Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Gay.
Gay.
Gay.
Not once had I questioned that fact, nor had I regretted it. It was a part of me just like the color of my eyes, the birthmark that looked kind of like a heart on my hip, and the fact that I snorted when I laughed.
God apparently didn’t have an issue with any of those things, so why the fuck would He care that guys turned me on and girls didn’t? Because the Bible said so? The Bible said a lot of things that people made excuses for, and I couldn’t even keep count of all the hypocritical things I’d seen and heard growing up. Hell, my own father had been cheating on my mom for years and yet he’d had no problem sitting next to her in those church pews every Sunday and nodding his head to whatever the guy behind the pulpit said. Even when the woman he’d been sleeping with had been brazen enough to sit in the pew behind us with her husband and three kids, my father had kept the solemn, stoic expression on his face.
So yeah, being gay had never been a problem for me. It had just been everyone else’s.
I could feel the anxiety building within me as I fought to keep a hold of my emotions. All the memories that had found their way into my head had me wishing I’d thought to bring my razor blade.
Thankfully, I heard the familiar sound of water trickling over rocks and I quickened my stride. Since the footing was tricky with exposed roots and large rocks, I didn’t see him until I was practically on top of him.
Even as my brain registered that it was Lincoln sitting at the edge of what I’d come to think of as my stream, I heard a loud rustling of leaves. I looked up just in time to see a medium-sized black dog take off from the other side of the stream and disappear into the woods.
“Shit, Lincoln… I’m sorry,” I began as I saw what looked like chunks of raw meat in a plastic baggie sitting on the ground between his long legs which were bent at the knee.
God, the man was gorgeous. I couldn’t even see his face, but I remembered every one of his features as if they’d been burned into my brain.
“It’s okay,” Lincoln responded. “Between the nachos and the raw meat, I think he got enough for today.”
Lincoln’s voice was flat and to my surprise, he didn’t even look at me. Nor did he move to get up. My heart twisted painfully in my chest even though I didn’t know why. Before I realized what I was doing, I was lowering myself to the ground next to him. Not enough that we were touching but enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his body. God, what I wouldn’t have given to lean into his side and feel his strong arm wrap around my shoulders.
“Nachos?” I asked because I didn’t know what to say.
“I guess they’re more like nacho chips,” he responded. “They were the only thing I had on me the day I first saw him, and he eats them before he eats the meat, but Nacho Chips seemed like a mouthful for a name.”
“He’s a stray?” I asked. Despite getting only a brief glimpse of the dog, his short coat had allowed me to see his ribs.
“Seems to be,” Lincoln said, though he had yet to look at me. His responses were polite, but they lacked… something. “Doesn’t look like he’s got a collar on, and he doesn’t let me close enough to even feel around his neck for a chip.”
“Have you been feeding him for long?”
He kind of shrugged his shoulders. “A few days. But I think he’s been following me a lot longer than that.”
“How do you know?”
Lincoln finally looked at me. His eyes were shrouded with pain, but his voice was still flat as he said, “Just a feeling. I walk through these woods every day and I kept hearing rustling around me but never saw anything. Could’ve been him or could’ve been a rabbit or something. Not sure.” He turned his eyes back to the spot the dog had been. I actually had to clasp my fingers together to keep from grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at me again.
I knew I should leave. My brain was practically screaming at me to get off my ass and walk away. But something I didn’t want to think about too much kept my ass exactly where it was.
The man sitting next to me wasn’t my Lincoln.
My Lincoln? What the hell?
I pulled in a deep breath and tried to calm my raging brain.
“I’m okay, Theo. You don’t have to stay,” I heard Lincoln say. I didn’t even realize he was watching me because at some point I’d dropped my eyes to my clasped hands which were nearly bloodless from how hard I’d been squeezing them.