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“No, but it’s enlightening.” I squeezed his arm. “I’m glad to understand you better. To understand where we stand.”
“And where is that?” he asked, eyebrow arching.
“Together,” I said simply. “You don’t have to try anything and everything sexually to prove you’re in this, Hunter. You only have to be honest with me.”
His smile curled at one corner, a devious look if I’d ever seen one. “True, but I do want to try anything and everything with you. You’re a very good teacher, Clark, and I’m a very eager student.”
He leaned in and kissed me slowly, thoroughly, until I melted into the couch.
“Do your worst, angel. I mean it.”
I smiled, ideas forming in my head. I knew a good way to test Hunter’s preferences without really pushing him to the limit. “Then we’re going to need privacy—”
“Dad!” Toby called down the stairs, like a bucket of cold water that made us spring apart. Luckily, we weren’t directly in his view line, but we’d need to be more careful. “Mom is on video chat. She wants to talk to you.”
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “That’s the last thing I need right now. Ugh. I’m sorry, Clark. I want to blow her off, but I’m trying to prove I’m a grown-up these days, which means not dodging phone calls.”
“I understand,” I said, smiling even as a niggle of guilt hit me when I thought of the phone calls I’d been avoiding.
Alexa had called and texted a few times, and I hadn’t responded, not wanting to revisit the drama that happened in Omaha and the hit our friendship had taken. But Hunter was right. It was a childish tactic to avoid hard things, and I’d always prided myself on my maturity and logic.
Yes, talking to Alexa was bound to bring up some of the uneasiness I’d felt about dating Hunter. But we were in a good place. Everyone in town knew we were dating—except Toby—and Hunter might be exploring his sexuality, but he was doing it with me because he genuinely liked me. I didn’t feel like an experiment at all. More like a discovery he’d made, one that delighted him, and that was an amazing feeling to know that I opened his eyes.
Somehow the nerdy history teacher was the one who’d revealed Hunter’s truth to him. What were the odds of that?
I felt as if I’d just won the man lottery.
* * *
HUNTER
“...beenmaking progress, but my therapist wants me to start pushing myself more.”
“That’s great.”
“Like, going out of my comfort zone, you know?” Holly added.
My attention was only half on our conversation. Toby had gone to bed after handing me his tablet with Holly’s video call, and I was desperate to get my evening back on track. If Clark left with nothing more than dinner and a serious conversation, I was going to kick my own ass.
“Yeah, Holly, it’s kind of late, you know?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ll get to the point.”
Oh, good. There was a point. I ventured down the hall and took a few steps down the staircase to make sure Clark hadn’t given up on me. I saw him on the couch, head bent over his phone, frown on his face.
“I want to try some travel,” Holly said. “I’m going to practice with some day trips.”
“That’s great, Hols. I know travel is tough.”
I was betting she didn’t follow through with it, but if she did, I had no doubt it’d be a great stride forward. There was a time she’d been practically agoraphobic, leaving the house only in my company and only when absolutely required.
“If it goes well, I want to come to Granville. I want to see Toby.”
“Well, he’d love that,” I said carefully. “But…it might be better not to get his hopes up. That’s a lot of pressure on yourself.”
“Maybe I need the pressure.”
I winced, trying to think of how to say this without sounding like a jackass. “I don’t want you to hurt him.”
