Page 7 of Floodgates

“You heard wrong.” I was adamant.

“Okay,” he allowed, putting a hand on my cheek. “I really don’t like how dilated your pupils are, so I’m going to go talk to—”

“Wait.”

“What?”

I coughed. “Since I’ll never see you again after today, I’m gonna tell you something that I wouldn’t otherwise.”

“Go ahead and talk, but you must open your eyes and look at me.”

Again, I hadn’t realized my eyes were closed until I opened them back up to look at him.

“Perfect,” he said all soft and lazy, the drawl clear in his voice. I just loved the sound of it, all slow and gentle and warm.

“I bet you get this all the time, but you’re gorgeous.”

“I do,” he agreed, grinning at me crazily. “I hear that a lot.”

“And you smell really… good, and well, I’m really a smell kinda guy, so that’s all good, and your voice is like….” I trailed off, not because I was embarrassed but because I could no longer collect my thoughts. I wasn’t sure if it was him being so close to me or if I was losing blood somewhere.

“I hear that all a lot,” he teased me, tilting my chin with his hand so I had to look into the dancing blue again. “Tell me some more.”

“Whatever,” I groaned, lifting out of his gentle hold. “I’m over it now.”

When he reached for me, I let him take my hand.

“I think it’s the accent that does it,” he said, raising my hand to his face and then placing my palm flat against his cheek. “Men—and woman—dig the whole southern-gentleman thing.”

I was having trouble breathing. “Are you doing this to keep me awake?”

“Why? Is it working?”

“It is,” I confessed, nodding and trying to pull my hand away.

He held tighter, and I asked him to call my brother if I died. Not my dad, but my brother. Better Alex told Dad than the other way around. My father had been the one to have to make the calls when my mother died. Let him be second this time around.

“You’re not going to die,” Breckin promised me. “I won’t let you.”

“Hardly fair of you to use all your charm on unsuspecting men,” I said, pulling my hand free with a good hard yank.

“Yes, sir,” he said slowly, his eyes twinkling as he gazed at me. “I promise to refrain from doing so in the future.”

“I don’t think it’s possible.” I was miserable all of a sudden. “I bet you’re married or about to be married, aren’t you? I bet you’re not even gay.”

He shook his head. “No on both counts, and I’m bi, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“I swear.”

“So that’s a real thing? Bi?”

He started laughing.

“I just—all the guys I know who swear they’re bi are just plain old gay.”

“Oh yeah?”