not. Things at the cabin had gotten… Strange. The talk we’d had that last night had been so intimate I’d wanted to melt.
I’d replayed the entire conversation back in my head over and over, and I couldn’t help but be embarrassed at the way I’d yammered on about how hard it was to find a nice guy who was into the way I looked, and how I wanted some cheesy white picket fence life with kids and a yard our dogs could run around in.
I’d probably sounded like such a whiny dipshit to him, complaining about my hypothetical relationship problems while he was smack dab in the middle of a divorce with someone who’d had an affair with his actual boss. Ugh.
But when he looked up to see me, he didn’t look particularly annoyed or bothered, to my relief. He raised his free hand, the one not clutching the handle of his little basket, in greeting.
“Hey, Sparkles,” he said, closing most of the gap between us by walking over. “Small world.”
“Small town,” I corrected him lightly. The Sparkles thing was starting to get to me. It felt like an inside joke, something kind of silly and sweet just between us. I couldn’t afford those kinds of thoughts.
As usual, he kind of looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.
His thick, dark hair was mussed, like always.
And even though his running shorts fit his tall, lean frame perfectly, they looked casually thrown on.
Like he was just effortlessly the hottest guy on the planet, and didn’t even have to think about trying.
The way his muscled thighs flexed as he shifted onto the heels of his sneakers made my mouth water, and I had to drag my eyes up from his crotch, where the thin fabric of his shorts was gifting the world with a view of a very impressive dick print.
For the millionth time, I wondered what the hell his ex had been thinking when she’d decided to mess around with someone else.
I wanted to wrap my limbs around him like a vengeful octopus and drag him into my lair, chaining him to my headboard where I’d use him as a human dildo until he’d fall madly in love with me and beg me to keep him forever.
“Yeah, it’s weird to get used to again,” he admitted. “I kind of liked the anonymity of the city. Around here, everyone knows everything about you.”
“You don’t find it comforting?” I wondered, and he scoffed.
“I don’t know. Not really.”
“I don’t really mind that part of it,” I said.
“And everything’s so close. I live right across the street,” I informed him.
It was nice that I could just walk to grab a few things instead of starting up my car.
He’d probably been able to do that in the city too, but the street would have been clogged with people, whereas my little walk had been sweet and quiet.
“Really? Those newer apartments?” He asked, pointing in the general direction of my complex.
“Yeah. They’re nice.” They’d built those after he’d left.
“Yeah, they are,” he agreed. “But it doesn’t bug you? People getting into your business all the time?”
“Well… I try not to have too much business for people to get into,” I admitted.
The small handful of guys I’d dated after college, I’d mostly gone to their place, wherever they’d lived outside of Cherryvale.
I’d never gotten too much flak from residents here about being gay, ironically mostly from my own parents, but I didn’t want to push it too much inside the city limits.
It wasn’t right or fair, but it was safe.
And when I’d go out with my friends to a club or a bar or something out of town, I could show out in peace and not worry about sending the sheltered residents of Cherryvale into cardiac arrest.
“But mostly it doesn’t bother me,” I finished.
“Is that why you never left?” He asked, and suddenly the conversation felt intimate again, like it had back at the cabin. My pulse sped up a little, and I tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear to give my hands something to do.
“Why would I leave? Everyone I care about lives here.”
“What about a… Partner?” He asked, drawing his dark brows together. “That’s not important?”
“Like I said before,” I started, leaning my weight onto the handle of my cart so I could peer up at him through my lashes. “Sometimes I worry the guy I’m waiting for doesn’t exist.”
I wasn’t being exactly truthful. The guy I wanted did exist. He was right in front of me.
But the version I needed, the version who could be attracted to me, didn’t exist. It wasn’t something I worried about, it was something I’d accepted as a statement of fact and tried to move on from.
It wasn’t like I was the first sad little queer boy to fall in love with a straight guy. If they could survive it, I could too.
“Well, that sucks,” he said wryly, looking glum. It was sweet, the way he’d even bother feeling bad that things weren’t so easy for me. I couldn’t resent him for the fact that he liked women anymore than he’d resent me for liking him.
“It’s not so bad,” I promised. “I like my life.”
“Teach me your ways,” he joked, putting a twinge of comical melodrama into the words.
Believe me, Rhys. If you liked guys, it would be very easy for me to convince you to like your life.
But because I knew it’d be completely and insanely inappropriate to say that, even worse than the things I’d already slipped up and said to him, I just shrugged.
“You’ll get there.” I hoped he would get there. He deserved to be happy, even if it wasn’t going to be with me.
He made a noncommittal grunt like he didn’t quite believe me but didn’t have it in him to argue further, before his eyes flicked down to my hands, and he squinted.
“Did you paint your nails in the dark or something?”
I looked down to my nails, ready to be offended, but burst out laughing when I remembered. The polish was a different bright color on each finger and so sloppy, messily lapping over my cuticles and nail beds.
“I just left a birthday party teeming with eight-year-old girls. I delivered a princess cake and they begged me to stay so they could paint my nails and put bows and stuff in my hair.”
“I guess you’re kind of like a life size Barbie to them,” he acknowledged, but he was grinning like he thought it was cute.
“Something like that,” I agreed, wincing slightly. “Not to brag or anything, but half of them want to marry me when they grow up.”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment, eyebrows raised. “Someone’s going to have a disappointing 18th birthday.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ll figure it out long before that point,” I responded wryly, but I could feel my mouth stretched into a stupid, cheesy grin.
I’d known Rhys for a long time, over half my life.
But we’d never had talks like this. He’d never been flat out mean or dismissive of me, and he’d even gone out of his way to make sure the other jocks didn’t pick on Benji and I too much.
But even in the deepest, most infatuated trenches of my crush on him, I’d never been under some delusion that he had any actual interest in me, or would derive any enjoyment from having a conversation with me.
Had my feelings for him festered dormant inside me for so long that I was now imagining things about him that weren’t there?
If he’d been a different guy, any other guy, I’d have sworn he was going out of his way to talk with me.
Maybe even… Flirt with me? A little. Or at least, he wasn’t discouraging me from flirting with him.
That’s what I would have thought if he’d been someone else.
But he was straight, and he was going through a divorce.
I had to remember that. Everything in his world was being flipped upside down and totally uprooted, and he was probably clutching at any familiarity, even if it was only subconsciously.
I was familiar. And if chatting with me was helping him find even a sliver of comfort, then I’d stick around and let him talk about whatever he needed.
Even if I couldn’t exactly force my brain to stop hurting me by imagining these painful scenarios where he could actually ever be interested in me beyond a friendly acquaintance he could use as a sounding board.
When I glanced down into his basket for the first time since he’d walked up, I realized he only had one thing in there. A box of condoms. Ribbed. How very caring and mindful.
He immediately followed my line of sight and flicked his eyes down to them too, clearing his throat and immediately shifting his gaze up to the ceiling.