Quirks & Kinks (31 page)

Energy surged through my body, and before I knew it, I was reaching for her face and doing my best to touch my lips to the peachy softness of hers.

She backed away gently. Gave me a sad smile. “But I don’t think we’re ready to be together.”

I could feel her slipping away, sliding back out just as easily as she’d insinuated herself in. Desperate, I fought to hold on, grabbing onto everything I could and digging in my figurative fingernails to keep her from sliding through my grip. “I am, Easie. I’m ready,” I implored. “I choose you.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t with humor. It was the earth shattering sound of near devastation, a sob nearly choking her as it lodged in her slender throat.

“Yeah, I got that from your letter.” She shook her head with disappointment.

I didn’t understand. I’d thought that’s what she’d want to hear. I’d thought it was what she deserved. I’d thought it was romantic.

I’d thought wrong.

“If you’d given me the chance to know—to know you
and
Evan—you never would have had a choice to make.”

“Easie—”

“I wouldn’t make you choose, Anderson. Not ever. If you think that I would, you don’t know me either.”

I started to deny it, a matter of a means to an end, a path to having what I ultimately wanted—her. But she was right. I had never once thought there was the option to have both. That I could hold on and move forward at the same time.

Not once.

“I . . . God, Easie. I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

She stood up, each inch of her now towering height breaking my heart a little more.

“So this is it?”

She leaned down and touched her lips to mine, and then left them there, each word she spoke weaving its way directly from inside of her straight to the heart of me.

“Not a chance, Anderson Evans. This is just the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

She nodded. “The beginning of us. The beginning of Easie and Anderson.”

It took me watching her walk out the door, a near panic attack, and the lingering feel of her skin on mine to understand.

Neither of us really knew the other. The picture had been too well obscured by insecurities and secrets.

But it was never too late to start now.

SOME LESSONS ARE LEARNED
; others are earned. Anderson and I earned ours.

I needed to embrace my soft as well as my hard, and he needed to start living for himself. If we wanted to be happy together, we needed to be happy alone first.

But by the grace of good God almighty, I hoped we found our lonely happiness fast.

I already missed the bastard, and it had only been two weeks. It wasn’t that we hadn’t kept in touch—we obviously had. Anderson had made a real effort to cut back on all things Evan in his life and even went out to visit his parents for the first time since he’d died. I was a little disappointed that he hadn’t asked me to go with him, but I understood. And frankly, the circumstances of our relationship were strictly of my making.

Every day, Anderson sent me a good morning text and called me mid-morning. He talked about his plans for the day or asked me if I had something on my schedule that I wanted him to be included in. My answer was always yes. If he asked, I accepted. No matter what.

He was working hard to weed through years of learned habits to find out what he actually liked and what he didn’t. Everything had started out as a way to validate Evan, but a couple of things turned out to be real passions. He’d admitted to me that he’d become really fond of surfing, but he liked it a lot better when he did it on his own schedule. He hated singing and playing guitar, claiming that the attention was all together too much.

Of course, that conversation—and the fact that we were still working together frequently—led to a discussion about acting.

I’d read the letter. As much as it broke my heart, I knew it wasn’t some fate-destined notion that we’d chosen the same careers. Evan had chosen his.

But the jury was still out about how he felt about it. Apparently, getting to work with me every day clouded his ability to judge the trade for its most basic properties.

And, with all the work he’d put in, he was still planning to run the 100 mile run in just three months time.

That left me with a hell of a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.

“I have to be able to run how much?” I asked Tammy, stretching out my stride and trying to match hers. It didn’t help that she was a foot taller than me.

But
so was Anderson. And that was the whole point.

“Twenty miles.”

Shit.

“Fuck my face, this was a bad idea.”

“He’s gonna love it,” she encouraged, smiling genuinely as she did.

“Fucking hell.”

“Run faster too. You’re going to need to be able to run a consistent ten minute mile.”

“Fuck you and your natural inclination for athleticism. Don’t you know I’ve been smoking for the last ten years of my life?”

“The cancer sticks are your fault.”

True enough. But the running made me cranky, and Tammy and I had only grown closer over the last couple of weeks. She was my kind of woman. Crude, brutally honest, and gifted at inappropriate humor. It hadn’t been love at first sight, but we’d definitely formed a Womance now.

“Did you have surgery yet?”

“What?” she guffawed and stumbled before picking her natural stride back up. “Don’t ever ask a transgender person that. Completely inappropriate.”

“Which side of the line of appropriateness does it look like I normally walk on?”

Her head inclined and a smirk enhanced her face all the way to her eyes. “Point taken.”

“Besides, I was just trying to figure out how to threaten you when you really piss me off. A penis punch or a twat tap?”

“A twat tap?”

“Tara Sivec. Read it. Learn it. Love it.”

“You’re such a woman.”

“Newsflash,” I called dramatically, trying not to trip as I pushed my hands out to the sides to form an imaginary banner. “So are you!”

“The only difference is I know what it’s like to be both.”

“And?” I asked when she didn’t actually make a point.

“And that means I’m wondering why you’re making this poor guy suffer. You both want to be together, so why the fuck aren’t you together?”

“I’m just waiting for him to be ready,” I explained halfheartedly. I wanted us to be together too.

“He’s ready.”

I shook my head. “He needs more time to live for himself. He needs to figure out what’s important to him.”

“God, you’re an idiot.”

“Fuck you!”

“Easie,” she called slowing to a stop and pulling me to one next to her. “He knows what’s important to him.”

I shook my head.

“You, you moron. So is Evan, and so is making a difference in other people’s lives. He doesn’t want to let anyone down like he thinks he did Evan.”

“Thinks?”

“Pffft,” she huffed before confirming, “
Thinks.
Evan loved him. Thought Anderson hung the stars and the moon and created all the air in between. There wasn’t one day that that kid was disappointed in his big brother, the day he died included.”

I tilted my head in question, struggled to catch my breath.

“Anderson may have wanted to be a better person after that, but Evan already thought he was. After all, he was doing the one thing Evan really wanted to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“
Living.
”

God, she was so fucking annoyingly right. I wanted to wipe the smug smile right off her too pretty face. I might have been nicer if I hadn’t missed Anderson so much.

“Are
you
dating anyone?” I asked with a sneer, turning away from her and breaking into a walk. One hand squeezed at the stitch in my side while the other pushed the hair that had escaped my ponytail out of my face.

“I was seeing a guy for a little while, but eventually it got serious and I had to tell him I’m transgender.”

“You think that’s something you
have
to tell people?”

“Me?” she gestured, sticking a painted fingernail in her chest. “Yes. Honesty is a big part of a relationship.” She tipped her head meaningfully to remind me what the lack of it had done to mine.

“I don’t know about other people. But, for me, I need someone to know everything, and still be able to accept it.”

“It doesn’t upset you that some people
can’t
accept it?”

“Of course it bothers me. But part of being completely tolerant is accepting that there is, and always will be, intolerance. Hurtful words and callus remarks are never okay, but having your own opinion is. I can’t begrudge anyone their right to free thought anymore than they can begrudge me of mine.
That
is freedom.”

“You’re tolerant of the intolerant?”

“Exactly.”

Picking our pace back up into a jog, I couldn’t help but whine. “How much further do we have?”

“Since we’ve just now passed the one mile mark and the goal for today is three, pretty much two miles.”

“I can do simple math, thanks,” I grumbled.

“Hah!” she laughed. “You’re in trouble.”

Yeah, yeah. But I was determined. I was doing it for him.

For him
and
Evan.

“Good thing that’s where I’m used to being.”

“ANDERSON,” MY MOM GREETED
, running out the front door with her blond hair flying behind her and ending up with her arms around my neck.

I hugged her back, squeezing her tight for the third time in the last two weeks. Or in the last six years, depending on how you looked at it.

“Hey, mom,” I said back, looking up and over her shoulder to find my dad leaning in the open doorway. Apart from his eyes, I looked just like him, from our dark hair and skin, all the way down to the way we held our bodies and the quiet, reflective spirit inside.

Evan had been a carbon copy of my mom.

“Come in, come in,” she cheered. “Dinner’s just about ready.”

I pulled away from the hug, but kept her tucked under one arm. “You don’t have to make dinner every time I come home, Mom. I promise I’ll come either way.”

Tears filled her eyes like a flash flood, and she tucked her head down to avoid showing me.

God.
Of course, she didn’t think I’d keep coming.