Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 98(@200wpm)___ 79(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 98(@200wpm)___ 79(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Brooks winked at Sadie, who grinned before ducking her head into Ryder’s shoulder, and his smile turned genuine and warm. “Oh my God. Of course I remember you, Colin. Congratulations. How did I not know either of you two were gay?”
I huffed out a laugh. “I wasn’t out then. Being Black and gay in small-town Tennessee wasn’t exactly the easiest.” Before I could continue, Brooks’s face dropped and Ryder’s arm squeezed my waist.
“Of course. I’m sorry. Shit.”
I reached out and clasped Brooks’s arm. “No. It’s okay. Actually, seeing you come out helped a lot, even if the circumstances were… suboptimal.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Brooks agreed, wincing.
“Knowing you were gay made it way easier to tell my grandparents, and they were amazing. My dad, not so much. Which was fine. He’s career army and doesn’t live here. But most of the town just… rolled with it.”
Brooks looked thoughtful. “I remember your grandmother. Miss Joyce. She sold flowers, right? How is she?”
Ryder pointed behind us. “She actually has a booth back that way. She brought tons of zinnias and sunflowers in pots. I think I saw your mom over that way earlier.”
Brooks gave a rueful smile. “This doesn’t surprise me. My mom’s attained her final form, in which she can literally be everywhere in the Thicket at once. Hey, Ryder, wasn’t your sister Rachel going to Pratt? Did she ever move back south?”
As we caught Brooks up on everyone, people stopped by to join our conversation. The late-summer sun bore down on us, but with the dappled shade from nearby hardwood trees, it was bearable. Music combined with the voices of chatter and laughter all around us. The smells of cinnamon roasted nuts and hot buttered popcorn warred with nearby booths selling scented candles.
After a while, a skinny pale guy taking a puff on an inhaler wandered up to give Brooks a friendly shoulder smack. “Hey, have you seen Ava? She was having a bit of a wardrobe situation earlier.” He made a curving motion in front of his own chest in the universal sign for boobs. “I thought I’d check on her, but I’m not sure where she is.”
“Not a clue. I saw Mal at his booth earlier, though.” Brooks’s lips curved up in a small smile. “He was charming the pants off—” Brooks broke off and cleared his throat, looking awkward suddenly. “Ahem. My bad. Paul, darling, this is Ryder and Colin Richards. Guys, this is my, uh…” He looked at Paul and swallowed before looking back at us without meeting our eyes. “My little Paul?”
I almost snorted. Was he asking me, or telling me? Ryder’s hand squeezed my waist in a meaningful death grip of calling bullshit.
“Your little Paul,” I repeated carefully.
Brooks firmed his jaw. “Yes. It’s, uh… new,” he said.
“But our love is both passionate and real,” Paul said solemnly, and Ryder’s body shook beside me with silent laughter.
So passionate and real that his “darling” greeted Brooks with a slap to the shoulder, then inquired after Brooks’s ex-girlfriend’s boobs? Something was seriously wrong in the Thicket if gay men were suddenly straight and straight men were gay.
What exactly was going on here?
Just then, Brooks’s brother, Dunn, walked up with his best friend, Tucker Wright, the head of our local LGBTQ organization. Everyone in town knew our poor Doc Wright had been in love with his straight best friend forever, and it only seemed fair that if anyone was going to suddenly turn gay, it should have been Dunn Johnson.
Sadly, that wasn’t how the world worked.
“Hey, Dunn,” Ryder said, reaching out a hand to shake. “I saw you up at the lake the other morning. Anything biting?”
His tanned face lit up. “Hell yeah. Tuck, tell them about that redeye bass you got.”
I tuned out the talk of fishing. Ryder’s MC friends often came up to fish with him off our dock which, thankfully, got me out of having to learn to fish. When it was just the two of us, I’d bring a book out there or my sketchbook if I had a design to work on. Those quiet mornings with the sun rising over the water were special to me even though I didn’t fish. After bringing Sadie home, we made a point of spending time out there together as a family. Either I’d carry her in a sling, or we’d put her in a stationary exerciser thing.
Now that she was old enough to run around, we made sure she wore a life jacket near the water. We’d spent most of the summer taking her to swim lessons to make sure she’d be able to find her way out of the water if she ever found herself in it by accident. Since she was around Ryder so much while he fished, she’d fallen in love with it too, asking for her first rod from Santa and trooping outside Christmas morning to “catch crappies with Daddy.”