“Why don’t you call it a bubbler?”
“Because calling it a water fountain actually makes sense.”
“Nah, that’s something that sits in the middle of the park and water comes out the top.” Dawson kept his voice flat, but the corner of his mouth was losing the fight. It wasn’t even a dumb question—anyone not from Wisconsin asked it at some point—but Leo had brought it to him instead of the team.
Leo turned to stare at him. “That’s—no. That’s a fountain. A water fountain is the thing on the wall you drink from.”
Dawson shrugged. Their arms brushed on the next step, and neither of them corrected it. Leo’s knuckles bumped against Dawson’s wrist, and Dawson’s fingers twitched inside his pocket.
“You people are insane,” Leo said, but the edge was gone from his voice. He was looking at Dawson instead of where he was walking, and Dawson could feel it—the weight of Leo’s attention, close and warm and aimed right at him.
He made himself keep his eyes forward. It didn’t help much.
They reached the gap between their vehicles, and the walk was over. Dawson stopped at the tailgate of his truck and shifted the pizza box to his other hand, already building the next thirty seconds in his head. “Good night.” “Thanks for dinner.” “See you around.” Get in the truck. Drive home. Done.
Leo stopped too, but he didn’t move toward his car. He stood with his weight on one leg, that easy stance that looked careless until Dawson caught the tightness in his jaw. His hair was still doing its own thing—the curls from earlier had dried into a mess Leo had stopped trying to fix about an hour ago, and Dawson wished he’d stop noticing that.
“Hey,” Leo said. “Hold on a second.”
Dawson waited. Leo’s hands came out of his pockets.
“I had a good time tonight.” Leo said it straight, no spin. Then his chin came up, and Dawson recognized the shift. The shoulders pulled back. The eyes going direct and steady. Not open—braced. “But there’s something you should know before we do this again. I’m gay.”
Dawson’s hand tightened on the pizza box. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The dog down the block had stopped barking, and the lot was dead silent.
“I don’t hide it,” Leo said. “But I also don’t want you catching shit for hanging out with me. Small towns talk. And if somebodysees us getting pizza and starts making assumptions, that’s on me, not you. So.” He lifted one shoulder. “Now you know.”
Leo was watching him. Not the easy, half-lidded look from across the table at Maria’s—this was direct, chin up, weight shifted back half a step. His keys were already in his hand. Leo looked like a man waiting to be let down.
Dawson stood there with a box of cold pizza under his arm and thirty-six years of locked-down discipline between him and the only honest answer he’d ever wanted to give.
Leo’s weight shifted back another inch. His mouth was already curving toward the deflection—the joke, the shrug, the easy out he’d hand Dawson so neither of them had to stand in the silence.
Everything Dawson had built—the system, the compartments, the drives to Milwaukee and Madison where he could be someone else for a night and come home and fold it back into the dark—went quiet. Not gone. Just silent, like he’d been holding his breath for years and only just noticed.
He looked at Leo. Leo, with his guard up, his jaw set, his stupid, messy hair, and his too-expensive wrinkled shirt, standing under a streetlight in Port Haven, Wisconsin, telling Dawson the truth about himself because he thought Dawson might not be able to handle it.
“That’s a damned good thing,” Dawson said.
Leo blinked. His mouth opened, and nothing came out, and Dawson had never seen Leo speechless. Not at the tractor pull, not at the bar, not across the table at Maria’s. Leo always had the next line ready. Always.
Dawson set the pizza box on the tailgate of his truck. Took one step forward. Put his hand on the side of Leo’s neck, rough fingers against warm skin, and kissed him.
It wasn’t smooth. Dawson’s aim was off, and he caught the corner of Leo’s mouth first, corrected, pressed in. Leo made a sound—not a word, just air, surprised—and then his hand came up, gripped the front of Dawson’s shirt, and he kissed back. Hard. Leo’s mouth was warm and tasted like beer and pizza, and Dawson’s head was empty, every argument he’d ever rehearsed just gone.
Three seconds. Four. Leo’s fingers tightened in his shirt, Dawson’s hand slid to the back of his neck, and he could feel Leo’s pulse hammering under his thumb. Fast. As fast as his own.
Dawson pulled back. Leo’s eyes were open, close enough that Dawson could see the shock in them, and underneath that a raw want that Leo likely would’ve hidden if he’d had a second to prepare.
Dawson dropped his hand. Stepped back. His heart was slamming, his hands were shaking, and if he stood here one more second, he was going to kiss Leo again or say something he couldn’t take back, three blocks from The Penalty Box on a Tuesday night in the town where he’d lived his entire life.
“Good night,” Dawson said.
He grabbed the box off the tailgate. Walked around to the driver’s side. Got in. The key rattled going into the ignition because his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and he didn’t look at Leo as he backed out because if he looked, he’d stop, and if hestopped, he’d have to think, and if he started thinking, he wasn’t going to leave.
He pulled onto the road. The streetlight swept across the cab, and then it was dark, just his headlights, the county road, and the center line.
The pizza box sat on the passenger seat, probably leaking grease onto the upholstery, and he could still taste Leo’s mouth over the pizza and the beer.
