Page 26 of Every Broken Thing

Startled at my admission, his eyebrows disappeared into his curls, and my face boiled. Paint? Why were we even talking about this?

“I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“I’m not!” I denied vehemently, running my hand through my hair. “I suck at art.”

“Apparently not.”

I shook my head and kicked at the inside of his knee, making him smother a chuckle. “The only time I touch paints is when I’m making the backdrops and set pieces for theater.”

“Is that the reason you help with theater?”

Yes, but I couldn’t admit that—the truth was too embarrassing. “I don’t know.”

Ben’s elbows rested on the lip of my truck-bed wall, but his shoe nudged my thigh once, twice. “There’s nothing wrong with liking to paint. Maybe you should try painting for fun.”

“How stereotypical,” I scoffed, picking at the lint on my pants. “The misunderstood queer artist trope is a little over-played don’t you think?”

His chuckle floated into the darkening sky. “I don’t think your sexual orientation predicts your hobbies.”

“Unless my hobby is fucking guys.”

His blue eyes lowered to his lap as his ears turned red for the hundredth time since he’d crawled into my truck. “Is that your hobby?”

I scowled, remembering the many rumors circulating about me and my devious sexual endeavors. “According to the school rumor mill, yes.”

“And according to you?”

His stare held a challenge, and instead of sassing him, I swallowed the unexpected vulnerability swelling my throat shut. “No.”

The quiet was slightly awkward this time, and I studied the drive-in logo on my empty cup like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Hesitant fingers grazed the skin of my ankle, not quite pressing. Like a question, like he was… asking permission.

When I didn’t tell him to stop or pull away, his fingers wrapped around my ankle completely, his chilled palm somehow burning through my skin. His head bowed, eyes latched to his hand on my ankle, as if his action surprised him like it did me, but he didn’t pull away.

“Not that I listen to rumors,” Ben started, his voice barely above a whisper, “but you’re not that person, whoever those assholes say you are. That’s not you.”

His words hurt.

“You don’t know me,” I echoed the words I spoke earlier in my truck, and Ben’s vulnerable response was barely audible.

“Maybe I’d like to.”

Our eyes met, a tentative intensity sparking through the air, and my veins simmered. “Why?”

He smiled, sad but hopeful. “I told you last night, you’re real. Maybe I need real.”

This, whatever the fuck it was, was too much, too close. I wasn’t good with emotion or connection, stupid human shit. It was easier to reinforce the security walls I built around myself.

Instead of responding, I broke the charged moment, shifting my leg so his hand fell away. He tightened it into a fist, pressing the balled hand into his thigh as his skin deepened fire-engine red.

“I should get you back to your car,” I said, ending our scary, bewildering exchange, and his shoulders slumped.

“Okay,” he agreed, disappointed but resigned.

We cleaned up the truck bed, and Ben tossed our trash while I practically fell from the back of my vehicle, barely saving myself from face-planting on the asphalt. I wasn’t certain, but the hint of a chuckle tickled my ears, like he’d seen it.

“Walk much?” He rounded the nose of my truck, and I opened the driver’s door with a dry stare.

“Shut up, butt-munch.” I smiled as the insult broke the strange tension between us.

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