Borrowing Trouble (11 page)

“You okay?” Landon asked, as he came from the bathroom and slid under the covers. He looked at Jay carefully until Jay reached for him and pulled him over, mimicking the first time they’d slept together, Landon’s head on Jay’s shoulder.

Jay felt content and sated. For tonight, all he needed was his bed and Landon close by. The rest could wait ‘til morning. A new day, new things to figure out. But Jay wanted to get it right, whatever it was he was doing right now. Even if he didn’t end up with Landon, he wanted to know he’d done the right thing in the end. He was too old to play games, and for both their sakes, he had to really get his head together.

He’d probably be wise to go see his counselor in person soon, because he knew Landon didn’t need this being dumped on him since it involved him too.

“Jay?”

Jay quieted his mind, then looked fondly at Landon. “Thanks for tonight.” He kissed Landon on the forehead. Such a simple thing, but it made Landon look at him like he hung the moon. Yeah, that was definitely all he needed tonight.

“Night, Landon.”

And easily, they slept.

Chapter 15

The day, Landon must admit, had been perfect. They’d started early, he and Jay, waking in the same bed, warm and content. After quick handjobs, showers, and a simple breakfast, they’d set to work, finishing up Jay’s deck. The day had been more brisk than the previous, so shirts and hooded sweatshirts stayed on, but that didn’t stop them from subtly finding ways to touch one another.

Jay’s surprising affection grew more frequent, as well as his easy, relaxed smile. There was a comfort in their little place, hidden from prying eyes, out in the country. Aside from acting like horny teenagers, they had a light lunch of sandwiches, made small talk, and managed to finish all but the final staining of the wood.

The more time Landon spent with Jay, the more a blossom of hope grew in his chest. He knew the real test would come when reality and Jay’s children returned to call, but sitting on the finished deck as the sun disappeared behind the tree-line, sipping coffee, made it hard to stress.

Okay, so the seed of doubt existed on the same plot as that blossoming hope. But each day in Jay’s sunlight over the last week, each hour, had made the hope bigger than the ugly doubt. There were still no promises between them, but Landon had to think they’d moved to something… more. Something bigger and more important had transpired, especially the night before. And their easy camaraderie throughout the day had to be a sign this was no longer just Jay experimenting. Even Jay’s words led Landon to believe so. It was too soon to be thinking of love and Jay coming out. Hell, Landon didn’t even know Jay’s kids well enough to think
Oh, let me sign up to be your stepdaddy
.

Even the thought of those words made Landon shudder.

“Somebody walk over your grave?” Jay asked. Landon turned to look at Jay’s smiling face, sitting like a man without a care in the world in his cheap plastic chair on his new deck next to Landon. Landon chuckled and stretched out his legs in front of him, working out some of the soreness from working so long that day.

“Just got in my head a bit. ‘Borrowing trouble’, as you say.”

Jay huffed. “I’ve done enough of that lately without you doing the same.” Jay fell silent and they both looked back out toward where the sun made its final descent, dipping their part of the world into night. The sound of Jay’s coffee cup plopping on the cable spool they were using as a side table drew Landon’s attention back to his friend—lover? Jay’s face morphed into a frisky smile as he stood and came to straddle Landon’s lap.

“Hello,” Landon drawled. “Did you want something?”

“Thought I’d show you one of my favorite new tricks for getting out of my head.”

Landon tilted his head, wondering briefly if that meant before, Jay was too in his head during sex, but he had no desire to think on Jay’s sex life with women. Also, the thought was a silly one to base any further hope on. And the warm, lightly chapped lips on the column of his throat made him concentrate solely on that point of pleasure and his steadily rising cock.

But suddenly, Jay hopped off Landon’s lap with a hissed, “
Damn it
.”

Landon blinked for a moment, trying to catch up with Jay’s reason for switching gears so quickly. Still a bit lust drunk, Landon just barely noticed the sounds from behind him inside Jay’s house, until a light flicking on from inside startled him.

The squeaking of the French door to the deck opening, had him schooling his face much better than Jay, who looked a bit like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. Thankfully, other than that, Jay didn’t look like anything had been going on. Landon turned nonchalantly to the teenage boy in the doorway.

“Hey, dad,” Clint said. Landon quirked a brow. The boy looked suspicious. Surely they hadn’t seen anything. It’d been dark outside. Landon kept his face neutral, hoping Jay’d gotten his shit together unless he wanted an awkward conversation with the bouncing preteen girl who followed Clint out and flung a hug around her dad’s waist. They were both shortly followed by the deck light getting flicked on and Bethany popping her head out.

“Oh, my goodness! Landon Petty? When did you get so big?” She came out, smiling broadly, hugging Landon with the same enthusiasm her daughter had hugged her ex-husband. Landon winced, but hugged her back. Clint still eyed the scene carefully, but came to hug his dad and give him a
hello
.

“Hey, Bethany,” Landon greeted.

“You all are back early,” Jay stated, a little dumbly, but he seemed to have recovered, curiosity being the most prominent emotion displayed on his face.

Bethany stepped back from Landon and put a hand on Jay’s forearm. Landon had to bite down on his tongue as jealousy flared up in him. What could he even say? Of course she would be comfortable touching Jay. She didn’t know she was being forward in front of his … hell, Landon wasn’t really anyone, officially.

“I’m so sorry, Jay. We tried to call a couple of times today when we were on the road. Clint forgot he had a project to do and everything for that class was here at your house, so I had to bring them early.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. We were working on the deck, so I didn’t pay much attention to the phone.” Jay’s last statement was a little chagrinned.

Bethany looked around the new deck. “It looks great. Y’all did real good.” She smiled fondly at them both, then to Landon she said, “That was nice of you. I’m sure you had better things to do than hang out with this old bore.”

Landon wanted to snap, deny her words. But coming off defensive was probably dumb, and Jay’s eyes communicated a plea to play nice. “It was no trouble at all. We just finished up, actually.” And now real life had come to call. Early at that. As Jay said earlier, damn it.

“It was nice to see y’all. I’m sure you got catching up to do. I’ll get out of your hair,” Landon said as he made an excuse to leave. He turned to Jay with a sad, but hopefully understanding, smile. “We got everything put away, right?”

Jay smiled back, apologetically. Thankfully, Bethany was rounding up the kids to go inside to find something for dinner, so they didn’t see the silent communication going on between the men.

“Yeah, we got it all put away. Anything we didn’t isn’t important enough to worry about tonight.”

Landon gave a nod and went for the door, but Jay grabbed his arm. He watched over Landon’s shoulder, probably checking for prying eyes, before he turned his imploring gaze on Landon. “I’m so sorry.”

“No. I get it. It was a while-the-kids-are-away thing.” Landon didn’t know why he was letting Jay off the hook for everything. Jay seemed confused by his blanket statement as well.

“I told you, even if I was with a woman, I’d take my time before telling my kids. This is a bit more complicated.” Before Landon could speak, Jay squeezed Landon’s forearm. “I’m sorry our night got cut short. I
do
want to see you again.”

“We’ll see each other at work, of course.”

Jay’s brows flattened, lips thinned, unimpressed. “I want to
see
you. And I don’t have time to do this any better. I just … Landon, I’m not done here unless you’re saying this was all you wanted.”

Landon felt breathless, chest constricting with that hope he’d felt all day. “Oh.”

Jay shook his head, giving Landon’s arm one more squeeze. “I’ll call you, okay?”

“Is that what you say to all the guys?”

“No,” Jay said seriously. Landon tried on his understanding grin again.

“I’ll hold you to it, then.”
Please.
He felt ridiculous, but he knew he couldn’t let their abruptly shortened night be the last time he ever touched Jay.

They parted and made their way into the house. Clint had gone upstairs while Bethany acted like she was right at home, shuffling through cabinets in Jay’s kitchen. To his credit, Jay didn’t look any more impressed by that than Landon. Landon knew Jay was right, though. His coming out, even if he didn’t label it any more than just “I’m dating a man,” would be a process. Assuming Jay ever did utter those words, tonight would not be the time.

Millie perked up from where she’d posted up on one of the stools on the breakfast bar. “Do you have to leave, Mr. Landon? Mother is making chicken pot pie. Hers is the best.”

Bethany looked at her daughter and shrugged at her use of the word
mother
before saying, “I’m sure Mr. Landon has better things to do than spend family night with us.”

“Yes, and I’m sure your mama needs to get on the road sooner rather than later,” Jay said pointedly. Bethany looked as surprised as Landon felt at the words. They weren’t mean, just stating the fact this was not her home.

“I’ll see you next time, Millie,” Landon said, then made his goodbyes again before slipping out to his truck, doing his damnedest to keep the image of
family night
out of his head, ASAP. He decided the best course of action now would be to trust Jay, and respect Jay’s need to get his own head in order. Either way, he would try to protect his heart, because whether Jay was communicating better or not, the man could realize he didn’t want the drama of being in a same-sex relationship yet. Landon could just keep hoping Jay’d stay true to his word and keep him in the loop.

***

Jay enjoyed dinner with the kids and Bethany. There’d been more laughter than he remembered there ever being. Not that they were particularly unhappy, family wise. The tension between he and Beth had just made things a little more melancholy in the years leading up to the divorce, and with the kids having a little trouble adjusting to everything over the last year, had made things a bit tense for a while. Now, though, despite his feeling like he was in new skin with a different brain, he felt more alive than he had in a long, long time.

Clint’s silence was a little unusual, but there didn’t seem to be anything angry simmering under the boy’s surface. He seemed more thoughtful; he was like his mama that way. Millie happily told about time spent doing some shopping with her mama in Atlanta’s malls. He wondered when she’d started becoming such a young lady, because most definitely less than a year ago, she’d have balked at the mention of shopping even at Walmart.

After dinner and baths, Jay and Bethany took turns saying goodnight to the kids. Jay felt a twinge of guilt knowing some of Millie’s ebullience came from her parents being under the same roof. He wondered briefly how she’d feel if she knew who he’d been carrying on with lately. She was as polite to Landon as she would be to any other adult, seeing as she didn’t know him all that well. He didn’t suspect she’d be all that enthusiastic over him dating anyone, honestly.

They’d raised their kids better than to be hateful. Even if being gay wasn’t an open reality with anyone in their lives up ‘til now, he had never heard his kids be hateful toward anyone because of it.

He wondered why he’d never thought to have a talk with them about such things before, but then he realized he hadn’t exactly had the conversation with himself until he met Landon and his own past had started coming to call.

After kissing Millie on the forehead and getting fussed at because a twelve year old should be able to stay up later than nine p.m., he went to Clint’s room. Bethany passed him in the hall. “Hey, I’ll go finish putting the dishes in the dishwasher.”

Jay knew it was too late for Bethany to drive back to Atlanta, possibly too late for her to go over to her parents’ house at this hour. He didn’t want to kick her out, but he also didn’t want her—or even Landon, really—around tonight. He wanted things back to the new normal of just him and the kids for a couple of nights so he could think. And wasn’t that amusing, since he’d done his best not to do so for so very long.

He knocked and popped his head in Clint’s room. “Hey, bud. You all set?”

Clint looked up and gave a good natured grin. “Yeah, Dad.” He set aside his laptop and stretched. “Just working on this project. Sorry if we busted up your weekend plans.”

Jay tilted his head, heart beating a little faster, nervously. “Nothing big. We were just finishing up some odd jobs around the house.” Clint’s face was expressionless, but he shrugged. “Did you have fun in Atlanta?”
Did you see me and Landon kissing?

Clint shrugged. He wasn’t normally any more or less moody than one would expect a sixteen year old boy to be. But something was on his mind. “You need to talk about anything?”

Clint looked at Jay straight on, studied him, then shrugged again. Jay gritted his teeth, knowing then how Bethany must have felt all those years when shrugs were Jay’s favorite response to questions. But Jay shrugged because he honestly hadn’t thought anything was going on; Clint had something tumbling around that busy brain of his.

“You know, if you do. If you have any questions.”

“Maybe later,” Clint said, full of meaning. Jay swallowed thickly. He felt a heavy weight settle in his chest. If Clint knew something, he obviously needed to work it out for himself. That scared the shit out of Jay. He hoped he wasn’t right, but only time would tell.

“Night, then. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Night, Dad.”

Jay shut Clint’s door behind him, letting out a shaky breath. The look he’d gotten from Clint was similar to, if not a bit kinder, than ones he’d noticed from Ms. Lynne lately. He hoped they were speculative, rather than knowing looks, because even if he was pretty sure what he himself knew now, he wasn’t a hundred percent. And how could he answer questions he didn’t know how to answer for himself?