Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help but smile at that.
“I mean, he has his career that he loves. He has me and Kenny, his friends, and football, but nothing that was really just his, if that makes sense. Something or someone he wanted just for himself because it made him happy. This friendship with you is something Beau wants for himself, something that makes him happy on a different level, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”
I shifted, uncomfortable in my skin, with the praise. I appreciated what she said, but I didn’t want to be thanked for being Beau’s friend. I didn’t deserve that kind of praise. “You don’t have anything to thank me for. I spend time with them both because they make me feel good too. Kenny’s smile could light up the whole damn world, and Beau…” I closed my eyes, took a couple of deep breaths. “I…I think you know we’re more than just friends.” It was the first time in my life I’d admitted anything like that, except to Beau.
“I thought maybe you were, but I wasn’t going to pry. It’s your business—yours and Beau’s.”
“I’m in love with him, but I don’t…” My eyes started to water, right fucking there in the middle of the bakery. “Shit. Why is this so hard?”
Beth got up, locked the door, closed the blinds, and flipped the OPEN side around.
She knelt in front of me. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say.”
But I did, I wanted to. Wanted to let the words free, at least to someone. To family. “I don’t know why this is so fucking hard for me.” I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand. “I’m in love with him, but I can’t… I’m not…”
“Hey.” She clasped my chin softly, angling my head so I looked at her. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Beau when he came out to me. I love you. You’re perfect the way you are. If anyone doesn’t understand that, fuck them. You have nothing to be ashamed of, but this is also your show, your life. You decide when and how, okay?”
I wrapped my arms around her, pulled her to me, fisted my hands in her shirt, and just breathed…breathed in a way I was only able to do around Beau, because it was in those moments that I was completely free.
We held each other until I stopped crying, until I wiped my eyes and made a joke so she’d laugh. We stood, nodded at each other before she hugged me again, and just like that, I knew I was one hundred percent accepted by her, but that she wouldn’t mention it again unless I let her know it was okay.
I excused myself to the bathroom while she opened the bakery back up. I splashed water on my face, smiled at myself in the mirror, the weight on my shoulders feeling lighter than it had in years.
I’d told someone other than Beau, and it had been okay.
This sort of high took me over, swam in my bones, built me up. I’d told someone, and it had been…incredible.
A smile still curved my lips when I came out of the restroom. When I saw Kenny, my body became lighter, felt like I was floating, like I was invincible. I wanted to let him in, to share with him who I was the way I’d done with Beth.
“Ash!” He damn near glowed when he saw me.
I hugged him, and the three of us chatted for a few minutes before I nodded outside. “You wanna go for a walk with me, or what?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’d love to!”
We walked down the street and around the corner toward the park. When we passed the firehouse, I thought of Beau. One of the engines was gone. Was he on it? Was he off risking his life and being a hero while I sat here thinking it was a big deal to tell his accepting family I was gay? It felt like such a small thing when I compared it to something like that. I knew it wasn’t—not really. It was cutting yourself open in one of the most intimate ways.
“So…I have something to admit to you,” I told Kenny as we went into the park, heading straight for the picnic table Beau and I shared more than once.
Kenny frowned. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, K-man. It’s good. It’s just…well, I lied to you about something, and I’m feeling terrible about it.”
“It’s okay, Ash. I’m sure you had a good reason.”
His unwavering support and forgiveness warmed my soul. “I wouldn’t say that quite yet. You don’t know what I did, and I have a habit of fucking up big-time.” I’d done it a lot over the years.
“I trust you.”
Reaching over, I wrapped an arm around Kenny and pulled him in for a half hug. We sat at the table, my knee bouncing up and down like crazy before I forced myself to look at him, to own the truth, and said, “Remember when you asked me if Beau was my boyfriend?”