35. Thirty-one
Thirty-one
Jake
“ Y ou get in late?” Beau asked, setting down his hard hat to fill his water bottle. He capped it, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
A breeze blew through the site, the morning with enough chill to need a hoodie until the sun moved higher over the mountains—the descent into fall.
Days remained hot, but evenings and mornings cooled significantly. Summer was almost over, and the dry maple leaves would soon change to red or yellow and fall off the trees. Withering branches would be frozen over by November, sometimes in October.
Changing. Things were changing.
I cleared my throat. Taking my turn to fill my bottle, I quieted my voice, aware of the line shuffling to the drink station. “I’d hoped you’d be at Fallon’s last night when I got back.”
One-on-one time with my girl was a welcome home to ease the craving in my heart and curl my toes into the sheets. I about died when she crawled over my body and lowered herself onto my aching hard-on. I missed her so much after a weekend apart. Beau’s play-by-play pictures and teasing texts made it bearable.
But I’d missed him, too.
A slow smile spread over his face as he crossed his arms and watched me. Painfully aware of how I sounded, I refused to look anywhere but the fountain. I was willing to continue filling the bottle until I tapped the source dry to avoid witnessing his reaction to my sappy admission.
Beau swiped his thumb over his bottom lip, grinning and turning away, tugging me aside.
God, this was excruciating.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered once we were out of range from prying ears. A smile toyed on his face as he glanced around.
Fine, maybe not so bad.
“Yeah, okay,” I murmured, rolling my eyes. “No need to get sentimental.”
Checking quickly for witnesses, his hand brushed mine, goosebumps blooming over my skin.
This summer, the years before. I never understood it, never gave myself the chance to. The jokes and taunts, the stupid channeling of energy into competition.
For years, thinking about Beau made me irritated and itchy, uncomfortable for reasons I didn’t completely understand.
But this? It felt right. Easier than pushing it away or pushing it down to convince myself it never existed.
Those full lips curved into a shy smile as he studied the ground and kicked the toe of his boot against a cinderblock.
He was kind of cute when he got timid. That big mouth stayed quiet for long enough to focus on his handsome features instead of the annoyance with what was coming out of it.
Christ almighty, now I was blushing and kicking rocks around like a teenager—time to grunt something aggressively.I opened my mouth, but Beau shoved my shoulder before I spoke.
“Don’t ruin it because you feel weird,” he said.
Scoffing, I shoved him back. “I don’t feel weird.” Beau’s sharp glare had me biting my tongue. “Fine, I feel weird.”
But I can’t stop looking at your mouth and wondering what it would feel like against mine. Why haven’t you kissed me?
Shit. Maybe he didn’t want to. Could rub cocks plenty, but kissing was intimate. Maybe he didn’t want that. Maybe he didn’t like that. Maybe dicks felt good, but fucking wasn’t the same as falling for someone and…
I’d fallen for him.
We ate lunch sitting with legs dangling from the open tailgate, the rear of my truck facing the thick forest. It’d be cleared in the spring and paved into a parking lot for the resort. Seemed a shame, but residents were pumped for more money to sink into the local economy.
So, fuck nature, I guess.
I finished my sandwich, wadding up the bag I packed it in, and focused on the tree line. “You’re staying, right? Because my girl couldn’t…”
Beau wiped his hands on his jeans, pushing aside his lunch box with an amused smirk. “Your girl couldn’t…”
“Piss off,” I muttered, puffing a breath. “We couldn’t…”
Couldn’t what? Manage? We could. Fallon and I could weather the shit storms that blew our way. I knew it in my heart. But this one? I wanted to shield us both from having to.
“We would like you to stay, Beau.”
Kicking his feet, he leaned closer. “You have a crush on me.”
“Dear god,” I grumbled, holding up my hands. “You know what? Forget it. Fill up your tank before you leave town, and watch out for the speed trap getting on I-90.”
Beau laughed, those feet swinging gleefully.
Filling my chest with a long inhale, I dug deep—to the earth’s core—to find my courage.
“I saw the way you watched Fallon growing up. Smiled at her. How your eyes followed her when she entered a room and the dreamy look on your stupid face when she cheered from the sidelines.”
His feet stilled, and he shifted to fix his gaze on me. My focus drifted to a patch of dry grass, and I swallowed hard, unable to meet his eyes.
“I knew you wanted her, and she was mine. I’ve loved Fallon forever. I’ll love her even after that.When she told me about you two at Christmas, I swore it was no different from any other guy she’d been with when we broke up. But these thoughts of you together consumed me. I figured it was jealousy, but now I realize it’s because I’ve always been drawn to you, too.”
It was a colossal feat to get the words out and not choke on the vulnerability.
I could tell Fallon anything—I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted us to live in each other’s heads and hearts, inside and out. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would invite someone else into that.
I cleared my throat, tapping my fingers together. Beau had the decency not to crack a joke or grin antagonistically.
“Even when I ran faster, threw better, scored more points, it always felt like you were a cut above, and I wondered if you treated Fallon better than me, too.” I sighed. Dropping my head back, I squinted into the sun, getting fidgety. “It doesn’t feel like a competition anymore. We’re a team. I like it better like this. Don’t you?”
Beau’s smile melted the tension tight in my muscles. He slid closer until our thighs pressed.
“Yeah,” he said softly, his hand on my knee. “I do.”
I closed my eyes, nodding compulsively like a fool as my thoughts stumbled and collided with one another. All the what-ifs or how this might look. But now it was my dangling legs kicking over that tailgate.
“I’m not sure what staying looks like,” he said, his finger tracing a circle over the top of my knee. “I can’t stunt here—”
“Sounds like you can’t stunt in L.A., either.” Insecurity and the fear of rejection had me bulldozing right over him. I pressed my lips together, holding up my palms in apology.
“Actually, I—” He sighed, rubbing his hands roughly over his face a few times. “Never mind. You need to work on your sweet talk. I’m well aware my job prospects are questionable, but jobs at least exist in California. There are no jobs here.” He waved generally. “This sucks.”
I rested my hand on his and squeezed lightly. “You’re not wrong. I don’t have an answer for that right now, but we can consider those questions if you stay. Fallon’s problem-solving skills are extraordinary.
“I’m easy, Beau. I want to fix up my house and make it a home. Fill it with the good stuff I didn’t get. Happiness. Trust. Love—filled to the fucking brim with love. It’s small-town goals compared to a big city life, I know.”
He laced his fingers with mine, and my heart thundered with the simple but tender gesture. The first purposeful sign of affection. This wasn’t rubbing cocks or spitting dirty shit to get off. My head went light, and my eyes could not stop staring at where we touched.
“There’s nothing wrong with the size of what you want. I admire that you know what that is.” He hesitated. “You’re lucky. Don’t minimize how special it is to know where you should be and to be wanted where you are.”
He stared so intently that I had to clench my jaw and look away.
“It’s real goddamn vulnerable saying all this shit. If you use it against me, I’ll ensure you’re tied to one of those trees when they clear the woods in the spring,” I threatened.
Beau’s chest filled with a deep breath. “I’ve lied about my life to seem important in the eyes of others, thinking my status or job or a house in the hills with a pool my sister would piss in meant I was worthy.”
I winced. “Your sister is a pool-pisser?”
Beau gravely said, “Bathtubs, too, I suspect.”
Okay, well.
“I’ve always smiled or goofed around like shit doesn’t bother me.” He gave a small smile and shrugged. “I just want to be wanted as I am. It scares me to be honest about that. To be vulnerable and admit I want to be loved and I want to love, and I want a house filled to the brim with it, too.”
He pointed to the woods. “I’ll tie you up out there just as fast, Jake. Swear it.”
Eyes shining on him, it was easy to say. “You’re a good man, Beau. You’ve got nothing to prove.”
“Holy shit,” he whispered with delight. “You didn’t keel over dead when you said that.”
Eyes locked and faces adorned with open-hearted smiles, we held hands in the privacy of my truck bed. Covered in dust and dirt, wearing neon safety vests and tattered jeans, this wasn’t a setting for intimacy. Yet we’d found it.
Beau glanced away, raking his teeth over his bottom lip and shaking his head slightly. His chestnut hair shone in the sun, and my fingers twitched at the memory of how soft the curls at the base of his neck were when he had me against the truck.
“What?” I asked.
He squinted one eye, a shy half-smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “Stop staring at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Beau puffed a low laugh. “You know like what.”
“Humor me.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Like you want to kiss me.”
“I do,” I whispered without hesitation, surprising us both.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the lawn chairs, where a group gathered with their lunch and cigarettes and shitty jokes. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while, but I don’t know if that’s okay—”
“Dumbass,” he interrupted my stupid rambling. “Of course, it’s okay. I’d have my tongue in your mouth right now if we were alone.” He winked. “Maybe a few other places, too.”
“Christ, Beau. You ruin shit with your mouth—”
“Oh, for sure, the only thing my mouth will ruin is your—”
I hopped off the tailgate as Beau’s head dropped back and he cackled. “You—you don’t even want to hear where my mouth—” He choked on his laughter, damn near wheezing as he slid out of the truck and closed the gate.
He jogged to catch up, pleased as fuck for ruining a moment. Or maybe saving it, because as much as I wanted him to stay, to be with him, it made me a little uncomfortable. Did he know that?
A hand slapped on my shoulder. Beau’s face grinned in mine, beaming brighter than the sun overhead.
“Laugh, bestie. Laugh through it instead of overthinking the mechanics. It’s just a body.” He thrust his finger against my chest, right over my heart. “This is what makes it spectacular.”
He smacked the same spot, waggling his eyebrows like an adorable idiot. “Your girl taught me that.”
“Our girl,” I corrected.
He dropped his head back and whooped, “That’s right!”
Heads turned at the commotion. Not that I blamed them when Beau planted his feet wide and punched energetically in some odd dance of celebration.
“Our girl!” Beau shouted with a stupid grin… but it had me grinning, too. He rested his hands on his hips and shook his head, staring at the ground with a soft smile. “Ours.”