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I used work as an escape too. Rather than analyzing last night’s events that I wasn’t ready to deal with, I dozed on and off to a documentary on limestone. Later this year, Roe and I were going to Slovenia for one of the episodes, and we had a lot of research to do. The cave system we were visiting told a tale of how Europe had taken shape hundreds of thousands of years ago, and we already had an impressive list of historians and geologists we’d be interviewing.
Freaking limestone.
I yawned and stretched out my legs atop the coffee table.
“Roe,” I called. “You want me to order pizza soon?”
I could eat. My head wasn’t killing me anymore, and water and Coke weren’t cutting it enough. Pizza would be the perfect birthday dinner. Grease and salty goodness.
Roe emerged from his room down the hall—or maybe the studio, I didn’t know—and scratched his head. He seemed to be on a mission, and he positioned himself in front of the TV and stared at me.
Pizza wasn’t a tough choice. It was a yes now or yes later.
“You’re not gay,” he told me.
I felt my eyebrows fly up.
“Correct,” I replied automatically.
We weren’t gonna discuss pizza, were we?
He nodded once, firmly. “That’s what I needed to hear. You can order pizza.” He started to leave, his posture and behavior so stiff that it sent off a warning within me.
“Hey, hold up.” I removed my feet from the table and sat forward. Something was definitely wrong, and I didn’t wanna say anything that might be misconstrued. “How about you let me in on the war you’re fightin’ in your head, bud.” It wasn’t a question. Ready or not, we had to talk.
Roe sighed and retraced his steps to the TV, and he tossed me a weary look. “I’m kinda freaking out, Jake. For almost two years, I hoped against hope that—” He shook his head quickly and started over. “I gotta get my shit together in forty-eight hours, and I don’t even know how to begin to process what happened between us last night. I heard you talking in your sleep.”
Okay, slow down, slow down. Hoped against hope for what? And I sleep talked?
He came over and sat down on the coffee table in front of me, and right then and there, I practically felt his exhaustion. He’d been running himself ragged mentally all day, hadn’t he?
I was a dick. I should’ve been there for him. With the marriage bullshit and a kid on the way…I could only imagine what he was going through.
“You said you couldn’t lose me,” he admitted. “You were mumbling—like, shortly after you fell asleep this morning. You couldn’t lose being the leading role or something in my life.”
Oh fuck. Embarrassment crashed into me and settled heavily in my gut. I did remember my fears from yesterday. My possessiveness. My worries. How I hadn’t been able to let him out of my sight.
I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat, and I… It was wrong to say I didn’t know how to respond; it was more a matter of not wanting to be so vulnerable. Shit—to fucking sleep talk like that? How goddamn mortifying. And dumb. Of course I was gonna lose that position. Of course I was. I hated it, and it wasn’t about him having a kid. It was my irrational jealousy toward a woman I barely tolerated. Which I didn’t wanna admit to Roe, who might actually marry her.
“I’m…” Fuck. I rubbed my forehead and groaned internally. I had to give him something. The gist of the truth. To be fair, he’d already stated it. I just had to confirm he was in the right ballpark. “I’m protective of what we have, I guess you can say,” I said, feeling awkward as fuck. “I know we said living in this house was gonna be temporary—just until we could afford our own homes…” This house was supposed to be the headquarters for our production company. We both loved the idea of our workplace having a homey feel to it. More relaxing. “But it’s gonna suck if you move out. Which I obviously understand you will if you stay with Sandra. Y’all can’t exactly raise a family in your bedroom.”
Roe nodded minutely and stared at me as if he were trying to work out a math problem. “So you got spooked. That’s why we crossed the line last night.”
Oh, I—no. That…that was going a bit too far. While my stupid fears definitely played a part, my… Jesus Christ, I could barely conjure the word in my head. Attraction. My attraction. My attraction to Roe—or whatever it was—was a separate issue altogether. Possibly triggered by those fears or…I didn’t fucking know. I wasn’t ready to think about it. I wasn’t…I wasn’t gay. Gay was a simple definition, right? A man who only wanted other men, he was gay. I couldn’t be that. I loved women. Right?
