Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
I’d been him.
Sam wouldn’t find what he was looking for from me, though I hoped like hell he’d get out of here, experience the world, who he was, and that he knew there was nothing wrong with that person.
“You know my name because you deliver my mail. There’s no need for me to know yours.”
Sam frowned. It fit him, I realized—the name. It sounded like hours of skinny-dipping in a lake, long afternoons on the screened porch, catching fireflies and throwing parties in fields. All it took was one look to know that’s what Sam was made up of too. That was who I’d been as a teenager myself, before I’d gotten the boot. Before I’d decided I needed to prove everyone wrong about me, that I needed to conquer the fucking world because it was the only way I felt like I was someone, and in the process, I’d ruined everything. I’d killed Daniel and parts of myself too.
“Your garden’s looking real nice,” Sam said, trying to strike up a conversation again. “I like the work you’re doing on the property.” He reached up to scratch at the back of his neck. He had a silver ring on his thumb, the nail black and bruised like he’d hit it with a hammer.
“Thank you for my package.” I closed the door on him, ignoring the voice inside my head that told me to ask him in, that said I needed someone to talk to. Instead, I went back to my office, turned on the computer, and tortured myself by googling my name.
CHAPTER TWO
Sam
Emerson Fox might be the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, but he was also kind of a dick. I’d tried to strike up a conversation with him more than once since I’d taken over this route a few months back. I’d caught him looking at me sometimes in that way that men did when we were admiring someone, or were checking them out and didn’t want them to know. At least, I thought I had. That was the way I’d looked at guys my whole life. There sure as shit had never been anyone in Ryland who’d stared at me with that spark of fire in their dark eyes before, and no one I’d let see me with the same gleam in return.
I was pretty sure I was the only queer man in Ryland until he’d showed up, but now I was iffy on him too. But fuuuuck, he was so damn pretty in this perfect sorta way, like he was a piece of art or something. Like whoever had created him took their time because they wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than perfection. And he seemed the kind of guy who had seen the world, while I’d rarely been out of North Carolina, never even been on a plane.
Most days that didn’t bother me, probably would even less if I were sure it was okay to be myself here, and if maybe there were more guys who looked like Emerson but weren’t assholes, and who might want to let me take them on a date or at least have sex with me. I loved his shaggy dark hair, the way it flopped over his forehead and always looked sexily mussed. I wondered if in whatever life he had before, he used to style it every day. I’d seen him run his fingers through it before and imagined those strands between my fingers.
He always had stubble on his face, this dusting of hair that was a beard and mustache but not? Hell, I wasn’t even sure if that made sense. It was more than a standard need to shave, but since it always looked like that, he must do it on purpose.
His eyes were brown and lonely, intense, like he was always studying something the way I was studying him.
I was maybe a little bit obsessed with him, but I told myself it was lack of sex. When I wanted to hook up, I drove all the way out to Charlotte, using an app or meeting a guy in a gay bar. I’d gotten head from a man for the first time in the stall of a public bathroom, before getting on my knees for him. It was easy and got the job done. I didn’t fool myself into thinking I’d ever have someone, not for real, but I couldn’t lie and pretend I didn’t wish I could find a way to have more of the physical part. Letting myself drive up to Charlotte one weekend every couple of months was the only thing I did in this world that was for me. I made it work. It was enough, but damn, I wished it was easier.
“How was work today?” Molly asked when I plopped down beside her on the couch that evening. I was having dinner with her before I headed home where I lived with my mama. Other than the men I fucked, Molly was the only person who knew about me. Small towns in the South weren’t real known for welcoming queer men with open arms.