5. Ted
TED
The workshop smelled like sawdust and shellac, and that was oddly comforting. I stood just inside the door for a minute as I took it all in. It was surprisingly bigger than it looked from the outside.
The main space stretched out under high rafters and floating dust motes, but it looked pretty nice.
There were several workbenches spread throughout, and tools were hanging from a pegboard along the wall.
On one side, there was a row of smaller rooms that seemed like they might have originally been for horses but were repurposed for storage.
I walked the length and passed stacks of old lumber, cans of paint, and pieces of wooden furniture that were in various states of creation. It was like the antique version of Santa's workshop without the elves.
At the far end of the building was an actual bathroom. Even though it had a garage sink and the shower drained into the center of the floor, it was actually nicer than what I was used to in the trailer. And a lot more spacious.
As much as I hated to admit it, Kacen seemed like a good guy. He didn’t have to offer me a place to stay. I would have happily stayed in the trailer with a tarp covering the tree. But I wouldn’t have felt safe from the outside world.
The sound footsteps on the gravel outside snapped my guard back into place, and my shoulders resumed their position right under my ears.
Instinctively, I scanned the exits, noting each of the windows and the barn door opening in the back.
There was a bench blocking it, but I could scale that if I needed to.
But I didn’t need to.
Kacen came in wearing a gray shirt, hiding those tanned muscles I had trouble keeping my eyes off. It was probably for the best that I wasn’t distracted by his firm pecs and bulging biceps. Being around a half-naked stranger couldn’t possibly lead to anything good.
So when a flicker of disappointment went through me at not being able to gawk at his taut skin, I was confused. Like so many other things I’d experienced in the past few hours, it didn’t make any sense at all.
“Sorry, that took longer than I meant it to.” He pulled out his keys and began sliding one off the ring. “This is the only key to this building that I’m aware of, and it’s yours.”
My jaw hung open as I reached out and accepted the key from him. “Thank you.”
He met my gaze and smiled before turning in a full circle with his hands in his pockets. “So, what do you think? Is this okay for now?”
“It’s fine.” It was better than fine, but I wasn’t about to hand him that for free.
“I can help clear out these storage rooms.” He nodded toward the row of stalls. “Maybe we can turn one into a bedroom and one for your closet or changing room or whatever.”
I looked at the stalls again and pictured what they could be instead of what they currently were. “Yeah.” The word came out before I had a chance to stop my brain from saying it, and I was frankly shocked at myself for agreeing. “That’d be good.”
We spent the next hour hauling things out of the stalls closest to the bathroom so it was easier for me to get in and out at night and then moving everything into the stalls closer to the front.
The random pieces of lumber were stacked up, and Kacen promised to find out what the wood was worth so he could try to sell it.
I was just grateful when we cleared enough space for me to bring in my couch and chair.
Kacen did the heavy lifting without making me feel bad about it. He just picked stuff up and moved it wherever I pointed, like he was genuinely trying to make me happy rather than just cover his ass.
We were in a landlord state, so he could have told me to handle my shit and I would have. Just like I’d been doing my whole life.
By the time we were done, we had two stalls cleared and one looked like it’d be just big enough for my bed, assuming I could drag it over. The other had hooks along the wall and some empty shelving, so I figured a closet-slash-dressing area was a good idea.
When we were finished, I slid my hands into my pockets and palmed the key Kacen had given me. “I really appreciate you helping me out in here. You didn’t have to.”
“Sure I did.” He clapped his hands together once and turned to me. “You wanna go grab your stuff so you can get settled?”
The trailer looked worse than I remembered after I’d had time to fully process the damage. Water had spread across most of the kitchen floor, and the cheap cabinets were already warping. “Damn.” The stench of mildew and wet…everything hit me like a brick wall. “That was fast.”
“Water is powerful.” Kacen stepped in behind me and surveyed the damage for himself. “Your couch and TV look okay. That’s good.” He turned toward my bedroom. “And hopefully everything down the hall is fine.”
“Yeah, if you can help with the big stuff, I’ll deal with everything else myself.”
He inhaled deeply and then leaned against the counter.
“Actually, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you in here alone.
If anything happens, I’m responsible.” He stepped down into the door well.
“If you fill up everything you can from your room into garbage bags, we can line them up outside until everything you want to keep is out. Then you can move it in at your leisure.” He said that last word with some kind of accent that was meant to be funny, but I didn’t get it.
I was still stuck on the fact that he seemed worried about…my safety. I didn’t quite get him.
Not interested in arguing with him, I shoved all my clothes and shoes into bags, and then we started working in the kitchen.
I didn’t have much, but my electric kettle had survived the crash.
That was nice since it was the easiest way for me to make instant noodles or oatmeal when I didn’t want to cook real food. Which was most of the time.
I was able to salvage my silverware and the mismatched plates and bowls that were in the drain rack, but everything else in the kitchen was trash.
Including all the food in the now-defunct fridge and rainsoaked pantry shelf.
Everything that had once been edible was tossed into a trashbag that Kacen took out to the communal dumpster we all shared.
The bed was the hardest thing to squeeze through the narrow hallway.
It had been here when I moved in, so I never considered having to move it out.
But since Kacen wasn’t worried about scuffing the walls or floor, we manhandled it out of the trailer and all the way to the workshop with a few minutes of effort.
The couch was only slightly easier to wrestle, but I’d moved that in myself, so I knew it was possible.
Though, watching Kacen muscle it over the threshold like he was a bodybuilder was worth pretending to be weaker than I actually was.
It wasn’t until Kacen reached around my back to steady a shelf that was tipping on one side that I realized I’d stopped flinching every time he was near me.
That should have bothered me a lot more than it did…but my fear of him was hard to pull to the surface. It was just gone…as if I trusted the man.
And that definitely bothered me. A lot.
I had no right feeling comfortable around any man, much less one who could snap me in two if he wanted.
By late afternoon, the workshop actually looked like a house and not a barn. My bed took up one stall and we set up the other with my clothes so I could change in private. Kacen found a wooden dowel among the wood scraps and mounted it to the wall like a closet rod without being asked.
When I stood in the middle of my new, temporary home a strange bout of emotion came over me. It wasn’t something I could name because it was completely foreign. A small voice in the back of my head was telling me it was safety and contentment, but that couldn’t be right.
That would never be right. At least not for me.
“It looks good.” Kacen stretched his arms over his head and his shirt rode up enough to show off a strip of his stomach.
Nope, not going down that road again. I quickly looked away so I wouldn’t get caught staring.
Except looking away didn’t fix my problem.
My body was already doing something it hadn’t done in a very long time. Something I swore would never happen because it wasn’t safe. My survival depended on me not noticing men like Kacen.
And yet, I was getting hard. I hadn’t felt any sort of arousal in years and didn’t think I ever would. It just wasn’t safe to ever let my guard down enough to feel good, alone or with someone else.
It was a rule I’d made for myself after my life spiraled into a constant game of cat and mouse. Hiding in plain sight but never actually being seen.
I decided a long time ago that whatever desire other people had for human connection didn’t apply to me anymore. It couldn’t apply to me.
And yet, I was half hard in a dead man’s workshop while a gorgeous man who was twice my size stretched his arms over his head and groaned. Since when was a groan sexy?
Fuck.
I turned toward the bathroom before Kacen noticed my reaction to him. “I should probably take a shower.”
“Oh right.” He seemed startled to be so quickly dismissed. “I’ll get out of your hair, but let me know if you need anything.”
“Yeah, okay.” I kept my back to him until I heard the door close, and then I ran back to lock it. To my relief, it was already locked. Kacen had locked it on his way out. Huh.
The water didn’t get as hot as I would have liked, but it did the job and relaxed all the parts of me that had been tense. Which was basically every part of me. And by the time I stepped out, I felt bone tired. After a long and emotionally taxing day, I just wanted to eat something and go to bed.
I had a towel wrapped around my waist and was halfway to my closet room when someone knocked on the door. As always, I froze in place and clutched the towel at my hip. My heart started pounding and my instinct told me to stay silent.
“It’s just me.” Kacen’s voice was clear as he shouted through the door. “I brought some food. And a fridge.”
A fridge? For once, I let my curiosity get the best of me, and I went straight to the door to see what he was talking about.
When I opened up, Kacen had a hand truck parked just beyond the door with a small refrigerator strapped to it and two grocery bags in his arms. “I picked up replacements for the food you had to throw away. At least the stuff I remembered.” He brushed past me and went straight to the workbench we’d set up as a kitchenette then started pulling things out of the bags.
Cup o’noodles, instant oatmeal, the cereal I ate at least twice a day, and other staples.
“And the hardware store had this floor-model refrigerator on sale, so at least you have something to keep your milk cold.”
My throat hurt like I’d been punched, but it was actually emotion. Like, the teary kind that I never felt. I had “fear tears” on a regular basis and even “anger tears” from time to time. But I couldn’t remember these kinds of tears ever welling in my eyes before. The kind that came from…kindness.
It wasn’t easy to admit that somebody had paid enough attention to me to know what I ate.
But that was the kind of man Kacen was. The kind of man I’d never met before.
“This is too much, Kacen.” I cleared my throat, hoping he didn’t hear the croak in it as he plugged in the fridge against the wall and adjusted the feet to level it. “You’re being too nice.”
“It’s nothing.” He didn’t look up from what he was doing. “I want you to be comfortable in here.”
I just stood there and watched him, completely unfazed by the fact that I was naked except for a threadbare towel around my waist.
“There ya go.” He heaved himself up off the ground and wiped his hands on his jeans. “That should be good for now, but let me know if you need anything else.”
He turned to me, and that’s when I saw it. Two dark spots were blooming through the front of his shirt. Right over his nipples, there were small circles of wet fabric that hadn’t been there earlier, and my whole body went still.
I knew what that was.
I’d seen those wet marks before in a house I tried very hard not to think about. On a person I tried equally hard to forget.
Alex.
The kid who was placed with the same homophobic family as me when we were in high school.
We were friends, but it took months before Alex confided in me why he had to disappear into the bathroom with a towel over his shoulder every morning and evening.
I’d assumed he was jerking off like everyone else, but that wasn’t it. That wasn’t his secret.
When he finally explained that he’d started lactating and couldn’t stop the flow of milk in the mornings and evenings, I didn’t understand it. I guess I didn’t need to understand why or how. All that mattered was that Alex was healthy and it didn’t hurt him.
And as we spent more time together, my curiosity grew as much as my attraction to Alex.
We messed around a little bit, but it wasn’t until our foster father found out about Alex’s milk that he completely freaked out. He started wailing on Alex before taking a turn with me. For two days, neither of us could get out of bed. But as soon as I could, I left.
I’d begged Alex to go with me, but he had a little sister with a different family and he didn’t want to abandon her. If there was any way I could have stayed, I would have. But I didn’t have it in me to take one more beating.
So I ran.
I ran until I knew I could keep myself safe. From people. From emotions. From curiosity. From desire.
And then fucking Kacen waltzed into my life with his big muscles and kind eyes…and a goddamn refrigerator full of food.
Not to mention…the milk that I now knew he was leaking under those growing wet spots. And that same desire I had buried for years was suddenly back with a vengeance as I just stared at him.
“You alright, Ted?” Kacen sounded concerned and then followed my line of sight down to his chest. His arms immediately crossed over the wet spots like that would undo what I’d already seen. “Shit. Sorry. I need to go change, but I’ll see you later.”
“It’s fine, Kacen.” My voice was rougher than I meant it to be as I did my best to be reassuring. “I get it.”
He didn’t turn around before he hauled ass to his own house. I didn’t blame him.
I wouldn’t want me to know his secrets either.