Page 20 of Wedge

“Went to that bathhouse. I’m sure.”

“Ah.”

“Educational.”

He laughs out loud now. “Yeah, it’s an experience for sure. So… Bi, then?”

“Don’t know. I’ve been with a lot of women. Never found one I wanted to keep.”

“Geoff says that, too.”

“Does he? Didn’t know that. Helps to hear it. Not sure the label matters, though.”

“Ok, so this summer. Take it slow. If this kid has baggage, and lord knows don’t we all, you’ll need to learn him. Wait for him to come to you. Trust that he will, and don’t try to push it. Be that steady rock you are.”

“Steady. I can do steady.”

“Yeah. Practically your name.”

“Thanks, Gavin.”

“You got it, man. Go get your young pup.”

“Fuck off.” I laugh.

I get to Sam’s Number 3 early and take a booth along the wall, a laminated menu the size of a small novel already waiting on the table. The place has been feeding Denver since the twenties, and it shows in the best way: the clatter of plates, the hiss of the flat-top, a ballgame murmuring from a TV over the counter, servers moving through the chaos with five plates up an arm and orders called out in a shorthand I’ll never crack. The air is thick with coffee, bacon, and green chili. I’ve spread my iPad and printouts across the table, more prep than this meeting actually needs. Truth is, I just wanted something to do with my hands that wasn’t checking the door every ten seconds.

The door swings open, and Adrian slides into the booth twelve minutes late, hair still damp, looking like he rolled straight out of bed and into his truck. My whole chest does something stupid and warm just looking at him. I make myself stay in the chair, not get up and wrap him in a tight hug.

Slow down, I tell myself. You’ve got a plan. Work the plan. There are many, many steps before that can happen.

“You’re early,” he says.

“You’re late,” I say back. “You’d have missed your tee time. In the service, early was on time. Twelve minutes late got you a very long run at oh-dark-thirty.”

“Good thing you’re not my sergeant.”

He flags down the waitress, orders enough pancakes to feed a linebacker, and leans over to look at what I’ve got laid out. I order a breakfast burrito smothered in green chili, because this is Denver and I’m not a monster. Then I walk him through the Denver scramble, through the Steamboat open, through the summer I built late at night the only way I know how, like an op order. Objectives, timelines, and a fallback if Steamboat goes sideways. I built it with three fingers of Scotch in me and Gavin’s voice steady on the other end of the phone.

“You gonna tell him?” Gavin had asked halfway through my rambling. He didn’t even give me shit for chasing after a young guy.

“Not yet. Not right after.” I hadn’t been able to explain it better than that, not even to myself. Gavin didn’t push, just told me to take it slow, be sure, be patient, be kind, and not to make a guy who’s still finding his footing the place where I work out what I am. I don’t get mad at that last bit. He’s right.

So instead, I’m sitting here doing what I actually know how to do. Plan. Show up. Be steady, since apparently that’s my whole personality now, like it or not..

The food arrives fast. Adrian’s pancakes hang over the edges of the plate in a towering stack, butter sliding down the sides, and he smothers it in syrup. My burrito is the size of my forearm, drowning in green chili.

“You’re really doing this for the whole summer,” Adrian says, mouth full of pancake, and I have to work not to smile too big at the way he says it, like he still can’t quite believe anyone would.

“Said I would. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.” I steal a piece of his bacon, mostly for something to do that isn’t just stare at him and drink him in. “Unless you’re sick of me already.”

“Working on it,” he says, and steals it right back out of my fingers.

I laugh, actually laugh, and for a moment I let myself just drink him in. Damp mohawk, tired hazel eyes, that stubborn set to his jaw he gets when he’s bracing for something to happen that he might not be ready for. I know that look. I’ve been making the same face in my bathroom mirror all morning.

Not yet, I remind myself. Let him see steady first. He needs to trust me first. I have to earn it.

“Okay,” he says, oblivious to every single thing going on in my head. “Let’s do this.”