Page 30 of Flirting With Fire

I turned, folded my arms across my chest, and fixed him with a glare. “Spit it out, Garcia.”

He shrugged, seemingly not intimidated. “You’ve seen him a lot since you came home.”

“He’s friends with my mom,” I pointed out.

“He is. But you rode down Main Street with him.”

“Dex helped me when my car broke down. You know that too.”

“Are you two…” He let it hang.

“Are we what? Landlord and tenant? Yes. Once I’ve signed the forms.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do. Say what you mean.” I was being an ass. I knew that. And I had no intention of staying in the closet. I was gay, but it was just one part of me. I was a son, a firefighter, and a guitarist too. If the crew were going to have an issue with this, I wanted to know now.

Garcia looked as if he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole, but he pressed on. “You’re gay?”

“I am.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You do now.”

He seemed to flinch at my curt tone and shuffled his feet, but he pressed on regardless. “Dex is gay.”

“I know that too.”

“Dex is a good man.”

I blinked. Wait, was all this Garcia trying to find out my intentions? Was he protecting one of his own, a member of the town?

“My mom thinks so,” I agreed. “I don’t know him that well yet.” But I hoped to get to know him soon. Intimately.

“He’s been through a hard time,” Garcia said.

‘I know.”

Garcia shook his head. “You don’t. He nearly lost the ranch after his parents died. Dex worked 24/7 to save that place.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“We take care of our own.”

And there it was. I wasn’t one of them. I’d been away too long.

I gave him a long, cool stare. “And now I’m your boss. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No.”

At least that was a relief.

He gave me a wicked smirk. “Some of the guys’ll be pissed off. They remember you from high school and insist you were straight. I said you were gay and won the pot.”

I stared at him. “Hey, you never met me before yesterday.”

“You rode into town on the horse, man, holding onto him. What straight guy does that?”