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Emotions are churning in his eyes, and I note the pain there when he says, “Your daughter seems great.”
“My…daughter?” I stiffen, confused by the sentiment. I glance over my shoulder, putting two and two together. “You mean Pixie?”
“Who else would I mean?” he lobs back.
I take a step toward him. “She’s not mine. I don’t have any children.”
“Oh, I… I…” he sputters. “I didn’t know… You and Aimee never had kids?”
I huff out a laugh because the idea is absurd. But I can see he’s bewildered by my reaction. Did Porter really think…
“No, never. Thank God, not that I wouldn’t want them.”
“So you…” He still looks confused. “You might still try for some?”
I hitch a shoulder. “No clue. Maybe someday and certainly not with Aimee. She and I have been divorced for eight years. In fact, she’s remarried and moved to a different part of the state.”
Chapter 6
Porter
Questions rain down on me just like the storm outside. I don’t want to ask him anything, don’t want to look like I care, but man, am I curious. I’ve always wondered too much about Sully, was too interested in Sully, and it seems like eleven years away hasn’t changed anything.
There’s one question I can’t hold back, though. “It’s not a secret, then?” It’s the best way I can figure to ask him if he’s out without saying the words. As far as I know we’re alone, but I don’t want to take any chances. As much anger as I have for Sully, I’d never out him. No matter what, a person has a right do that on their own time.
The way he looks down and turns away slightly tells me all I need to know.
“It’s still a secret,” he confirms a moment later.
Ah hell. Eleven years. Eleven fucking years, and he’s still in the closet? Has he even been with any men but me?
Not my business. Not my fucking business.
But for some reason, all hearing this does is set the back of my neck on fire and my teeth grinding. The fact that we both knew he would end up with Aimee is something we used to talk about after we finished blowing our loads together. Their families were close. Hell, Sully and Aimee had been close too, and maybe it could have worked since he’s bisexual, but damn if it doesn’t all seem like a waste.
“Jesus, Bishop.” At least I didn’t call him Sully out loud. I can’t seem to control it in my thoughts, but I refuse to slip back into using the nickname when it’s just the two of us. I try to storm out of the barn, but he steps in front of me, blocking the way. A clap of thunder sounds in the distance, but it doesn’t have anything on the storm in his gaze.
“Damned if you don’t still piss me off better than anyone else,” he growls. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to be angry with me because I’m not…” He glances around as if making sure we’re alone. “Out.”
Christ, is that really what he thinks? Though can I really blame him? I’m not sure I’ve given him much reason to believe anything else. “I’m not mad at you for not being out. I’m pissed because you’ve spent your whole life hiding when there’s nothing wrong with who you are.”
Sully’s brows draw together. He runs a hand through his hair, starts to pace, and I watch him, concentrate on how his long, lean muscles move, and wonder why in the fuck he’s in my head so deep. Why he’s always been in my head so deep.
After all this time, Sully should be just another person to me.
But this man still has the ability to fuck with my head.
Sully stops, leans against the wall beside his hung hat, and sighs. “I know there’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not ashamed, but I do have things to consider. And I just…hell, I reckon I’ve never had a reason to come out before.”
His words make my spine stiffen, even though he’s right. I hadn’t been a reason to come out eleven years ago. It never would have worked.
“Why’d you leave the way you did, Porter?” he asks, and I go rigid. Sully pushes off the wall, just stands there looking at me like the answer to that question has plagued him for eleven years. As if he hasn’t lived his life having basically anything he could want.
Did he expect me to work for his family forever? To sit around the ranch while he married Aimee and be the guy he let fuck him when he craved something his wife couldn’t give him? When they divorced, would we have kept hiding like we had all those years ago—Sully with his family and friends and ranch while I waited for attention from him?
“Because I lost everything. My daddy died without shit to his name, and then my mom did the same.” And for the first time in my life, I’d needed someone. I’d needed him, and when I went to him, he was with her. It wasn’t his fault that in that moment, he was busy. He hadn’t known what happened to my mom, and I didn’t talk to him, but it was a reminder that I didn’t have anyone and that he always would. “There’s no point in talkin’ about the past.”
I try to walk out again, and for the second time, Sully steps in front of me. “Maybe we weren’t ever supposed to be anything, maybe we weren’t even friends like I thought and all that was between us was sex, but you could have fucking talked to me.”
