“Oh, it’s all me, huh? Like I’m the mountainous equivalent of a mermaid, luring you to your doom? Damn it. This is not all me seducing you.”
“I know it’s not.” Linc’s voice was more subdued now. “The kiss is on me. And like I said, I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t want...” Shaking his head, Linc shifted his tone even before Jacob could revel in him admitting to wanting Jacob. “But we can’t do this.”
“I take it that’s a no on heading back to your place, working this out between your sheets?”
“Fuck. Is everything a joke to you? This isn’t some game.”
“No, it’s not.” Hadn’t been a game in years, and Linc damn well knew that. He met him hard stare for hard stare before Linc turned on his heel, undoubtedly ready to go sulk somewhere and blame Jacob for all this when he had been the one doing the kissing. Again.
“Night,” he called, determined that this wasn’t the end of things, not by a long shot. “Don’t forget about Mom’s party Sunday.”
Whirling around, Linc made a very ungracious noise. And it was a low blow to be sure, but it felt good to land the hit nonetheless, watching as Linc went pale then flushed, opening and closing his mouth a number of times.
“I’ll be there,” he ground out at last.
Jacob gave him a mock salute. “Counting on it.”
* * *
Linc had seldom been so reluctant to have a day off, and not even a long run with Ray and Garrick early Sunday morning settled him. He didn’t bring up Ray talking to Jacob while they worked out. First because he didn’t want Garrick involved, but also because he didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t that much of a surprise—anyone with eyes probably had noticed Jacob’s behavior after Linc’s dad died and Jacob was around helping him, a near daily thing. Then Jacob had come out and everything had gone to shit with Wyatt. Jacob had toned it down some over time, kept the flirting private, but Linc had been deluding himself if he’d thought Wyatt was the only one who had figured out Jacob had a crush back then.
Although, as he pounded out the miles along the back roads in companionable silence with his friends, dogs at their heels, he had to be honest with himself, admit that calling it a crush was maybe not the fairest to Jacob. That implied that Linc was blameless, like he hadn’t eaten up the attention right up until Wyatt warned him off. Jacob at least had had the excuse of being nineteen, horny and on the rebound. Linc was supposed to be the older, wiser one, but even now he could recall exactly how Jacob had looked helping him move mountains of crap out of the house, muscles flexing right along with that damn dimpled grin, sun in his eyes, sweat rolling down his neck, a trail that Linc had wanted to trace with his tongue. Then Wyatt had reminded him where his loyalties lay, and he’d boxed up all those impulses, tried to forget the moments spent working side by side, Jacob a bright spark in one of the darkest of times in his life.
At least Ray thought all that was in the past, small mercies. Both his friends seemed oblivious to Linc’s inner turmoil as they headed back toward his place. Which was how it should be. No one knew about that...collision after the funeral. And if Ray had a suspicion about Linc himself, well, he wouldn’t be the only one of Linc’s friends to know. Wyatt had, mainly because they’d been kids together and he’d told him everything once upon a time. Garrick knew. Linc had never been particularly good at faking attraction with women, bumped along here and there with some ill-advised short-term relationships, but mostly he’d just lived his life as he saw fit, privately as possible. It wasn’t a state secret or anything, just something Linc preferred to keep away from work and stupid people.
Bigger issue was this thing with Jacob. Not that there was a thing, but Ray thought he sniffed smoke, and Linc needed to be damn sure there wasn’t a fire for him to find. Hell, he didn’t know how to admit to himself let alone Ray that neither of them had ever let that long-ago attraction lie in the dirt where it belonged. No, it had merely shifted. Become a private game almost where Jacob tried to get him in bed, a score he was determined to settle, and Linc resisted, and not just because of Wyatt and having a healthy love of his own skin. No, he’d resisted because those old feelings, those moments, they weren’t a game to him, not ever. Not even when they drove him to do desperate things like after the funeral and again on Friday when he’d lost his damn mind, kissing Jacob in the parking lot, when he didn’t even have the excuse of grief and guilt.