Page 24 of Hand Picked
“Fascinating,” Ginny breathed. She motioned to the cameraman and stuck her microphone in my face. “Mr. Williams, were you aware that your fiancé isn’t gay?”
“Well, I—” I began.
“We’re notfiancés!” Webb shouted over me.
“I apologize,” Ginny said. “Do you prefer partner? Or… handfaster?”
I shook my head. “You’ve got it wrong. Webb and I are—”
“Arenothing,” Webb said in a tone of finality that rang through the restaurant like a bullet to my heart. “Luke Williams is nothing to me.”
My stomach pitched, and my hands went cold.
So much forunity.
ChapterSix
WEBB
I was not marrying Luke Williams. For many, many reasons.
I brought my ax down on an unsuspecting log—whack—and the bisected halves fell into the snow—thud.
First and foremost, I was not gay.
I picked up half of a log and put it back on the chopping block.
Whack. Thud.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t even bisexual.
Whack. Thud.
It wasn’t that I would mind being bi, if I was. Not even a little.
Whack. Thud.
Or okay, maybe alittle, but only because it would prove Van and certain other busybodies in town right, and that would be annoying.
Whack. Thud.
But not because I thought there was anythingwrongwith liking guys. I mean, once Knox finally stopped dicking around and asked Gage to marry him, I was gonna groomsman the hell out of one or both of them. And if Aiden came to me tomorrow and said he was marrying a man, I’d… well, okay, I’d tell him he was seven and to go do his fucking homework before he considered matrimony, but I’d be supportive.
Whack. Thud.
It was just that I wouldknowif I were into guys, the same way I knew I had brown hair and loved ice cream and hated talking about my feelings. The same way I knew I was a Capricorn… or a Cancer, whichever was the January one. Because a person could hide a lot of things from himself, sure, but not something this enormous and monumental. Not if he already had three gay brothers, for fuck’s sake,anda gay uncle and had grown up in an environment where lube preferences were sometimes discussed at the dinner table.
Whack. Thud.
And of all the guys in the world who could possibly unlock my latent bisexuality, was it really likely to be shy, slightly nerdy, golly-gosh-darn Luke Williams, with his Pollyanna manners, baggy khaki pants, and sweater vests, when I hadn’t even liked the guy until our paths happened to collide at the Bugle the night before?
I tightened my grip on the ax and firmly did not think about his deep blue eyes or his swirling freckles, the way his smile got caught on his incisor sometimes when he laughed or the way my stomach writhed and dropped every time I caught sight of him.
Whack. Thud.
I did not think about where he was, right at that moment, or what he might be doing.
Whack. Thud.
