Page 10 of Necessary Time

Miles grimaced, and I knew he understood exactly what I was trying to say. He twisted the cap off the water bottle, likely to buy himself time to formulate a response. Then he took a drink. And another. And another. Emptying half the bottle before replying, “Your brother loves you.”

“My brother forgets that I’m not a child.”

“To him you are.”

“I’m twenty,” I pressed. “I had a job before I moved here. I just haven’t had a chance to get another gig yet. I don’t need his help getting a job and I don’t need his weird, old work friends taking me out to lunch.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Colin isn’t weird, and he’s not old. At least, not that old. Older than you.”

“Treacherously old.” Miles nodded.

“He’s younger than my brother, though, so I’m going to tell him you said that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“I just want time to settle in a little before everything kicks into high gear again,” I explained, hating the desperation in my voice. Hoping Miles didn’t hear it, I went on, “Grayson has been awesome about covering some costs for me with food and whatever. I have a bit of a buffer before I need to have money coming in again, and I just need some time to nurse my wounds.”

Nope.

I snapped my mouth shut, pulling my lips between my teeth and biting down to stop another word from falling out of my mouth.

“Nurse your wounds,” Miles repeated back slowly.

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about that?”

“No, and even if I did, I don’t want you to tell my brother about it.” I collapsed forward onto the counter, folding my arms together like a pillow for my forehead. “I’ll tell him when I’m ready.”

“Is everything okay, Wesley?”

The concern in Miles’s voice was real, and I managed a nod, even though I didn’t bother to look up. “Yeah.”

It was a half-truth. Everything was fine. I’d lost my best friend along the way, and a whole lifetime of memories with him, but I was fine. It wasn’t like I lost sleep at night thinking about the night he’d had a little bit too much to drink and admitted he’d been in love with me since high school. It wasn’t like sometimes when I was brushing my teeth or something, I lost track of time remembering the shocked look on his face after he’d kissed me and I’d shoved him off me. Not like I regretted the way I’d treated him, while also being so mad that he’d risk our whole friendship for the harebrained idea that we could be more than friends.

I wasn’t even gay.

But David had kissed me anyway, and it wasn’t like I’d told him no. Why hadn’t I told him no?

We’d been eating pizza and drinking after a long shift. On the couch, facing each other, he’d been telling me a story, but the words fell into nothing and he leaned toward me. Closer and closer, and Iknewwhat he was going to do and I didn’t stop him. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted to know what it was like to kiss a man. David’s kiss had scratched my mouth. His lips were chapped and he tasted like hops and mozzarella. His facial hair rubbed against my chin and something…

No.

David was my best friend.

At least he had been.

Miles’s hand landed softly between my shoulder blades and I startled. He paused, but didn’t pull away, instead rubbing a gentle circle in the middle of my back until I let out my breath.

“I’ll talk to Hendrix,” he said softly.

I nodded. “Thank you.”

CHAPTERFOUR

Colin