Page 8 of Finding You

Dallas looked at him, his expression unreadable. “You have kids? You and your…wife…?”

“Not wife,” Kylen said with a smile. “Not anyone, actually. One-night stand kind of went wrong. But also right, I guess, because I wouldn’t change it for the world. My daughter’s five. She’s getting ready for kindergarten.”

Dallas’s smile widened. “That’s what I teach. Such a weird age.”

Bursting into laughter, Kylen squeezed his hand. “It really is. One minute, she’s sleeping on my shoulder, sucking her thumb like she did when she was a baby, the next, she’s back-talking me like she thinks she’s sixteen.”

Dallas covered his face with his hand. “I am so not ready for that.” After a breath, he looked over. “What, um—” But then the dings began, and he paled, biting his lower lip so hard Kylen was afraid he was going to break the skin.

“Relax. They’re starting takeoff prep. Keep holding my hand,” Kylen said softly. “Pay close attention. This isn’t your first flight, is it?”

“I flew here to visit my brother,” Dallas said, his voice trembling. “But I got to take a Xanax because he was driving.”

“Well, I’ve got you.” Kylen squeezed his fingers harder. “This is a short flight, a good plane, and a great crew. And I also know where they keep the good cookies, so if you can breathe through it until we’re in the air, I’ll have a nice treat for you.”

Dallas laughed, even as his body continued to tense. “You could be a teacher.”

Kylen smiled at him and shook his head. “Nah, hon. I’ll leave that to the experts like you.”

Dallas relaxed by the time they’d reached altitude, and Kylen distracted him by showing him his app that was tracking the flight, the air traffic, pockets of turbulence, and any storms on the horizon. He liked the way it made Dallas’s eyes light up.

The man had a mind like a scientist.

“Why didn’t you go into some kind of STEM?” Kylen asked, putting his phone away.

Dallas took a sip of his Sprite. “I can’t do math. I mean, I can, but it tends to get all jumbled in my head like radio static. And when I push through, I’d get these terrible migraines. Teaching little kids came easy to me.”

Kylen hummed softly. “I wish I’d followed what was easy to me instead of listening to my parents.”

“Helicopter mom?”

“She’s not the easiest person to know. And my sister took after her, so she’s always in my fucking business.” Kylen squeezed his fingers around his ginger ale. “They set their expectations for me really early on, and I felt like if I didn’t meet them, I’d lose everything. It was…hard. I came out when I was fifteen, and I thought I was going to get disowned. My mom literally had a wedding book put together that she planned to give to my future fiancée.”

Dallas’s brows shot up. “That’s…wild.”

“Yeah,” Kylen said from behind a laugh. “That’s one word for it. Anyway, my parents took it…okay. I mean, they weren’t happy, but they weren’t cruel about it. But after my daughter was born, they kind of took that as permission to try and set me up with women. Like my one drunk fumbling negated the fact that I knew who I was and who I wanted to be with.”

Dallas’s cheeks were pink. “Sounds rough.”

Kylen’s shoulders hunched. “Sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“What?” Dallas choked a little. “God, no. I’m so fucking bad at this. And at the risk of sounding like one of those guys, almost all my best friends are queer. And so is my brother. I just feel bad, and I’ve always sucked at showing sympathy. It’s like, I feel it here”—he touched his pec—“but somewhere between there and my mouth, it just gets all knotted up.”

Kylen relaxed. The way Dallas had been casually affectionate with him, he would have been surprised if the man was a raging homophobe, but it was harder to tell these days. Men in their generation were embracing their softer side, but they hadn’t entirely let go of their prejudices. Some of the shit he’d heard come out of the mouths of the younger flight attendants would have gotten someone’s ass kicked for bigotry back when he was their age.

But he could breathe a little easier now. “Sorry. I still get nervous coming out.”

“I get it. But we’re cool. I swear. And I’m sorry your parents suck.”

Kylen waved him off. “It is what it is. If I had a boyfriend, I feel like my life would be a thousand times easier. My sister just showed up at my daughter’s mom’s house, and I have a feeling she’s trying to ambush me with another date. Or she’s trying to convince me to marry my daughter’s mother, who is definitely not into the idea of having a gay husband.”

Dallas pulled a face. “Yikes.”

“Yeah.” Kylen rubbed at his eyes. “We have this family reunion thing we do every year. It’s coming up in a few weeks. We rent a bunch of cabins and glamp for a week. Last year, my sister brought along her coworker and promised the poor girl I’d be into her. I didn’t even realize it until day four when she crawled into my bed in the middle of the night.”

“Jesus,” Dallas breathed.

Kylen rolled his eyes. “She left crying, and everyone called me an asshole.”

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