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“Wow.” Ambrose gulped. “I’m…um…honored. I’m honored.”
“It’s no big deal.” I flicked his admiration away with a quick gesture before returning my hand to the stick.
“It is to me,” he said softly, something about his earnest honesty making my chest clench.
“Me too,” I admitted. If Ambrose was going to be honest, then I could too. “Did I tell you how I ended up being the one to inherit the cabin?”
“No, but I want to know.” Ambrose leaned back in his chair, like story time with me was way more captivating than the rugged terrain.
“My dad’s brother, Frank, was married to the navy. A big part of why I went navy instead of one of the other branches. He was deployed most of the time when we were all growing, but then he retired to the cabin. Died too damn young, but he never could kick smoking. Left me the place from one bachelor uncle to another. I always figured we were cut from the same cloth. But now…” I trailed off. There was honesty, and then there was raw. This was raw, painfully so. The truth sliding past the scraped-up places on my soul.
“Now?” Ambrose kept his voice low, giving me plenty of space to decide when to continue.
“I wonder if maybe he sometimes got tired of being the bachelor uncle, the odd one out who left our little town. If he ever got fed up with his own company. Or if maybe he wanted someone. Or even had someone but couldn’t say.” I’d never shared these questions with another person, but if ever there was someone who might understand, it was Ambrose.
“You think he might not have been straight?”
“Maybe. He never once brought a woman around, just a steady stream of buddies from the service. I never thought much of it, but now I wonder…if maybe he saw more than I did about me.” I said the last part so soft I wasn’t sure if Ambrose even heard the words.
“Perhaps.” Ambrose was as quietly speculative as I was. No bold assumptions, which I appreciated. “Or he might have simply wanted you to have the cabin. Maybe you were the favorite?”
“That I was.” I chuckled a little too heartily, relief over him not pushing too hard into what the gift said about me. “I was the favorite nibling, as you’d say. Mainly because I’d listen to his stories while the twins were off tinkering with whatever bike or truck he’d rode in on. He’d take us kids camping, but Daisy never had much patience for the outdoors. She went straight from cheer squad to Little League team mom. But me, I liked hanging with Uncle Frank. Wish I’d done it more.”
“You did enough.” Ambrose said it with the same conviction he had when we’d talked about our dads. He knew what it was like to have regrets, and he knew exactly what I needed to hear as well.
“Yeah, I hope so.” I stared past the line of traffic to the scrubby brush and endless desert hills lining this lonely stretch of highway. “But maybe Uncle Frank’s part of why I want to tell my brothers the truth. I don’t have to keep you on the down-low. Twins aren’t gonna care other than to give me typical big-brother shit. Thank fuck times are different now. When I first enlisted, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still the rule. Too many good people locked in a damn closet. And like Bishop said on your show, that one episode, history is full of stories we’ll never know fully.”
“I get it.” His voice was thick. “My family lost two uncles to the AIDS crisis. We dedicated that episode to them.”
“That was cool how you did that. Really made me think. And the episode was a big part of why I told Duncan and Cash that I’m pan. I don’t wanna die with no one knowing me.” We were alone in the car, but I was back to the barest of whispers. Yeah, I’d already been battling some confusing feelings for Ambrose when I’d confessed to Duncan and Cash, but I’d had the urge to tell for several months prior. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life unseen.
“I want to know you. All of you,” Ambrose said so firmly I couldn’t help but believe him. And he saw me. He saw what Cash and Duncan didn’t, what maybe no one else had seen before, a terrifyingly thrilling possibility.
“And that’s why you’re not just another friend.” I abandoned the shifter to give his hand a quick squeeze. “I’ll be honest, boss. I’ve got no fucking clue what we’re doing here, but it’s something.”
“It is. Something.” He laughed, and then I did too.
“I’m probably gonna screw this up.” I meant to warn him, but he only made a scoffing noise.
