Page 60 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
He gave me the side eye. “Then we’ll need another photo at the end, to balance it out.”
I went through my photos from the Adventurama and found one of Wilder piggybacking Tyrell. It was cute as hell.Tyrellwas cute as hell. Of course he was. He was five and had dimples. And I was definitely looking at them instead of at Wilder’s ass. “We’ll use this one.”
“Oh, it’s your neighbor,” Dallas said and hummed. “Beingnotthe most annoying parent in the world.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I would have had to cancel the whole trip if he hadn’t come. So it was really nice of him.”
Dallas hummed again. “Yeah, he seems nice. Volunteering as a parent helper at short notice. Inviting you to a birthday party.” He raised his eyebrows. “Offering to suck your dick if you’re not too busy.”
My face heated up. “You heard that.”
“Yes,” he said. “Because I was right here. And I have ears. And questions. Foremost,if you’re not too busy? What the fuck isthat?”
“Um,” I said. “He’s polite?”
Dallas stared at me. “He’spolite.”
“Look,” I said. “We have… an arrangement. He’s busy, and I’m busy, so he was checking that Iwasn’tbusy just now. Which obviously I was, so.” I shrugged.
“No, don’t make it sound all reasonable,” Dallas said. He poked me in the shoulder. “What do you mean, an arrangement?”
“It’s casual,” I said.
“No, casual is casual. An arrangement is something else.”
“I am using the word arrangement in its most casual sense,” I tried, and Dallas rolled his eyes. “It’s casual, then. That’s what I meant.”
“You have never done anything casually in your life,” Dallas said, “especially not dating.”
I stared at the screen for a moment. “That’s because it’s not dating. It’s?—”
“If you say casual again, I’m going to smack you.” It was an empty threat. Dallas had never raised a hand to me in his life. He was way too laid-back for that, which was why the intensity in his tone caught my attention.
“What?” I asked, trying to deflect him. “Everyone does casual.”
“You don’t,” he said. “Avery, you overthinkeverything. It’s why we’ve been working on this newsletter for forty-five minutes and ten of that was you choosing a font.”
“We should just go back to Times New Roman,” I said. “It’s a classic for a reason.”
“No,” he said, nudging me out of the way when I reached for the mouse. He let out a breath. “Tell me about whatever the hell is going on with you and your neighbor.”
I knew from experience that he wasn’t going to let this go. “Fine. Wilder’s figuring out some stuff about his sexuality, and I offered to show him the ropes, that’s all.”
Dallas’s eyebrows made a dash for his hairline. “When you say ropes…”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Not literally, obviously.” Although maybe that was something Wilder might like to explore later. A hitherto undiscovered kinky side of me liked that idea a lot. Maybe it wasn’t that unexpected, though. I’d always liked macrame.
“Earth to Avery. Where did you go just now?”
“I was thinking of the macrame owl I made you when I was six,” I said honestly.
Dallas gave me a look. “But back to your neighbor?”
No, I wasn’t going to tell him what I was thinking of there. “It’s casual, like I said. He wants to learn stuff about being with guys, and I—” I blinked. “I guess I’m a really good teacher?”
Dallas looked at my computer and then back at me. “God. You don’t send him a newsletter too, do you?”
“No!”
