Page 35 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
“There isn’t a team,” I muttered.
“I’m gonna get T-shirts made,” Danny said and flipped me the bird.
“Fuck off,” I grumbled, “and hurry up and fix this step.”
Danny laughed and picked up the nail gun. I sat on the old couch next to Miller so I could supervise—or laugh if Danny fucked it up. Either would work.
Team Wilder didn’t know he was bi.Like that was a thing.
Surely I’d know, right?
Danny lined up the board and while he was focused on not nailing himself to the porch, Miller nudged me with his elbow. “So, how was it?” he asked quietly.
“How was what?”
“The kiss. You said you kissed Avery, but you never said if you liked it. Seems like that’s kind of important.”
“It was good. And I’m pretty sure he kissed me back,” I said.
“Ah,” said Miller, giving me a soft smile. He didn’t need to say anything else.
Trust a lawyer to pinpoint the one thing I’d been trying to ignore—namely that, yeah, Ihadenjoyed it. And I wanted to do it again.
Maybe Danny was right and I wasn’t as straight as I’d thought. I waited for alarm bells to start ringing or for panic to kick in, but instead the possibility that I might be bi settled over me with a kind of rightness, and I wondered how I’d missed it before now.
I liked guys. I thought they were hot, both objectivelyandsubjectively, and I specifically thought Avery Smith was cute as fuck. I wanted to kiss him again, and I wanted to remember it this time.
I thought back to when I’d been a teenager, standing up to my parents when they said Danny was a bad influence. For a hot second, I’d thought it was because he was from the wrong side of town, but it didn’t take long for me to realize it was because he was gay. Holding on strong to my friendship with Danny had been my main form of rebellion back then—and it hadn’t been an intentional rebellion. I’d done it because it had been the right thing to do, whatever my parents said. I used to get so angry that they just didn’t get it. More than a couple of times that anger had burned so hot I’d ended up in tears of frustration.
I felt a pang in my gut now as I wondered who I’d really been defending back then and why it had hurt so much when my parents had disapproved of Danny. Had a part of me known that I’d been trying to defend myself too?
The ghost of those frustrated tears stung my eyes, and I sucked in a deep breath.
Well, shit. It all made a lot of sense, and I felt a bit dumb for never putting it together before now. But feeling dumb was a small price to pay for the sense of rightness I felt at finally figuring it out.
Maybe Danny should get two of those T-shirts made.
CHAPTER 10
AVERY
Istared at the potatoes on the kitchen counter, and they stared back at me.
Did I want to go to a cookout at Wilder’s place? If I did, then I needed to hurry up and start turning those potatoes into potato salad. Because okay, Danny had said only to bring whatever beer I was drinking, but screw that. You didn’t go to a neighbor’s cookout empty-handed, and my potato salad was excellent, thanks for asking.
But did I really want to go? Kind of. The real question was did Wilder want me to go?
I wasn’t sure if he remembered kissing me, but the sideways look he’d given me suggested that he did and that maybe he regretted it.
That made one of us. I’d kiss Wilder again in a heartbeat if he offered. But I got the feeling that this was going to be like the lap dance—something we both ignored until we forgot it had ever happened. Not that I was likely to forget the feel of Wilder’s lips against mine anytime soon, or the way he’d called me pretty.
Focus on your potatoes, Avery.
Right. Just a neighborly cookout with the guys next door. If Wilder mentioned the kiss, we could talk about it, but otherwiseI’d pretend it had never happened, the same way I did when one of my kids picked their nose in class.
I grabbed a knife and started cutting up the potatoes. If nothing else, it would be nice to spend time with adults who weren’t teachers. Well, maybe not Chase. Chase didn’t seem very neighborly. But I could probably win him over with my potato salad. It was pretty fucking magical.
I’d just put the pot on to boil and was searching my pantry for the mustard when there was a knock at the door, so soft I almost didn’t hear it.
