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“Zeke Swanson, my old diving coach,” I say. “He’s helping me get through all the red tape with the school district.”
Coach Swanson—how the hell was I ever supposed to call him Zeke?—sounded glad to hear from me, and he surprised the hell out of me by saying he had the option of taking on an intern. Starting an unpaid internship at my old middle school isn’t how I pictured starting my new career, but everybody has to start somewhere.
That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. My parents are not exactly thrilled.
But the internship isn’t my only way in. One of my former teammates suggested teaching swimming lessons at the local Y, which now seems so head-smackingly obvious I probably should have thought of it myself.
“You still manage to surprise me,” says Cas, shaking his head. “You came up with this idea, what, five minutes ago? And you’re already filling out the paperwork.”
“When you know, you know,” I say, tossing a can at him as I help unload the rest of the bags. Cas catches it one-handed and snorts.
“Not that I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says. “You just move fast once you’ve made up your mind.”
He sticks his head into the pantry, sparing me from having to come up with an answer.
What Cas doesn’t know is that kick-starting my career the last couple of days has gone a hell of a long way toward keeping my mind off a certain couple of people.
Well, it’s helped. Sort of. If nothing else, focusing on finding a job has kept me from making a fool of myself by texting and calling too much.
We’ve been back from the beach three days and I haven’t seen either Callahan or West since we left. I woke up this morning feeling like I was coming out of my skin. And not in a good way.
Part of getting back to real life meant not getting to sneak off to somebody’s apartment like we managed to do at the beach. Damn it.
Junkie, I think for the third time today.
“What’s the deal?” Cas sticks his head back out of the pantry to raise an eyebrow at me.
“Huh?” I realize I’ve stopped unpacking groceries and shake my head. “Distracted, I guess.”
“Go finish what you were doing,” he says. “I’ll take care of this.”
I take him up on it, heading back to the couch and booting up my laptop.
Everything’s the same as before. My parents’ house is still standing. The community is slowly rebounding from all the weirdness of the last year. Cas is still very much Cas.
When he asked me about the trip, I told him I had fun. Nice wedding, sweet people, pretty beach, good booze. All those things are true.
I still haven’t told him the truth.
I’m not scared. Not exactly. Okay, so maybe I am a little. Cas is pretty much the most open-minded person I’ve ever met. Plus, he’s my best friend. I trust him with anything, with everything.
Only this is bigger than anything I thought I’d ever have to tell him. Still, I’m not used to keeping secrets from him. It’s made the last couple of days weird and kind of stressful. Fortunately, he’s been too preoccupied to notice so far, but I know the respite won’t last forever.
Do I even want to hide? Think big picture. I don’t have a choice yet, because Callie and West and I decided to keep things quiet while we work it out. But if West isn’t returning my texts and I can’t get either of them to pick a day for us to see each other…
My email pings, short-circuiting my whirlwind thoughts. Thank God. I click over and, seeing the title, double check the door to the living room to make sure Cas is still preoccupied.
I might have spent the last couple of days doing research. On the Internet. Of a certain kind.
Sometimes that research comes with pictures. And videos. I might have subscribed to a couple of places like that.
Hearing Cas rustling around in the other room, I figure I’ve got a minute to click the link.
It’s a set of still shots, two men in leather, a woman chained up to the wall behind them. She has a ball gag in her mouth.
I scroll down a little bit, and yep—the guys are putting on quite the show for her.
Cas clears his throat. I jump, slamming the laptop shut, knowing there’s not a chance in hell he didn’t see that. Cas comes out from behind the sofa—how the hell did he get right behind me without me hearing him?—and comes to sit on the coffee table in front of me.
