“That’s so fucking cool. Can I see any others?” I may be getting greedy, but his smile widens.
“Come on.” He sets his tool down and jerks his head for me to follow him. Around the other side of the house, he leads me to a small shed with a lock on it. I wait while he unlocks it, pulling the doors open to reveal several shelves filled with his carvings.
I step inside and take my time studying each one. Looking at the carvings, it’s like watching the progression of his skill in real-time. His earliest ones are cruder, hacked into shape rather than sculpted, with few details other than the vague shape he was attempting. But as they go on, they become better and better, more detailed, smoother, more defined lines.
They’re mostly mountains, but not all. Some are animals: an owl, a few wolves, a bear…
“These are incredible.” I run my finger delicately over the snout of the wolf, turned up in a silent howl. “You carved the elephant in the kitchen too, right?”
He nods. “Yeah. It’s just a hobby.”
“So what? It can be a hobby and still be fucking cool. Look at all the detail on the owl’s feathers,” I say in awe, noticing how he’s managed to make the entire thing look so real, a pattern carved into where each individual feather-like color markings would be. “Have you ever thought about selling these?”
He snorts. “Who would buy them?”
“I would. A lot of people would.”
“Nah.”
Once I’ve looked my fill, I follow him out of the shed so he can close it back up.
“I know you said Bow isn’t here. Would it be too forward if I suggest the two of us hang out and order a pizza?”
Hawthorne gives me a wary look that would be comical if I wasn’t so nervous he’s about to turn me down.
“Pizza sounds good,” he agrees, and I let out a relieved breath.
* * *
HAWTHORNE
I send Aldis inside to order the pizza while I put my tools away and clean the wood shavings off my workbench. When I’m done, I pull out my phone to shoot Bowen a text.
* * *
HAWTHORNE: Your man is here. We’re going to order pizza. I hope that’s cool?
BOWEN: Aldis is there?
BOWEN: Uh…yeah, of course, it’s cool.
* * *
Even through text on a phone screen, I swear I can hear a nervous laugh bubbling from Bowen’s lips. This is so messy and confusing that it’s hard to know where the lines and boundaries are. I think we’re all trying to figure that out.
“Hey, do you like pineapple on pizza, or are you a tasteless monster?” Aldis calls from the house.
I chuckle and put my phone away after telling Bowen we’ll save him a slice.
“Pineapple only on half, you pizza pervert,” I answer, my heart giving a surprising leap at the sound of his barked laugh.
I was just thinking the other day that I must be dreaming, wanting to date someone who makes me feel like me, just as Bowen always has, but Aldis feels like he might fit that bill too. Is it crazy for part of me to hope Aldis doesn’t end up leaving if things get too messy here?
I roll my eyes at myself. I haven’t even figured out what we’re doing, and I’m already trying to make it more complicated.
I head into the house and grab a couple of beers out of the fridge on the way to the living room. I twist the caps off and hand one over to Aldis, plopping down on the couch next to him and propping one foot up on the coffee table.
“Pizza ordered,” he announces, taking the bottle and tilting it against his lips for a swig. “I know Bow already asked if you were cool with everything, but I feel obligated to check too, considering I’m the one who orchestrated the whole thing.”
“You did, didn’t you?” I muse. “I’m not really sure. Ask me again later.”
“Fair enough.” He doesn’t push it. Fuck, I like that. He’s the type of guy who will just let you be. He’s no bullshit, no games, and no pressure. It’s easy to see why Bowen is falling for him so fast.
“Do people really figure out they’re not straight when they’re almost forty, or am I just a special kind of oblivious?” I ask, even though I just told him I don’t want to talk about it.
“People do,” he assures me. “And honestly, I think sometimes sexuality can be more fluid than we think. You might have been ninety-nine percent straight for most of your life, and now things are shifting. Sometimes it takes the right circumstances or the right people.” Our eyes meet, and something warm rises in me, similar to how I always feel when Bowen and I share one of those wordless, heavy moments.
I nod and take a long gulp of my own beer.
The silence stretches between us for several seconds, and I get the feeling Aldis is waiting to see if I’m going to say anything else about the subject. When I don’t, he takes over.
“Picture it, Last Chance Canyon, New Mexico, twenty-twelve.” He holds up his hands like he’s painting a picture, and I chuckle at The Golden Girls reference. The man is dedicated. That much is obvious. “I’d been climbing all day, and I was dead-ass tired and just trying to get to a good spot to put up a tent and rest for the night before tackling a few more boulders the next day. I didn’t hear the rattle until I was pulling myself onto the ledge. I didn’t even have a chance to react before the mother fucker was sinking its fangs into my hand.”
I gasp, leaning forward and getting completely caught up in his harrowing story of sucking the venom out of his own hand and then having to climb back down to get his ass to the hospital.
By the time the pizza arrives, the confusing question of my sexuality is the furthest thing from my mind. We’re just two dudes who love to climb, telling each other wild—and possibly exaggerated—stories of close calls and badassery.
It’s by far one of the best times I’ve had.
Bowen comes home eventually and scarfs down the slices of pizza we saved for him. A sense of possibility creeps over me that I decide not to focus too hard on for now.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring. All I know is I’m here for it.
Chapter Ten
Bowen
“Hey, Bow, give me a hand with this massive wood I’ve got.”
I turn around to find my extremely mature best friend holding a log suggestively. Thorne waggles his eyebrows at me and smirks while I snort a laugh, shaking my head at him.
“You realize forty is creeping up, right? Eventually, you’ll stop making dick jokes while we’re working?” I tease, even though I hope to hell he’ll never change.
“Perish the thought. Dick jokes until the end, baby,” he declares, tossing the log onto our pile to be chopped and then later loaded onto our truck.
I take a quick pause, lifting the edge of my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face. It’s a decently cool morning, but cutting down trees and hauling wood is hard fucking work. I think that’s what drew Thorne and me to it to begin with. We both knew we wanted to work with our hands, break a sweat, spend our days outside instead of cooped up in an office.