Page 14 of Except You
Without waiting for him to respond, I leave the room while Beau kicks his shoes off and burrows under my covers. It’s intrusive and so fucking weird, but I don’t mind it. Not from him. He’s…safe in a way. He’s nothing like what I expected when I walked into the gay bar last weekend.
With a muddled brain, I place the popcorn in the microwave and listen to it pop as I search for my stash of candy. When I find it, I absently pour the M&M’s into a bowl and then the warm popcorn, bringing it back to the bedroom within minutes.
As soon as my eyes settle on Beau in my bed, I’m hit once again with how damn weird this is. I have a man in my house. We went out to dinner, we walked on the beach, and we’re going to probably watch a movie in bed until he sobers up.
And he’s gay.
I’m doing this for my brother, for myself, and for anyone else I may meet in the future. This is nothing more than that.
But he’s becoming a friend.
I swallow roughly as I toe my shoes off and slide in next to Beau. I sit on top of the covers, knowing it would be too weird if I were to somehow find myself cuddling with him underneath them. But then again, with Beau, I’m pretty sure anything could happen and I’d feel okay about it. He has a way of sneaking his way into someone’s life and setting up residence.
“I found a show. A gay one. I think you’ll really like it. It’s super cute.”
“Cool,” I reply and then hand him the bowl of popcorn. He shuffles around in it, finding the chocolate buried at the bottom and popping one into his mouth. His eyes roll back in his head, and he sighs.
“So good. Try it.”
I’m skeptical, but I do as he says, letting him stick not only a piece of popcorn but an M&M in my mouth. As my lips close, I catch his fingertip with my tongue, and he chuckles at the sensation, not bothered in the slightest.
But I am.
I just licked a man’s finger.
Fuck, what the hell am I doing?
Panic bubbles up within me for a minute until the show starts, pulling me out of my near-rabid state. Beau scoots a little closer, his arm grazing mine. Something about that centers me, and I realize something.
Just because a man is in my bed, just because my tongue touched his skin by accident doesn’t make me gay.
No, it makes me open-minded. It sets me free.
“You know what we should do?” Beau says, pausing the show and staring at me intently. “We should take a pic of us and send it to your brother.”
“What? Why?”
“So he can see you’re friends with a gay man. I dunno, to show him you’ve changed in some small way.”
“Have I though? I don’t know if I have.”
“You let me kiss your cheek and you’re in bed with me right now. I’d say you are getting there.”
I nod, feeling like an utter fool. If he only knew what I was doing a minute ago—panicking about all of these things—but I hold that inside.
“I guess we could. I don’t know what else to say though. I haven’t reached out to him in ages and…well, he could have me blocked.”
Beau looks sad for a moment and then shrugs. “Well, we can try, right?”
“Okay.”
He leans over and grabs my phone from the bedstand, his entire body draped across mine in the process. I wrestled in high school, so I’m not unaccustomed to men being on me, but for some reason, Beau is different. He’s just different.
“Got it,” he says as he sits back at my side and opens up the camera app. He directs it toward us, and I glance at our faces staring back at us. Beau cocks his head and then sets the phone down, turning toward me, pulling my hat off, and running his hands through my hair. It feels nice, the way his nails brush against my scalp, and I have to bite my bottom lip to stop the sigh that wants to escape.
My hat is set aside and Beau nods. “Better. Much better.”
“I thought I looked fine,” I grumble, and he snorts.