Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 14640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 73(@200wpm)___ 59(@250wpm)___ 49(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 14640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 73(@200wpm)___ 59(@250wpm)___ 49(@300wpm)
Travis was the quintessential, good-looking all-American kid with blond hair and blue eyes. He hadn’t grown up in Eden so I'd never seen him around when he’d been a kid, but when I’d first met him, I'd figured him as the kind of guy who'd played football in high school and had dated the captain of the cheerleading squad.
Sadly, the reality of his childhood had been considerably different. Whereas I'd been the only child of a doting minister and his wife, Travis had been one of nearly a dozen mouths to feed and had grown up dirt poor with an alcoholic father and absent mother. By the time he’d hit his teens, he’d been in foster care. He’d run away from his foster home when he’d been sixteen.
Travis, of course, had brushed off his past as nothing and had talked about the physical abuse he’d suffered as just a normal part of his childhood that he was already “over.” But it hadn't taken a genius to know that the internal scars he carried ran much deeper than the physical ones I’d only seen glimpses of.
"You okay?" I asked.
Travis's thumping stopped for only a moment. "Fine," he grunted before resuming his tapping. I stared at his profile and felt that familiar tug deep in my belly as I took in his good looks. As handsome as he was, he never failed to get me with anything simpler than his smile. In the years since we'd been friends, I’d made it my personal goal in life to make the man smile. Not one of the fake smiles he gave whatever girl he was trying to hook up with, but the bone-deep kind of smile that really meant something.
Silence filled the cab of the truck for several minutes until Travis suddenly said, "Hey, why don't we go fishing at your cabin next weekend?"
That familiar flip-flopping sensation began in my belly as heat crawled up the back of my neck. A couple of weeks earlier I would've given anything to have Travis to myself for the one weekend we had off a month. We'd gone to my cabin countless times and every time it made me feel like I didn't have to share him with anyone else. We'd even taken my son, Cameron, with us a few times. When we had, I’d silently pretended that we were more than just a couple of friends hanging out for a weekend. Maybe that was what had started all of this… that wish to have a family of my own like I'd once had. Well, not exactly like I’d had because my life with Jolene had been a lie from day one.
I'd been a lie from day one.
And it seemed like I’d have to continue the lie because I couldn't lose Travis like I'd lost Jolene. Granted, Jolene was still a big part of my life and she said she’d forgiven me for everything, but there was no denying that I’d taken more from her than I'd given. Fortunately, she’d found a man who was truly worthy of her.
At least I wasn't foolish enough to truly believe I could have anything with Travis beyond friendship. But besides my child, Travis was all I really had. As much as I wanted to change that, I knew that fate wouldn't come through for me on this one. Even if the ad in the Heart2Heart personals somehow reunited me with the guy I’d met in the hardware store, I was still reluctant to believe it would be anything more than a good time. Much like the many good times Travis had every time we went out.
But I’d take it. Now that I’d accepted that it would always be men I was physically drawn to instead of women, I knew the likelihood of having the kind of relationship that straight couples were automatically allotted was slim to none. It’d been wishful thinking when I'd mentioned maybe having more in the ad. At this point, I just wanted to know what it would be like to feel a man's hands on me, to revel in his touch, to bask in his praise. As much as my friendship with Travis meant to me, there was still a bone-deep level of loneliness that not even he could fill, at least not as my friend.
So lying to him really was my only choice.
"Um, I actually promised Cameron I’d take him to the zoo in Casper next weekend."
I turned my eyes away from Travis but swore I could feel him watching me. I wanted to call back my lie as soon as I'd spoken it. But I knew if I told Travis the truth, I'd lose him. Even if he could get past the fact that I’d been lying to him all these years about my sexuality, I doubted he'd be okay with it.