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“Do you think he did?”

Poet holds out his hand.

I hesitate only a moment before I take it and find myself back in his arms and breathing through the sheer relief of his embrace. The comfort. How does he calm me so? When I was not aware how much I needed it?

“I think…” Poet murmurs the words into my throat, his hand sliding up my spine to cup the nape of my neck. “…that you and Dav both lived a lifetime before I knew you. Where we are now—who we are now—that’s what matters to me.”

The neutral answer, the fair answer, sits happier in my soul than any validation he could’ve given me.

I shoot a glance at Aras’s bedroom window.

The curtains are still drawn.

I take a chance and kiss Poet in the early morning sun, winding my arms around his waist and lifting him clean off the ground.

He laughs, his lips curving against mine.

Kisses me back.

Then he makes a regretful sound that echoes in my heart. “I need to get on the tractor before I run out of hours in the day. Hey, do you want to bring Aras by later to see the chooks? He can pick some fruit while he’s here.”

It’s an invitation I’ve already accepted, so I nod and kiss him one last time before I leave his home and walk back to mine.

I’m halfway to Porth Luck before I have second thoughts. Not about Poet. The man guerrilla-planted extra potatoes for a food bank before he even owned this land. He took care of me last night and this morning in more ways than I can quantify, and every instinct I have tells me he can teach Aras a world of things I can’t. He is exactly the kind of person I want around my son.

And that is the problem.

Not him, but me.

Because I have somehow navigated all these years of fatherhood without having to consider that a friend Aras will grow to love as much as he does any other is someone I have been intimate with. Someone I want to be intimate with more.

So much more.

My footsteps slow. I need to talk to Hanna and I nearly turn around and go back to her house on the hill, but the sight of a motorcycle outside my own home drags me forward and I can’t help feeling I am walking in the wrong direction.

I let myself into my house.

Into River’s house and it is him, one of my best friends in the world, who waits for me in my kitchen.

He’s eating the sweets I keep in the cupboard to fend off hypos. “Don’t worry. I brought more.”

Of course he did. It’s because of him I’ve found British candy I don’t mind eating when I have to. He took the research very seriously when we lived together.

And…I have missed him. It is easy to fold my arms around his slender frame and pretend he never left Porth Luck, all the while being glad that he did, because he is so happy now.

He is in love.

I release River and open the fridge, searching for a quick breakfast beyond the fruit and nuts Poet already gave me.

Options line the shelves. I am prepared, for everything except the feelings unspooling in my chest for blond-haired farmers with clever hands and a sweet smile.

Or River’s penetrating stare.

When did that become a thing?

I shut the fridge and unwrap a foil parcel. “Why are you looking at me like this? And why are you here, anyway? Everything is okay?”

River wipes sugar from his lips and gives my bare torso a pointed stare. “My phone was glowing red all night and you didn’t answer my messages. Then I get here and you’re MIA while that fucking boat’s chilling in the cove. Something you want to tell me?”