“Mrs. Richardson says you’re of a miserly sort, sitting here by yourself,” Sean said lightly.
“That woman,” Mike said with a scowl. “There’s no pleasing her.”
Sean hummed a little, seeming to hesitate before he sat down next to Mike on the dock. He rolled up his pants, the hair on his legs brushing against Mike. He put his toes in the water too, and for a moment, Mike got to pretend things weren’t awkward between them, that everything was right as rain. That they were here, together, and nothing hurt.
Mike was never one for pretending too long. “Where’s your date?”
“Somewhere,” Sean said airily. “I don’t keep track.”
“Oh.”
Ripples echoed out across the pond from their feet.
Mike said, “He seems like a nice fella.” He didn’t sound like he meant it at all.
“Oh really.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Sean said, in that way that drove Mike absolutely wild. It wasn’t mocking, per se, but it was amused, because he knew Mike was a man of a few carefully chosen words. It wasn’t thrown back in his face. It was held between them with soft hands.
“Little dumb, though,” Mike said, feeling remarkably brave.
Sean squinted at him but said nothing.
“Told me he didn’t have time for reading,” Mike clarified. “That books were boring.”
“The horror,” Sean gasped, clutching at pearls that didn’t exist. “Why, the very thought is enough to send shivers down my—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mike grumbled.
They were quiet, for a time.
Then, “It’s not anything.”
Mike shrugged. “It’s always something.”
“Not with him,” Sean said. “With you, yes. With you, it’s always something. With you it will always be something. Whether you admit it or not. So you can either man up or you can sit here and pout like you’ve been doing for the last twenty minutes.”
“I’m not pouting—”
“Men,” Sean said with a huff. “You’d think this day and age we’d have learned to be smarter. Some of us have. The rest of you are still Neanderthals with your furrowed brow and your scowling.”
“I’m not scowling.”
“James asked me if you were going to come and defend my honor with the way you were glaring at him. He might have squeaked when he said it, pointing out that you outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds and had a beard, something which he says he’s never been able to grow.”
Mike gaped at him.
Sean rolled his eyes. “Exactly. And here you are, not saying
a damn word, and you’re still intimidating whoever I’m with, you jealous prig.”
Mike sputtered, struggling to find the right thing to say. The only thing he could come up with was “But he had his hands on you.”
It happened then.
Sean tilted his head back and laughed.