Page 16 of Center of Gravity

If I looked away while he was staring at me like that, it would be another one of those tells. He was good at that, too, forcing me to consider my every action by his bluntness. So I maintained eye contact, and that I didn’t blush was only because my blood was busy circulating furiously behind my shorts.

“Most people do at twenty.” I was guessing there.

“Twenty-three in a week,” he corrected me.

“Fine. Twenty-three. But there’s nothing wrong with a little restraint.”

“You’re right. Belts and handcuffs can be amazing.” His smile curled up, shameless, and I didn’t even know where to begin with that. I was on the cusp of a full erection, so I shook my head and turned from the room. “Let’s go get paint.”

In the car, with the safety of the steering wheel and judicious positioning, I picked the subject back up.

“You’re not a helpless idiot. Restraint isn’t just about…not doing something. It’s about being selective, too, about working toward a goal, filtering out the things that matter from the things that don’t.” I’d unintentionally swerved into a life lesson, it seemed, and Alex wasn’t in the mood. He sat with one leg tucked up on the seat, denim straining over his knee, watching the scenery flash by as he worried that lip ring. His fingers closed into a fist. I’d touched a nerve. I thought I should feel bad about it, but I didn’t. Maybe it wasschadenfreude, but seeing that he could be unsettled was somehow reassuring to me.

“And you’re not an old fart with one foot in the grave.” His gaze skimmed me up and down, one brow lifting. “Even if you’re hell-bent on acting like one. So do me a favor and save the life lessons for someone not already living them. And if I remember correctly—which I do because I wasn’t drunk—you didn’t seem all that keen on restraint when I was going down on you in a bathroom stall.”

Yep, I’d definitely touched a nerve. I clamped my mouth shut.

Alex wandered the aisles at the paint store while I got the paint, and once we got back to the house, we went room to room, divvying them up. We’d not spoken much since the car ride to the store and now I felt bad for setting him off. I really didn’t know much about him, but what he’d shared—dropping out, tight finances, living with his parents—was enough to stress anyone out.

“Those for me?” He eyed the box of Cracker Jack I’d set on the table by the door once we’d finished for the day.

“Yeah.” It’d become part of my morning routine. Run, go to the convenience store for a bottle of wine or Coke, and, if Alex was going to work that day, a box of Cracker Jack.

“Thanks.” He gave me a small smile.

I studied him and before I could second guess it, asked, “Do you want a beer?” I didn’t want to leave things on an uneven keel. And I also didn’t want to think about why that was so important to me.

“Sure.” He shrugged.

I went off to grab the beers, returning to find him on the floor, his back propped against the bookshelves as he stared out the window. A triangle of sweat darkened the collar of his T-shirt and his fingers combed the carpet at a restless tempo.

Alex took the beer I offered him, wedging it between his legs, then slid his thumb under the seal of the Cracker Jack box, shaking out a handful of it into his palm. Winslow trotted in like clockwork, sniffing at his hand and then settled along Alex’s leg, panting.

Alex held his cupped hand up to me in offer.

“Too hot for sweet,” I declined.

I sat on the floor, too, with my back pressed to Mom’s old leather couch. For long moments there was only the sound of Alex crunching and my beer guzzling.

“What happened to your dad?” he asked. “You don’t have to answer or anything. I’m just curious.”

“It’s fine. It’s been several months and it wasn’t sudden. I mean, we knew it would happen eventually. Not that that makes it any better but—” I took another swallow of my beer, intent on not circling the subject like a vulture afraid to swoop any longer. “He had heart trouble for a long time. All sorts of cardiac problems over the last year and he just…finally dropped dead, basically. There wasn’t anything the doctors could do for him. Honestly, I think he was tired of it all. Mom was gone. She had ovarian cancer. It was quick and brutal. Diagnosis to death in six months. He was never the same after.”

Alex grimaced. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah.”

I chuckled suddenly and he seemed surprised.

“For as long as I can remember, they were more like teammates. They were good parents, but just—” I didn’t know why I was telling Alex any of this, except that he was listening so intently and it distracted me from the heat. The heat and the way it lay in a fine sheen over his skin. “To be honest, I think my dad was probably gay—at least bi—but I don’t think he ever acted on it.” I couldn’t remember when I’d first noticed it or why, but my own father had been one of the first to set off my fledgling gaydar.

“Did you come out to him?”

“Never officially, but I didn’t really try to hide it, either. I think he always knew. We didn’t talk about it. It was uncomfortable for him.”

“Were you the one to find him?”

I shook my head. “No. He had a home health nurse coming every few days to help out.”