When they parted sometime later, Tamlin glanced at the book on the coffee table. “You wrote that while I was gone? I thought for sure you’d take the opportunity to read in peace.”
Jeffrey groaned, though without much vehemence; hard to be irate when Tamlin was suggestively massaging his chest through his shirt. “I couldn’t choose a book, let alone focus enough to read. I spent the whole time you were gone thinking how much better it would be if you were here, sitting on the couch next to me.”
“Youwantedcompany?” Tamlin eyed him incredulously. “Have I somehow turned you into apeople person?”
“If you mean you’re my person, and I’m yours,” Jeffrey returned, his own fingers questing under the hem of Tamlin’s hoodie, “then yes.”
“Aw, you’re my person too. And I’m sitting on the couch with you now.” Tamlin’s deft fingers finally slipped between shirt buttons; they stopped just shy of a nipple, making Jeffrey yowl like the grumpy cat of his nickname, while Tamlin smirked like the cat about to get the cream. “Though perhaps we could go do something together that requires a bed?”
Jeffrey didn’t need any convincing. His own hands switched tasks, tugging Tamlin to his feet, then towing him towards their bedroom, reeling him in along the way so he could plant another heated kiss on his boyfriend’s lips.
Everything New but Love by Mere Rain
We were sitting on a picnic blanket on the grassy slope by the Dog Park, so Zoe could watch the dogs play, when a shadow fell over us.
I tensed, pulling Zoe closer, even before I looked up.
“Callum. You have a baby. How do you have a baby?”
He was backlit against the gray sky, but I knew Zane’s voice, even after a year without hearing it. Knew his silhouette. Wide shoulders in a leather jacket, hair shorter than I remembered.
“My niece,” I said, calm with shock at seeing him again. “What are you doing here?”
He snorted and knelt beside us. “Looking for you, obviously. Not going to lie, I thought what we had deserved more than a voicemail saying you were leaving town for a family emergency.”
Zane had deserved more. I’d wanted to give him more. Everything. But it had been too soon, too new, and then suddenly I hadn’t had more time to wait for what was budding between us to bloom.
If I hadn’t been exhausted from moving, and finding a new job, and then caring for a newborn, I’d have been a wreck. But for the first time in my life, I’d had to pull up my big-boy pants and get shit done like an adult, for my sister and her baby, and I had. I was proud of that, even if I had woken up crying over Zane half the nights this year. I’d been in love, and no amount of telling myself it was infatuation had eased the hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Daphne’s ex is good at getting people to trust him. I couldn’t take the risk of him convincing someone to tell him where she went. How did you find me?”
“Your mom. Not an address, just a photo with thatmountain ridge in the background.”
“Dammit! I told Daphne not to let Mom wheedle anything out of her.” I frowned. “Wait, how were you talking to my mom?”
They’d met all of twice, first at Daphne’s birthday party, and then once when we’d run into Mom while going to lunch.
“I started going to her church so I could ask her for news of you.”
Mom’s church was beige, bigotry, and bad music. “Wow. You must’ve really wanted to find me.”
“I did. Callum, you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I wasn’t a hot club twink in eyeliner and tight jeans anymore. I needed a haircut and my shirt had a sticky Zoe handprint on the chest.
Zane still looked at me like he wanted to peel my clothes off, nearby dog-walkers be damned.
If I hadn’t had Zoe beside me, and her sperm donor weighing on my mind, I might have let him.
“If you know, Kirk probably does, too. Mom likes him, and he’s not too dumb to use a reverse image search.”
“Yeah, I was counting on warning you about him being enough to make up for following when you didn’t want me to.”
“I did want you to,” I whispered. “But I couldn’t—I mean that would be crazy, asking a guy I’d been seeing for a month to leave everything for me.”
“I would have,” he said. “I have.”
“What? You quit your job?”
