“Benefits?”
I tightened my grip on his hand. “For lack of a better word, yeah. I mean, everything we said before still stands, but it feels kinda wrong to ignore . . . whatever this is completely.”
“Sounds like the kind of shit we could talk about for another week.”
“Or not. I haven’t seen you since we went to the big smoke.”
Kim sighed again. “That’s because you fucking scare me.”
“Me? How?”
“By looking at me and seeing the bloke I was meant to be before I ballsed it all up. I forget, sometimes, when I’m with you, that the rest of it ever happened.”
I couldn’t begin to understand the weight behind his words. Instead I turned in my seat and gripped his chin with my spare hand in much the same way I’d imagined myself gripping Red’s earlier. “Then be with me . . . as my friend.”
“A friend with benefits? ’Cause it seems like that’s all my junkyard heart is good for these days.”
The reference to the commune made me smile, though the sentiment made me want to weep. I hooked my hand behind his neck and pulled him close, knowing that I had to speak before we kissed, because the moment our lips met, my mind would be devoid of all else, of all reason, of anything except the way Kim felt in my arms.
I sucked in a shaky breath and dragged my thumb over his cheekbone. “Your heart isn’t junk to me, Kim.”
You’d think that after spending all evening talking about it, we’d have spent the rest of the night fucking. We didn’t. After a kiss that went on far longer than any in my adult life, I drove Kim home and left him at the end of the path that led to the commune.
And tried not to wonder if there’d be a light on in his trailer when he walked into the orchard, because as much as I wanted to deny it, I was still too intrigued by the idea of Kim and Red together—her curves against his slender bones. To me, he was a dominant lover. Was he the same with her? Or did he lie at her mercy? And why did it even matter? Kim was Kim, and if we had any chance of making our own brand of friendship work, I had to accept that. Iwantedto accept it, and I did.
Iwascurious, though, which outweighed my brief period of jealousy. And I wanted to know Red better, know the woman Kim couldn’t give up. All I had to do was find a way to spend time with her without getting booted in the shin.
A few days after Kim and I had been to the cliffs, I met him at Belly Acre Farm. He’d come to see the progress in the barn, and I’d pretty much ditched everything to be there to show him around, a turn of events that amused my brothers to no end.
“You’re blatantly shagging him,” Gaz said. “Can’t think of another reason you’d be mooning around at the gatepost.”
I gave him the finger, unwilling to admit that he’d caught me loitering at the top of the driveway doing just that. “Perhapshe’sblatantly shaggingme.”
Predictably, Gaz cringed and wandered off. Nicky, a few years younger and far less freaked out by the idea of man sex, wasn’t so easily dismissed. “Is he doing the doors as well as the furniture?”
“No idea. Ask Dad.”
Nicky leaned on the fence beside me. “You know he’s got a girlfriend, right?”
“Dad has? Damn, that mean you’ve got another illegitimate sibling on the way?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’tyoube a dick. If you’re talking about Kim, don’t bother. I know about him and Red.”
“Who the fuck’s Red? I’m talking about Lena Gordon. Her and Kim have been together for years, everyone knows.”
I snorted. “Everyone knows? Since when did everyone know anything about anyone? Grow up, Nicky.”
“Suit yourself.” Nicky pushed himself off the fence as a vehicle engine rumbled at the end of the driveway. “Just saying what I heard.”
He walked away, leaving me to feel bad about being such a prick. I hadn’t had many relationships, but every other bisexual I’d known had suffered through the same thing—the insistence from society that you had to choose one way or the other, that you couldn’t commit to another soul without drawing a line under your sexuality,andthat all men who claimed to swing both ways were likely living the same life as Rich.
Briefly, I felt bad for Rich too, because there was no doubt in my mind that his lovely wife had no idea that he liked a bit of cock on the side, but that shit didn’t last long. I was learning to curb the negativity that came with any thought of Rich, but he wasn’t getting my sympathy. Fuck no.
A Fiat 500 pulled up in front of me. I couldn’t contain my amusement as Kim practically fell out the driver door. “I don’t think I’ve seen you drive the same car twice. Don’t tell me this is yours?”
Kim laughed, regaining his trademark grace as he straightened up. “It’s Lena’s. She’s leaving it with me when she goes back to Bristol, so I figured I should get used to driving it.”