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“I’ve been rentin’ a place on the outskirts of Jackson, but I’d like to find a place here. I drive enough on the job. I don’t wanna have to drive back and forth, ’specially in the winter.”
“What about you, Abey?” Daisy asked, joining the conversation finally. She’d been watching me quietly, but I had no clue why.
“What about me?” I asked innocently, turning my hat in my lap. No matter how I fixed it, it felt like it would fall right to the floor.
Daisy arched a brow, smoothing some loose hair up into the bun on the back of her head. She was on her lunch break too. Her husband, my favorite, chili-making Wisperite, José, pushed her to take the hour off every time we had book club, even though lunchtime always got busy at the café. The man would walk on water for her. Even Daisy admitted he was too sweet on her sometimes. “Have you started seeing someone?”
“No,” I said, trying to quell the tightening in the pit of my stomach, even though every single woman in the room knew I was gay and each one supported me. Still, my dad’s voice sounded loud in my head, and it weaved through the anxiety I always felt when the subject of my love life came up.
“This ain’t how a member of my family should be behavin’. You brought shame on this family. It’s bad enough, you wantin’ to be a cop.”
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Daisy said easily, lounging back in her orange and green tweed armchair. She planted her hands on the arms and drummed her fingers over the threadbare fabric as she crossed her legs and bounced her white sneaker in a measured rhythm. She’d forgotten to leave her black José’s Café apron at work, so now, I focused on the logo instead of looking her in the eye. “It’s just that I might have, ahem, seen you in Red Wild with a certain community center employee.”
She grinned, and I tried my damnedest to look unaffected.
“Abey!” Sam yelped at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dammit. I should’ve said something to her. She knew I liked Devo. We told each other everything, usually, but this was a tricky subject. If it was more than just a hookup, it was tricky.
“Listen,” I said, scooting forward in my chair. My hat tried to tumble to the floor, but I caught it just in time. “There’s nothin’ goin’ on. She’s… cute, but y’all know I can’t do anything about it. I’ve got my job. She’s got hers. It wouldn’t be the right thing.”
“What?!”
Oh man. Now I’d gone and done it. The whole room erupted.
“That’s bullshit,” Billie said. “What’re you scared of?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Daisy added. “Luuk’s the town vet, and no one has a problem with him and my son Kevin. Or if they do, they better not say it to my face!”
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” Phil chimed in.
Cal was quiet. She probably agreed with me, although I knew for a fact she didn’t have a problem with same-sex relationships. I peeked at her out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she felt a similar panic like the one still swirling around in my stomach. And that damn burn was back, right behind my chest bone, throbbing again.
Cal knew that I knew about her recent secret admission to the LGBTQ community, but we hadn’t talked about it. Phil, on the other hand, wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She told me so when I’d caught them kissing in Phil’s truck during a rainstorm one afternoon not too long ago. She’d parked in a parking lot, but she must’ve accidentally bumped her hazards button, ’cause I’d seen them flashing and had pulled over to make sure she was okay. I’d never seen Cal so embarrassed, even when we read the BDSM book in book club, but I promised them I would never out them.
If they’d found love with each other, I would be the last person to judge or gossip about it.
Watching them together discreetly, I thought, It’s funny how polar opposite they are, as Cal tried her best to look as heterosexual as she could, whatever that looked like, and Phil gazed at Cal, smiling with all the love in the world in her eyes.
I kind of understood. Devo was all I could think about, day or night. I’d even dreamed about her, about kissing her and holding her hand. I probably looked like Phil did now when people caught me daydreaming.
But taking her to the dance and dancing with her in front of the whole town? That wasn’t real life. I couldn’t do that. I still felt queasy and like my chest might catch fire when I thought about how I’d practically jumped away from her when Crane had come into Red Wild.
I was kicking myself for my reaction. I was so mad at myself for accusing her of judging me. She wasn’t wrong. I had acted like a coward. And I knew my dad was judging me from the pits of Hell itself.
The truth was that I judged myself.
When I finally made eye contact with Sam, her forehead crumpled. She was sad and hurt, and I felt like a total douche canoe for not telling my best friend how much I really liked Devo.
While I prepared to tell everybody to shut the hell up before I arrested all their gossiping asses, I whispered, “Sorry,” to Sam. She shrugged, and I rubbed my knuckles in a circle over the burn, hoping it would go away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DEVO
“How’s it going over at Red’s place?” Theo asked when he called me at lunchtime.
