Page 2 of Cherry Picked
“Hawkins, man.” Uncle Drew shook his shaggy gray head. “What are you doing?”
“Just… you know… chilling. Pondering life. Deep philosophical questions. Like, should your lacrosse team really be selling wrapping paper for their fundraiser again, Em? Because I tried my hardest last year as the fundraising volunteer, but the Hollow is really more of a ‘chuck it in a gift bag with some tissue paper’ kind of place. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with a better idea for this year.” I tapped my temple. “Best leave me to it.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Emma set her hands on her narrow hips. “You think you’ll find the answer in…” She grabbed my hand and turned my book over to read the title. “Mr. Darcy’s Wild Ride: A Romance Novel?”
“Hawk.” Uncle Drew narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to me. “Why do you have chocolate dust on your mouth?”
“Uh…” I licked my lips. “Well, actually…”
“And you smell likeartificial mint flavoring,” he accused.
“Fine. Fine!” I jumped up from the couch and stood beside the sofa. “I was eating cookies andreading, okay? I admit it. Reading is not a crime, people! It’s not a sign that I’m bored or depressed. It is not a cry for help. I’m not secretly longing to run an errand or do a chore. I donotwant to slog through the snow to get ice cream—an activity, I might add, that runs contrary to millions of years of human evolution. I do not wish to eat quinoa. I have no desire to clomp through a snowy field, working up a sweat that will freeze to my body instantly while trying to keep up with Webb, whose legs are way, way longer than they have any right to be—”
“Er. Hawk, maybe now’s not…” Drew began in a placating voice, looking over my head like he couldn’t even meet my eye.
“Now is the perfect time!” I insisted.
It took a lot to get me angry, but once I was riled up, my frustrations needed to be vented entirely before I could move on.
“Look, I could be spending my days doing truly terrible things. Like… like…” I searched my brain for the worst crimes I could think of. “Shamelessly pilfering someone’s precious boxes of baked goods, even though they’d taken the time to hide them in eleven different places throughout the house! Or, worse, toying with men’s affections, leading them into dalliances, and then ruining their reputations forever before casting them aside.”
“Hawk,” Emma said, low and insistent. “You need to chill.Now.”
But I was beyond chill. Chill had deserted me along with my peace and quiet.
“I’m not a monster, you guys! I’m simply a man attempting to read a library book in solitude. If I could,” I said passionately, “I would have a library of my own. A whole room filled with books. And a sofa. And cookies. A room whose function was specifically and solely to do my very favorite activity so that no one ever needed to look for me or wonder what I was doing because everyone would know.Hawk is in his reading room, you’d all say, and you’d say it respectfully, because when a whole room is dedicated to a task, suddenly we realize it’s important. But for now, I do what I must. And I don’t need everyone and their freaking uncle getting up in my face with theirdelightfulsuggestions for what I ought to be doing instead. Andyes,” I said, pausing long enough to draw a deep breath, “I’m using implied air quotes because none of your suggestions were at all remotely—”
“Uh. So. This is my family, Jack,” Webb said from behind the sofa, startling the crap out of me.
Mouth still open, I whirled around, grabbing a pillow from the sofa as a makeshift shield.
There in the doorway stood the most enormous of my four giant brothers, looking amused and disapproving and a little embarrassed. Beside him stood a man—a man nearly as tall and broad as Webb—with blond-streaked hair, startlingly blue eyes that crinkled with intelligent good humor, and the most engaging smile I’d ever seen on another human being.
“—delightful,” I finished in a whisper that came out all croaky and weak.
The man—Jack—lifted his hand in a little wave as he stepped further into the room, and for some stupid reason, my heart clacked unevenly around like a carriage on a rutted road.
I’d known I was gay for a while, but until that moment, sex had been kind of an abstract thing for me. Men were pleasant to look at and daydream about. Some, like Matthew Macfadyen in thatPride and Prejudicegazebo scene, made my pulse beat concerningly fast. Others, like Kyle Silverbow in my chem lab with his perfect pouty mouth, made me wonder distantly what kissing would be like and whether, if I were to mash our lips together, I’d be able to taste the grape bubble gum he always chewed.
This, though… this was different. This wasreal.
Not just a vague awareness of attraction but a bone-deep, skin-tightening need. A visceral “Yes. This one. This man. Him.” that made my lower belly cramp with want and my fingers itch to touch.
A sexual awakening on a whooooole other scale.
And for the first time in my Elizabeth-Bennet-loving life, I was feeling some distinct sympathy for her boy-crazy sister Lydia, because ifthisman asked me to run off with him, I’d be all, “Fuck, yes. Elope me, baby. How fast are your horses?”
Which was unfortunate, really, since the object of my newfound desire was a full-on adult of at least twenty-five years old or maybe even…thirty.
Still, I stood up a little straighter, wishing I was wearing something besides flannel sleep pants and a T-shirt, and ran a hand over my hair, hoping that, for once, the waves would be obedient and stop attempting to defy gravity at every turn.
“Sorry about that,” Webb went on. “Jack Wyatt, this is my uncle, Drew Sunday. My sister, Emma—she’s twelve. And… the ranting guy with the pillow shield is my youngest brother, Hawkins. He’s seventeen.”
“And a half,” I whispered, still staring at Jack. No one heard me.
“I promise it’s not usually quite this loud around here…” Webb said with a little chuckle.
Jack shook his head. “Heck, no. Don’t apologize for Hawk. I don’t have any siblings, myself, but I get pretty passionate about my peace and quiet, too.” He aimed that smile in my direction—click—then fired off a teasing wink—boom—that shot directly through my heart. “That’s why my mom and I moved down from Portland a couple months back.”
