A patrol car swung around the end of the block, so he took a deep breath and stepped to the edge of the curb. The guy probably wasn’t even as good-looking as he remembered. It’d probably just been some weird thing with the shock and Jake doing a big damn hero routine when his pickup had exploded that’d made him think the guy was so hot. It’d be fine. After Jake took him in for his statement, he’d probably barely see the guy anymore, except at a distance around town.
The problem was, he maybe wanted to see Jake again, if the deputy was actually into guys and this all wasn’t some figment of his desperate, horny subconscious. He wanted to take Jake out for beers and burgers. Except just not in Everness. And he knew that’d be a deal breaker. Like, hey, want to go out with me as long as it’s in a different town, and while we’re in Everness we can pretend like we don’t even know each other? Yeah, that’d go down real well. And that was only if he’d read the situation correctly and didn’t instead get punched in the face for thinking a straight guy had been flirting with him.
Yet again he had to rein in the daily urge to hightail it outta this damn town with the stern reminder that his mom needed him. His life was in limbo, his time not his own. Sure, he occasionally went back to JR’s Bar & Grill in Houston, where he’d worked during college, and picked up if he was in the mood to take the edge off. But he wasn’t in the headspace for a relationship right now with everything else on his plate.
The patrol car pulled up and Danny hopped in. As soon as he laid eyes on Jake, his heart slammed into his ribs. Shit. He was just as hot as he’d remembered.
“Morning,” Jake greeted. That one word in his deep voice made his stomach flip over. Hell.
“Hi,” he returned with a short tone, turning his attention to his seat belt.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re not a morning person.”
“What?” He fumbled his belt and looked up at Jake in confusion.
“Not a morning person? In a mood? What can we do to fix this? Coffee? Donuts? Anything with sugar in it?”
“I’m not in a mood, I’m fine.” Except the words came out sharp, which made him sound like he really was in a mood. If he was going to be honest with himself, he probably was. Ever since his dad had walked into the kitchen last night with the expected dark set to his features, right before the yelling had started.
Jake, however, only grinned, making his eyes crinkle at the edges. “Don’t get me wrong, I think grumpy nonmorning people are adorable. I’m just trying to make it easier on whichever poor bastard has to take your statement.”
“Sorry.” He sighed, forcing himself to get some chill. “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Not surprising,” Jake commented as he pulled away from the curb. “Neither did I, actually.”
“You didn’t?” He stared at Jake in surprise, but the deputy had his attention on the road. “Why not?”
Maybe it was none of his business, but he really wanted to know. He just wasn’t sure what was up with that.
“Just couldn’t stop thinking about it all.” Jake sliced him a sideways look that he couldn’t decipher. “The accident, the body, the explosion, how lucky you were. The investigation that’ll start now. Being glad I wasn’t the one who had to go deliver the news to the victim’s family.”
“God, yeah, that’d be awful.” Though he’d been trying not to think about it, the man had been vaguely familiar, so he had to know. “Who was he?”
“Jeremiah Williams. He worked at the local hardware store.”
Danny’s heart skipped a few beats. “Shit. I went to high school with his daughter, Jayla.”
“Sorry,” Jake murmured.
He shrugged, keeping his gaze trained out the window. “I didn’t know her that well. Haven’t seen her since I left for college.”
Silence fell between them for two blocks while Danny’s thoughts churned. “You were really fast, you know, when you took me down before my truck exploded. My brain was still trying to catch up, and then I was on the ground.”
Jake flashed him an empathetic smile. “You were in shock. Understandable.”
“No, the way you reacted, it was more than that,” he insisted. “Because you were in the Army, right, you’re trained for stuff like that?”
Jake was an enigma. And Danny was more than a little intrigued. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone quite like Jake Perez.
He was wearing a gay pride pin this morning, probably because Pride Day was coming up this weekend. Maybe Jake simply knew someone gay and was showing his support. But the pin on top of the flirty vibe he’d gotten yesterday made him think otherwise. Made him think Jake was completely out and probably not worried about what people in town would think of him. Of course, he hadn’t grown up here, so what did it matter to him? If things got too hot, he could move away as easily as he’d moved here. Plus, with his Army training, he was obviously one tough guy. Not that it was immediately apparent to look at him. He was leanly muscled, but nothing about him was obviously intimidating. However, he had this inherently commanding air. Like he was completely comfortable in his own skin and knew exactly where he stood in the world. He was a touch taller than Danny, but not by much. However, he undeniably had a don’t-mess-with-me thing going on.
“Yeah, my Army training definitely came in handy yesterday.”
“Why did you leave the Army?” He clamped his jaw after he asked, because now it probably sounded like he was prying.
“I didn’t join the Army because it was my first career choice. Mostly I joined to get myself a college degree because my parents couldn’t afford to pay for me to go. I was actually planning on trying to get into the FBI after I resigned my commission—” Jake broke off with a frown, like maybe he thought he’d said too much or something.
They had that much in common at least—his own parents hadn’t been able to afford to send him to college. He wouldn’t have gone if it hadn’t been for the football scholarship and the job he’d gotten at JR’s.
“But somehow you ended up a deputy in Everness?” he finished, trying to add a light, teasing note to the words. “Well, I guess you can only go up in the world.”
Jake smiled, though the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yep. I ended up here. For some reason.”
There seemed to be something behind the words, but Danny told himself he’d already been nosy enough for one morning.
“You know what? I’ve had two coffees and no food this morning,” Jake said all of a sudden. “I’m going to end up wired if I don’t eat something. You mind if we stop?”
“I haven’t had anything, so I could probably use a coffee.” Truthfully, the nausea hadn’t fully gone away ever since he’d seen that dead body yesterday, so he’d skipped breakfast. Maybe greasy food was exactly what he needed, but then a thought occurred to him and he asked, “Don’t we need to get to the station so I can give my statement?”
Jake shrugged. “There’s no big hurry.”
Jake hooked a sudden turn and took them into the center of town. They pulled up in front of the only diner, Betty’s, which he’d always found totally cliché for some reason.
“Grab a table. I’ll get some menus,” Jake told him as they stepped through the doors.
Danny glanced around, looking over table options. The place was about three-quarters full with people eating breakfast. At one table, four guys he used to play football with who now worked construction waved to him, and he returned the gesture before heading over and sliding into the only empty booth next to the front windows, looking out at the town square across the street. Usually he wouldn’t have minded catching up with them, but he wasn’t in the mood for the buddy-buddy talk today.
Jake came over and set a coffee in front of him, before sliding in on the opposite bench.
“Okay, this was probably kind of a dick move on my part, but I didn’t get menus, I ordered for you instead.”
“You did?” Last time anyone had ordered something for him, he’d probably
been out with his parents as a kid.
“Bacon and waffles. I should have asked, but I heard the waitress say wait times are already like twenty minutes, and I’m starving.”
He couldn’t help laughing at that, especially since the expression on Jake’s face made it seem like being hungry was the worst thing that’d ever happened to him.
“Don’t get between you and food, huh?”
“Not if you want to stay upright,” Jake replied seriously. “So, bacon and waffles are okay, then?”
“Sounds perfect.”
A kind of sexy smile flitted over Jake’s lips, and Danny had to look away, otherwise he was going to end up blushing. And while he was glancing everywhere except at Jake, he noticed his dad walk in and head to the counter. Of course, it was Friday. He always got a morning coffee and pastries from Betty’s on Fridays.
Fucking fantastic. Just what his mood needed. He’d managed to avoid the bastard this morning, since if history was anything to go by, they’d be just as likely to pick up where they’d left off the night before and the yelling would start all over again. Sometimes the idea of butting up against the rigid wall of selfish indignation his father embodied just made him exhausted instead of angry.
His dad swept a glance around the patrons as he was waiting and of course saw him sitting there, brows lowering as his gaze bounced between him and Jake across from him.
His dad’s gaze seemed to stick on Jake and darken. Danny looked at Jake, wondering what had caught his dad’s attention, only to realize it had to be the very obvious gay pride pin Jake had on his collar.
Danny got hot all over, could see his dad marching over here and making a scene, telling him not to hang around with faggots or something equally as moronic. His dad had done shit like that to embarrass him plenty of times when he’d been a teenager. He couldn’t figure out if he was furious or terrified. And it was like his lungs momentarily forgot how to function, making his chest ache. He quickly slid out of the booth, leaving Jake staring up at him in confusion.
“I’m just— Just have to use the bathroom.” He hurried away before Jake could say anything—before his dad could come over and be the asshole he was.
In the men’s bathroom, he bypassed the urinals and locked himself in a stall. He sat down on the closed toilet lid and put his face in his hands. His breath was coming too short, like it had yesterday after the accident when he’d first laid eyes on Jake and slowly counted until he’d gotten a handle on the panic.
He closed his eyes, counting in his mind just the same way Jake had until his breathing slowed and his chest didn’t feel so tight any longer. The apprehension was always there, lurking under the surface of his calm, just waiting to knock him on his ass. It was a combination of the lifetime’s worth of battering his self-esteem had taken at the hands of his father, and the fact he knew things could be better than this. Wishing for the day he could leave this town in his dust and get his life back in Houston. He sighed because he knew that day wouldn’t come until his mom—
No, he wouldn’t, couldn’t think of that.
But if his dad knew about him—God, he couldn’t even imagine it. His dad would lose his shit. Probably never speak to him again. Or he would, except it’d be to order him to go to church and repent for his sins. He’d spent most of his teenage years terrified of his dad finding out. Getting away and going to college had been the best thing that’d ever happened in his life.
In college he’d seen people his own age were way more cool about sexuality and gender. There’d been amazing LGBTQI+ groups and friends who’d jumped on any excuse to celebrate being gay with extravagant parties—or as extravagant as college students could get, anyway. Some of that hadn’t been his scene, but just knowing it was happening made all the difference. Working at JR’s—one of Houston’s most popular gay bars—he’d found a new kind of family. Felt like he really belonged for the first time in his life.
Man, if people here in Everness could see how far behind the rest of the world they were being left… but he supposed a lifetime of strict Christian ideals weren’t easy to overcome. Despite Everness being a small conservative town, he guessed most probably wouldn’t care about him being gay, and he didn’t give a shit about the redneck morons who did have an opinion. His anxiety all started and ended with his father.
When he’d decided to come back, he’d told himself he wasn’t that same scared teen any longer. He wasn’t about to tell his parents the truth, but neither had he planned to live with the constant nervousness and worry like he had before he’d left.
Except over the months since he’d come home, those anxieties had slowly but surely been creeping back in. And he absolutely hated that his dad still had that power over him.
“Danny?”
Jake calling his name brought his head up, and he realized his cheeks were wet. Tears had started falling down his face and he hadn’t even noticed. Pissed off at himself, he quickly used the sleeve of his shirt to roughly scrub the moisture away, then flushed the toilet for no reason before stepping out. The men’s room was empty, apart from Jake leaning against the sink.
“Are you okay?” Jake was eyeing him closely as he crossed to wash his hands.
“Fine.” Great, he was back to being terse again like he had been when Jake first picked him up. At this rate, he wouldn’t need to worry about being seen with Jake, because the guy would probably want nothing to do with him and his surly ass. “Is the food ready?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He ripped the paper towel out of the dispenser far harder than necessary.
“Because you suddenly got embarrassed about sitting alone at a table with a gay Hispanic cop? Not many of those in town.”
He’d been avoiding Jake’s gaze, but his blunt words made Danny look at him in shock. Not that he’d quite hit the nail on the head, since Jake had been sitting with his back to the door and counter, he probably hadn’t seen his dad. Jake grinned, because obviously the shocked reaction had been exactly what he was aiming for.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” He could feel his face getting hot and didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t stopped to think how Jake might take it; he’d been too busy wanting to escape and minimize the risk of his dad making a scene.
Jake stepped forward and caught his shoulder. “It’s okay, Danny. You didn’t hurt my feelings, if that’s what you’re worried about. I understand.”
“You do?”
“Can I ask you something personal? And you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” Jake continued, still standing with his hand settled on his shoulder. Danny could feel his palm burning through the T-shirt he was wearing. Like yesterday after the accident, the touch anchored him.
He nodded his response, because he didn’t trust his voice in that moment.
“You’re gay, right?”
He managed another nod as his heart kicked against the inside of his chest, like Jake had asked him out on a date, not simply about his sexuality. He focused on Jake’s golden-hazel eyes, which were filled with nothing but compassion and understanding.
“And no one knows?” Jake’s fingers tightened just a little on his shoulder, like he was offering unspoken support.
“Not in Everness,” he replied, voice a little hoarse, probably giving far more away than the words had.
“That’s fine. No one gets to dictate how you live your life. If it’s too uncomfortable for you to be around me, then you can tell me. I won’t be offended. We can leave here right now, get your statement settled, and you never have to see me again.” Despite Jake’s words coming out even and reasonable, there seemed to be a catch in the last sentence.
It sent a spike of apprehension through Danny, like he’d missed something important or gotten somewhere too late. He wanted to see Jake again. Even if they couldn’t be together. Not with his life and his head messed up like it was. But maybe they could be friends.
Be
cause Jake had just gone and proven he was the most amazing guy Danny had ever met. How could he be so understanding? Adam, his kind-of ex-boyfriend, had always gone on about being out and proud, like the fact that Danny wanted to keep things private was a bad thing. He’d never tried to hide who he was from anyone but his father, but after growing up in the uber-conservative Everness, he also wasn’t completely comfortable announcing it outright wherever he went.
He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the way his pulse was racing. This was no big deal. It didn’t mean anything if they ate breakfast together. Friends. He could do that.
“Well, you did order all those waffles and bacon,” he finally said. “Seems a shame to let them go to waste.”
The smile that broke over Jake’s face was absolutely breathtaking. Like he went from hot to sweet-baby-Jesus in a flash. Danny’s heart skipped crazily. Oh yeah, the friends thing was going real well so far.
“We did already establish it was a bad idea to get between me and food,” Jake answered.
“Then we better go eat before it gets cold.”
They left the men’s room together, and Danny had to check his dad wasn’t still in the diner, but forced himself to shake it off. Jake shot him a confident grin, totally smooth, like nothing in the world could touch him, and Danny had to swallow down an appreciative sigh. As they crossed toward their table, he noticed Jake was getting more than a few appraising looks from several girls, some of whom were only high school students. He couldn’t help a low laugh as he slid into the booth and pulled one of the plates in front of himself.
“What’s so funny?” Jake asked as he picked up a fork and stabbed some bacon.
“Didn’t you notice how many girls were checking you out when we walked across the room? I was just imagining how disappointed they’d be to find out you were gay.”
Jake took a cursory glance around, then shamelessly winked at a table of high school girls, causing them to erupt into giggles.
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