Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
I paused for a moment, then realized I was doing the same thing with my water bottle that he was. “You and Kell are like that. You’re not brothers, but you nitpick sometimes and you’d do anything for each other. Family doesn’t have to be blood. Chase is my brother too.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Kell is that for me. I just hope you know how much he loves you.”
My chest felt slightly tight and uncomfortable, but not the heart-attack kind. It was more of the what-the-fuck-is-going-on variety. Josh and I didn’t talk like this. “I do,” I replied, then, “You okay, man?”
Josh’s serious expression was replaced with a mischievous smile. “I’m better than okay.”
“You’re ridiculous. And that’s not what the writing on the bathroom wall of my bar says.”
“Hey, fuck you, Caine,” he replied, and we both laughed. “Shut up and finish this hike with me.”
I nodded, and we did just that. Later, when Josh pulled up at my house to drop me off, I realized how much I’d needed that, to simply get out and have fun and clear my head. “Thanks. I appreciate this. I wouldn’t have done it, I don’t think, if you hadn’t come over.”
“No problem.”
I got out of the car and watched as he drove away. I wondered if Josh had needed the hiking trip too, or if he’d done it because he’d known I did.
Things started to change for us after that. His obsessive talk about hooking up annoyed me even more than it had before. We nitpicked at each other, and I flipped him off at least once every time I saw him. I gave him shit, and he told me I was always bustin’ his balls. Kellan often intervened in the arguments between us. It was months before any of them knew Josh and I hung out sometimes. No matter how much we argued, he continued to ask me to do things from time to time, mostly fishing or outdoorsy things like that.
I always wondered why I went, but still, I never said no.
Last summer
I’d been pacing the hotel room for…hell, I didn’t even know how long, my thoughts running even more laps than what I walked.
I hated that I had such a complicated relationship with sex—well, relationships as a whole. Being in my mid-thirties and never being serious about someone, never having really cared about someone on that level, made me feel…different, especially when you added the sex thing into the mix.
I remembered being a teenager, when everything around me started to become about getting off. All the guys talked about having their dicks sucked and wanting to get laid, and I knew I was supposed to be thinking about those things too. I thought there was something wrong with me, but the equipment worked fine. I could get hard, and I jacked off and it felt good, so why didn’t I have that same desire to fuck the way others did? I thought women were beautiful, and I could acknowledge an attractive man when I saw one, but it was different from when my buddies saw someone they were attracted to.
For a while I’d wondered if I was gay, but when I looked at guys, even if I could see their physical attractiveness, I didn’t get the desire to fuck them any more than I did women.
I’d thought I was broken. That there was something wrong with me. I’d even tried to talk to my dad about it once, and he told me I was simply maturing sexually a little slower than my peers. He’d said to talk to him again if it didn’t change. Later, when I was eighteen, he’d asked me if it’d gotten better, and I’d lied because who the fuck wanted to be broken when it came to sex?
So I’d played it off. I went on dates, and had sex, and talked about sex with my buddy Chase because that was what you were supposed to do. Sometimes I could almost fool myself. When I went off to college, I thought maybe it would get better, but it didn’t. Still, I didn’t have to pretend there because I wasn’t close enough to anyone for them to notice.
Then my parents died, and I went back to Havenwood to take care of Kellan. At that point, wanting to fuck or not didn’t matter. I had more important things to worry about, like how to raise a kid, and pay bills, and protect Kell. Focusing on him made it easier to shove my own shit into the closet. I devoted my life to him and Chase. Chase eventually left, and then it was just me, Kell, and a while after, my bar, Griff’s.
Then Chase came back and fell in love with my brother, and…I didn’t need to take care of Kell anymore. I hadn’t needed to take care of Kell in a long time. He was a grown-ass man, but again, I’d lied to myself that he needed me.