Page 18 of Kellan & Emmett (Gomillion High Reunion #1)

Kellan

First morning on the job—if you could even call it that because there was no paycheck. Just me pulling my weight in exchange for a roof over my head. It was Emmett’s idea, though the way he’d said it—calm, measured—made it sound less like a suggestion and more like another line in the sand. Stay, but prove you belong here.

And maybe I wanted that. Maybe I needed someone to hold me to something, because for months now, I hadn’t belonged anywhere.

The morning started quieter than I expected. No kids tearing across the grass, no reunion chatter spilling from the dining room. Just the soft creak of old wood and the faint clink of dishes from the kitchen where Heather and Sophia were already at it.

Emmett didn’t waste time with greetings. He gestured toward a broom as soon as I came down the stairs, his expression steady but not unfriendly.

“Porch could use a sweep before the guests head out. Grit gets everywhere.”

“Good morning to you too,”

I said, arching a brow.

His mouth twitched, like he almost smiled.

“Good morning, Kellan.”

I huffed, but my grip tightened on the broom.

“Good morning to you too, Emmett.”

He shifted the stack of linens in his arms, carrying them toward the storage closet at the end of the hall. For a second I just watched him—because damn, he fit here. The man, the inn, the work.

He caught me staring and jerked his chin at the door.

“You gonna sweep, or are you planning to supervise?”

That earned him a half-grin as I pushed outside. The porch boards creaked under my boots. Morning air was cooler than I expected, carrying the smell of coffee and something buttery drifting out the windows. I set the broom to the planks, slow at first, then into a rhythm that didn’t need thought.

By the time Emmett joined me on the porch, the sun had climbed higher, laying thin stripes of light through the railings. My shoulders ached in that good, mindless way from sweeping. The last of the grit collected in a neat pile near the steps.

He stepped out with a rag slung over one shoulder, the faint scent of polish clinging to him.

“You missed a spot,”

he said, nodding toward a corner I’d already gone over twice.

I leaned on the broom, squinting at him.

“Pretty sure you’re making that up just to get under my skin.”

“Maybe,”

he said, voice even, but his eyes flicked with the faintest spark of amusement.

I shook my head, nudging the dirt pile with my boot.

“You run a tight ship.”

“Has to be,”

he said, moving to wipe down the railing beside me.

“Guests don’t come back for cobwebs.”

“Or for the charming company of the innkeeper?”

I shot back.

That earned me the smallest grunt—half laugh, half dismissal—but it didn’t feel sharp. Just familiar. The kind of rhythm we used to fall into without thinking.

For a while we worked in parallel—me with the broom, him with the rag—words sparse, silences comfortable enough to hold.

By the time I’d pushed the pile off the steps, he was crouched by the spigot near the garden path, twisting the handle. A thin stream of water dripped steadily onto the dirt.

“Damn thing started leaking,”

he muttered, reaching for a wrench.

“Come here a sec.”

I crouched beside him, bracing the pipe while he tightened the fitting. Our hands brushed once—quick, nothing—and I pulled back like the metal had burned me. He didn’t look up, just kept working until the drip slowed to nothing.

“Better,”

he said, sitting back on his heels.

We moved on without speaking, circling toward the walkway that edged the flowerbeds. A few weeds pushed through the cracks, stubborn against the brick. Emmett tossed me a pair of gloves.

“Grab those before they take over.”

I slid them on and crouched again, tugging weeds free by the roots while he trimmed back the shrubs with clean, practiced strokes. Silence stretched, but it wasn’t the cold kind anymore. More like the quiet of two people who remembered how to work side by side, even after everything.

When the bed looked neater, Emmett dusted his palms together.

“That’s good for this morning.”

Sweat rolled down the back of my neck, dampening my shirt. I rubbed at it with the heel of my hand, trying not to notice how close he’d sat. Not touching-close, but near enough that the heat between us felt thicker than the sun beating down.

He leaned back, palms braced on the step behind him, gaze on the street like he could pretend we weren’t sharing the same breath. For a while, neither of us spoke. Just cicadas buzzing, a lawn mower humming faintly a few blocks over, and my pulse trying to steady itself.

“You work hard,”

I said finally, voice rougher than I meant.

“This place doesn’t run itself.”

“Somebody’s got to keep it standing.”

His eyes flicked toward me, then away again.

“Guess that somebody’s me.”

I nodded, brushing dirt from my palms.

“You’ve done good, Em. Inn’s solid. Guests love it. You built something.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile.

“Yeah. Built it. Alone.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Silence stretched. Then he shifted, eyes fixed on me.

“Why’d you really come back, Kellan? It wasn’t just for the reunion.”

My throat worked. I could’ve lied—said it was nostalgia, or that I missed barbecue and southern heat. Easy answers. The kind people nod at and move on. But his eyes didn’t let me off that easy. They never had.

“I don’t know,”

I said, which wasn’t true. I did know. I just hated the shape of it.

I dragged a hand over the back of my neck, stalling.

“California wasn’t… it wasn’t home. Not anymore.”

The words felt jagged on my tongue. I kept my gaze fixed on nothing ahead.

“And at first, when I saw the reunion notice in January, I wasn’t sure if I should come. But as it came closer to the reunion, it felt like…”

I huffed a bitter laugh.

“Like maybe I should stop running, even if just for a week.”

I didn’t say the rest—that there was nothing left out west to run back to. That my father vanished the second my knee gave out, that my mother’s grave was the only place that ever felt steady, and even that was long gone. That the real reason was sitting right beside me, too close, too quiet.

I shifted forward on my elbows, forcing air into lungs that felt too tight.

“Truth is, I didn’t think I’d stay this long. Didn’t plan to.”

My voice dipped lower.

“And I’m still not sure I should have.”

For a second he didn’t answer. Just sat there beside me, thumb worrying at the seam of his jeans. I thought maybe he’d let it drop, leave me stewing in the half-truths I’d managed to choke out.

Then his voice came, low and steady.

“You should have.”

I turned, startled.

His jaw flexed like the words cost him something.

“You didn’t come back just because California dried up. You came back because this place—because we—still mean something. Whether you’ll say it out loud or not.”

My pulse thudded, heavy in my ears. I opened my mouth, closed it again. I couldn’t admit that, not without dragging out every buried thing I’d spent years locking down.

He finally looked at me, and for once there wasn’t any heat in it, no guarded edge. Just tired honesty.

“I had a crush on you, Kellan. Hell, I was half in love with you.”

His throat worked, but he kept going, steadier now, like once the words started they couldn’t stop.

“And yeah, I’m gay. I wasn’t some innocent bystander that night—you didn’t force me into anything. I wanted that kiss. Wanted it years before that night.”

The ground might as well have opened under me. Every story I’d told myself—that I’d crossed a line, that he hadn’t wanted it, that I’d ruined us—crumbled in a blink.

He said the word gay like it didn’t scorch the tongue. Like it didn’t carry the weight of my father’s belt or his voice in my head. I’d never said that word out loud about myself. Couldn’t imagine how it would sound if I tried.

My mouth went dry. My pulse spiked so high it hurt.

Because the truth was, I’d known something was different long before that night. I’d known it the first time Emmett laughed at one of my dumbest jokes, and I thought, God, I want to hear that sound forever. I’d known it in every dream I shoved down, every flicker of wanting I buried until my chest ached with the weight of it.

And hearing him now, saying out loud what I’d never dared let myself believe—

But shame reared its ugly head. My father’s voice in my ear, sharp and merciless: Boys don’t look at boys that way. You want respect? You want the NFL? You keep your head down and your eyes straight ahead. Any slip, any softness, and they’ll fucking eat you alive.

I could almost feel it—the heavy clamp of his hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard enough to bruise, holding me in place while he drilled the words in. Even now, twenty years later, my muscles locked under the phantom grip.

“I thought I forced it on you,”

I finally said, voice rough.

“I thought I ruined everything.”

The silence after that was brutal, my chest aching with everything I didn’t dare add: Because I wanted it too. Because I still want it.

Emmett shifted, the faintest trace of nerves in the way his fingers tapped against his arm. Then, quieter than before, he asked.

“Are you… seeing anyone?”

I forced a shrug, though my throat burned around the truth.

“I’m divorced.”

The word tasted foreign, bitter, even after all these years.

“It’s been… a long while now. We don’t talk.”

I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Because if I did, he’d see the rest — the shame, the wreckage. Once upon a time, he would’ve been the first to know, the one I called at midnight just to unload. Now I was saying it like a stranger, clipped and flat, and it scraped something raw inside me.

The silence stretched, but Emmett didn’t fill it with pity, or the sympathetic I’m sorry. Just quiet. That almost undid me more than anything else.

I cleared my throat, made myself glance at him.

“What about you?”

His mouth pulled wry at the corner.

“I’m single. Dated plenty, was in a couple of long-term relationships, but nothing that stuck.”

He hesitated, then went on, steadier.

“I came out in college.”

Thos five words slid under my skin, sharp and warm at once. Half his life. He’d been living true while I’d been twisting myself into knots, hiding behind a marriage that never stood a chance. Something ugly and aching coiled low in me — envy, regret, shame. And threaded through it all, something I couldn’t pretend not to recognize anymore: longing.

Emmett shifted, his arms unfolding at last. He leaned back against the wall, like the weight of what he was about to say needed bracing.

“It wasn’t some grand reveal,”

he said after a pause.

“I kissed a guy at a party, and someone saw. By Monday, the whole dorm knew. By Wednesday, half of Gomillion probably did too.”

His mouth quirked, but it wasn’t a smile.

“I figured if the secret was already out, why waste time pretending it wasn’t true?”

He let out a slow breath, eyes somewhere past me, like he could still see that kid in the mirror.

“Some people dropped me, sure, but enough stayed. And once I stopped pretending, I realized I’d been wasting years trying to be someone I wasn’t.”

I shifted, trying for casual, but the words came out tighter than I wanted.

“So… you and Leif Lawson. Is that a thing?”

His gaze snapped back to me, steady, unreadable. For a beat, all I heard was the cicadas screaming in the trees.

“If memory serves,”

I added quickly, like I hadn’t just let something slip.

“he was a year ahead of us. But I saw him hanging around at a couple of reunion events.”

Emmett’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile, not irritation either.

“Leif’s just… Leif. He’s local, never really left Gomillion. Helps out when there’s something going on, like the reunion committee. You know how it is—half the town shows up whether it’s their year or not.”

I nodded, though the knot in my chest didn’t loosen.

“So it wasn’t…?”

He shook his head, firm but easy.

“No. Not like that. He’s a friend, nothing more.”

He tilted his head, eyes flicking over me like he could see more than I wanted him to.

“Why? You worried I’ve been holding a torch all these years?”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck, and I forced a scoff, brushing dirt from my palms like it mattered more than the question hanging between us.

“Just making conversation.”

But even as the words left my mouth, I knew he didn’t believe me. Hell, I didn’t believe me.

Daily To-Do

Order new linens for Rooms 3 & 5

Restock coffee, sugar, and creamer before the weekend crowd

Give Kellan chores to do

Don’t fall in love with him again