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I hold up my hand. “Stop. Don’t give yourself that much credit, dude.”
He settles on a bar stool, his boxers riding up around his thick thighs. I’m too tired to move, so I just slide down the door until I’m sitting with my legs stretched out on his weird stone entry tile.
“Why did you vanish without telling anyone?”
“Maybe I wanted five minutes without people like you telling me I don’t know what I’m doing and can’t make decisions about my own life.”
After a silence so long I look up to make sure he’s still there, he takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” Hearing him apologize feels like the rare sighting of an endangered species. “I’m not trying to change your mind.” He’s lying, but I don’t mind so much now. “I want to understand why.”
“I don’t want to tell you.” I tip my head back and examine the high ceilings, which are spotless and smooth compared to the dusty popcorn ceilings in our farmhouse back home.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s fucking embarrassing.” He called megoodonce. I still think about that.
“I grew up in the foster system. Ages four to eighteen. I was one of the few kids my agency could never get adopted, and I still don’t know why.”
I blink. “Huh?”
“That’s the game, right? I give you my secret and you give me yours?”
Tilting my head, I study him up and down. “No way that’s your darkest secret.”
“I don’t think the reason you dropped out of school is yours.”
“Fair.” I get up and grab another pancake, perch on the edge of the counter just out of arm’s reach. “I’m going to fail every single one of my classes this semester. Passing the interview last weekend was my one chance to keep my scholarship, and I fucked it.”
He looks relieved. “That’s alright. There are other ways to pay for law school, and you can hire a tutor—”
“You don’t get it. My parents are getting older, and my family doesn’t have extra money for me to play with while I figure things out.” I swallow the rest of my pancake. It tastes like sawdust.
“You’re so close to your dream, Jonah. You’ve put in so much work. What alternatives do you have?” He’s back to lecturing; that didn’t take long.
“You know what, Gray? If I knew the answer to that, maybe I wouldn’t be sleeping in a picnic shelter.” I rub my forehead. My brain’s trying to get big. That’s what it always feels like when I start to freak out. Like it’s expanding and my skull is going to blow open.
Gray gets up and walks around the counter and stands between my knees, looking at me. “You really care about your parents, don’t you?” he says quietly. “Have you told them you’re struggling in school?”
“God, no. I’ll break their hearts.” I lean back and peer up at him. “I don’t recommend loving people. It just makes everyone hurt each other.”
Something dark and fragile stirs behind his eyes. “I know.” Then it’s gone, covered over by that incredible calm, the first thing I noticed about him. “Tell me about your parents. You said in your interview that your father owns a business?”
I open my mouth to answer, but it all hits me at once. Their faces, their voices. How deeply they care about me and how little they know me—their straight, successful lawyer son. How I can’t help loving them anyway. I bite down on my lip, hard, and all I can do is nod.
He slides his hands under my thighs and tugs my pelvis up against his, my legs wrapped around his hips. I bury my face in his neck, along the edge of his white pajama tee, andGodhis skin tastes like fresh summer rain. His hand rubs up and down my back, his nose in my hair. He’s not on a video call or the other side of an airplane seat. He’s here. I have him. I want him.
“What kind of business is it?” The words vibrate through his chest into mine.
“Tractors.”
He pulls away a little, frowning at me. “Tractors?”
“Yeah?” My fingers play with the tiny strip of skin where his boxers meet his shirt.
“How do you have a business entirely centered around tractors?”
“Uh…sell them? Fix them? He employs specialized mechanics for the different models.”
Now he just looks stumped. “There’s more than one kind?”
