“It’s just a shirt.”
“It was a really nice
shirt. Expensive,” Hugo emphasized, which only made Kevin laugh.
“Let it go. It’s cotton and maybe a little bit of polyester. That’s all. I wasn’t going to run after a shirt, no matter how nice, if it meant I’d have to quit holding you,” Kevin admitted, much to his own chagrin. He wasn’t going to do that. He was going to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. But there they were, out and in the open. Sorta.
Hugo pressed his damp lips to Kevin’s chin and kissed up the line of his jaw.
“Such a romantic. You sometimes say things you don’t really mean to let out, don’t you?”
Kevin shook his head, trying to bury the smile he felt forcing its way to his lips. “Yeah, but I guess you already know most of my tricks, don’t you?”
Hugo leaned back, legs and arms still wrapped around Kevin’s hips and shoulders, and studied Kevin’s eyes. “I suppose I know your oldest tricks. I’m not so sure about the new ones, but… but I think I’d like to learn about the latest and greatest.”
“What does that mean?” Kevin didn’t want to get his hopes up.
“We both live in the Twin Cities area. We aren’t that far away from each other. What? Fifteen, eighteen minutes with no traffic and maybe thirty when it’s really bad. You probably live all of eight miles from my apartment. So why not? Why not do this, Kevin?”
“I don’t know. Can I?” Kevin read the fear in Hugo’s eyes and knew he needed to explain what he meant quickly. “What I mean is, can I start seeing you again and still be the dad I want to be to my kids?”
“I’ll never take you away from Brooke and Finn, I promise.”
“But how will I explain our relationship to them? That’s what worries me. It’s kind of a big thing,” Kevin said.
“Do they need to know right now? Can’t I just be your friend Hugo until we know if we work?”
Kevin hadn’t dated since Erin, and he had been all of twenty at the time they met. She was the last person he’d been with, and the prospect of starting all over again, but with children involved, was nerve-racking. And that wasn’t even considering he’d be dating a man.
“Seriously, Kevin. Who knows where this will go? Let’s not fuck with the stability Brooke and Finn need right now, but we can see each other on the weekends you don’t have the kids. I’ll stay away from them entirely if you think that’s best, but…. God, Kevin, please don’t walk away from me again. Not now that somehow fate or some karmic six degrees of separation brought us back together. Please.” Hugo sounded worried and scared but also more determined and forthright than Kevin could remember him ever sounding.
Kevin nodded. The movement was minuscule, but then grew.
“Yes. Yes, Hugh. I do want to try.”
“Me too. More than I realized until tonight. I’ve done little else besides think of you since I saw you the other night, but it was tonight in the water, the way you looked at me and kissed me and made me feel loved, well, that’s what made me truly see this isn’t something I can just easily let go again.”
Kevin realized right then that Hugo probably never really knew how deeply Kevin felt for him in high school. Sure, they’d said they loved each other, but his actions of hiding behind Tricia, as well as his father’s rules and expectations, and the way he didn’t fight to stay in contact had probably made Hugo doubt his declarations of love.
“I never wanted to walk away. Never, Hugo. Do you understand that? Not once did I want to lose you the way I did. It was so meaningless it was tragic. We never even fought or argued or gave each other a reason to quit. But we both did. If anything, I should’ve fought for you. I don’t ever want to walk away from you again.”
Hugo’s eyes were glassy, but his smile was something that took Kevin’s breath away. He could tell Hugo wasn’t afraid of his passionate speech or the near-volcanic feelings he’d unsuccessfully tried to keep buried deep underneath his façade. Hugo was fine with it all. More than fine, it seemed.
“So we’ll try to make it work this time?” Hugo asked.
“Yeah. We
will
make it work. No reason not to,” Kevin confirmed.
Hugo shivered, goose bumps suddenly covering his skin and pebbling his nipples.
“Let’s head in,” Kevin suggested, moving them toward the dock to gather their clothes. In the constantly shifting current, they dressed, Kevin without his shirt, and headed toward the house.
“Good timing,” Summer’s voice came out of the darkened yard over at Myles’s house.
“Oh, hey!” Hugo beamed. “Did you just get back?”
“Yeah.”
“Fun or absolutely dreadful?”
“No. It was fun,” Summer said with amusement evident in her voice as she walked into the light on Kevin’s deck. “Myles was right, it was new and different. I’m tired, though, so I talked him into only playing nine holes. When do you think you’ll be ready to head out?” she asked, looking at Hugo but then to Kevin as well, where she gave him a warm smile to include him in on the question. He couldn’t help but notice her gaze flicker toward his naked chest a few times when she seemed to think he was looking away.
Hugo looked to Kevin as well and just stared. “We should exchange numbers and maybe addresses.”
“Let me get my cell phone.” Kevin headed into the house and quickly returned. By the time he was back, Hugo had pulled his cell from his jeans, which were folded neatly in a pile on the ottoman. After the few awkward moments of trying to figure out how to add a new contact to an unfamiliar phone were over—Kevin even having to be schooled on how to use an alphanumeric keypad again—he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Hugo’s mouth. “Call or text me anytime. I mean it.”
Hugo nodded and gathered his things. “Can we try to get together next weekend already, or do you have Brooke and Finn?”
“Next weekend would be perfect, actually. Call me. Look me up on Facebook too.”
Hugo beamed. “Drive safe so I can see you again soon, okay?” They kissed one more time before Summer said goodnight to Kevin, ensuring a promise they’d see each other again too.
Kevin put the lid on the grill, pushed the chairs in around the deck dining table, stepped into the lake house, and closed the door on what had to have been one of the most perfect days he could’ve ever imagined having. He took a few minutes to straighten up around the house and prep the coffeemaker before locking doors and heading up to his bed.
It took little to get to sleep, and he slept peacefully, not dreaming of anything but tender kisses and warm, masculine arms around him.
B
IRTHDAY
cake. He was worried about forgetting the cake in the oven, afraid it would burn and Finn’s birthday would be ruined. The buzzer on the oven sounded, and Kevin turned to retrieve the cake. But he turned into a wall of fluff, which confused him. He took a deep breath and slowly realized he’d been dreaming.
Pillow.
The buzzer sounded again, but this time it sounded more like a bell, and Kevin realized someone was ringing his doorbell. He shook himself awake, pulling a soft T-shirt over his head and trotting sleepily down the stairs to get the door.
“Good morning,” Hugo said with a sunny smile, which was a little too bright for Kevin before he had his morning coffee.
“Hey. Come in.” Kevin leaned in and kissed Hugo’s cheek, fully aware he had yet to brush his teeth, not to mention he had no idea what time it was and if the kids were even awake yet.
“Guess what I found,” Hugo demanded, an arm behind his back.
“Coffee?”
With a laugh, Hugo taunted more. “Have you recently lost something?”
“Coffee. Definitely coffee. And my toothbrush. Come in the kitchen. Coffee.” Kevin knew he was blinking haphazardly and making little sense, but he had been jarred awake at… nine o’clock? “How’d it get so late?” he asked the clock.
Kevin pressed the toggle on the coffeemaker to get it going and urged Hugo to pull down coffee mugs for both of them so he could sneak away to brush his teeth. Both kids were still in bed too, which was odd, but Kevin suspected the fresh air, the healthy dose of overexertion the day before, and the later bedtime had something to do with it.
By the time he returned to the kitchen, Hugo passed him a mug of coffee made just how he liked it.
“Still just cream?”
“Yeah. Good memory.” Kevin took a slow sip, savoring it, and suddenly felt more awake, even though he knew it was just psychological. “You were saying I lost something?”
“Let me get it,” Hugo said, bending down to pull something out of a canvas bag nestled on the floor between his feet. “I found your shirt.”
“What? How’d you manage that? You didn’t actually go looking for it, did you?” Kevin was incredulous at the find. What were the odds?
“No. I was on the dock at Summer’s this morning, and when I looked into the water, it was just lying there at the bottom of the lake. It was filthy, but I rinsed it. It’s still a bit damp. I figured you could wash it. You do have a washing machine here, right?”
“Yeah, thank you. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” Kevin couldn’t help but kiss Hugo, yet he kept it innocent and quick.
“I’m really here because I told Brooke I’d help her with her BFF necklace, and then I forgot to do that before she went to sleep last night. Is the drill still sitting outside?”
“I forgot too, but yeah, it should still be out there. Can I do anything to help?”
“Do you have an outlet outside?”
“Mmhmm.”
“If you have an old plastic food container that you don’t mind getting destroyed in case I slip while drilling, that would be great.”
“Sure. Let me find something. I’ll go wake Brooke too. I bet she’d love to see how you do this.”
Kevin found everything and left Hugo to set up the project while he headed upstairs to Brooke’s bedroom.
“Brooke, honey?”
Brooke turned over and smiled sleepily, holding the book Hugo had read last night in her hand.
“Hugo’s here. He came to help you make the beach glass into a pendant. He’s setting up the drill on the deck. What do you say? Wanna watch?”
“Cool!” She slammed her book shut, forgetting to put in a bookmark, and raced down the stairs.
Not wanting Finn to miss out on the excitement, Kevin woke him too and then took a few minutes for himself, dressing and getting ready for the day. When he stepped onto the deck again, three heads were bent over a container. The glass pieces Brooke had selected were just covered with water and Hugo was drilling. It was slow going, but soon Brooke had several pieces of tumbled glass with holes in them, which would easily thread on a chain or piece of leather.
“Thanks,” Brooke said, fingering the pieces and holding them up to the sky so she could peer through the new holes. “It would be cool if I could wrap ’em with wire, like around the glass, and maybe have one of those little silver rings at the top that real necklaces have.” She used her hands to demonstrate what she meant as she spoke.
“You
are
making a real necklace, so why can’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know how.”
“When do you want to give Serena her part of the BFF necklace?”
Kevin was surprised to hear Hugo easily slip Brooke’s best friend’s name off his tongue, as if he’d heard about Serena for years. It had taken Kevin weeks to remember the girl’s name, always wanting to call her Sabrina instead.
“Her birthday is in three weeks.”
Hugo looked up at Kevin as if asking for permission. Kevin nodded and smiled at how easy this seemed.
“Tell you what; I live in Minneapolis, probably less than ten miles away from you. Would you like me to help you with this the next time you’re at your dad’s house?”
“Yeah!” Brooke’s eyes were huge.
“Cool. Can you teach me how to walk on my hands like you did in the water?” Finn interjected, not wanting to be left out.
Hugo chuckled and gave Finn a high five. “Sure thing, buddy. It’s harder on land, but we can work on it.” Hugo stood and started cleaning up the table. The kids took off toward the water to find more glass in the sand.
“You heading out?”
“I’d better be. Summer needs to get back for a baby shower this afternoon.”
“I’ll walk you to the door. Thanks, by the way. That was really cool what you did there.”
“It wasn’t a problem. I like working with my hands. All those years designing and building sets and working in costume departments taught me a lot of different trades. I’m pretty handy with a tool.”
Kevin chuckled under his breath and couldn’t resist, “You sure are.”
“Look at Mr. Dirty Mind. I like it.”
“But honestly, thanks. We’ll talk soon, right?”
“Horses couldn’t keep me away.” After ensuring the children weren’t visible from their spot in the entryway, Hugo tugged Kevin down a few inches so he could kiss him. It was a lingering kiss which spoke of promises for more. “Bye.”
Hugo opened the door and started walking down the sidewalk.
“Bye,” Kevin said, raising his hand in a sad good-bye.
Distance Brings Clarity
I’
M
LESS
than an hour away, and I already want to see you again.
Hugo sent his text message, not really knowing how it would be received, considering he’d left Kevin only a few hours prior. He didn’t want to come off as desperate. Less than two minutes later he knew.
Do you have mind reading abilities? Because I was just thinking the same thing.
Hugo smiled down at this phone. He saw Summer look at him out of the corner of his eye before getting her eyes back on the road. She smiled to herself too and turned down the radio.
I don’t read minds, but I’m glad you want to see me already. Thanks for this weekend.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite like this with a guy,” Summer observed.
“How’s that?”
“I’m not really sure. Usually you’re more excitable or something. That’s not really the right word. Well, you seem… quiet? No. That’s not right either. Content maybe? Just not the nervous excitement I’m used to seeing when you first meet someone you’re interested in. I think that’s it.” She was obviously having a hard time putting her impressions into words, but Hugo knew exactly what she meant.