Page 37 of The Trust
“I didn’t, I swear,” he answers automatically.
Licking my lips, I drop my sight back down to the soft smile on Lemon’s tear-tracked face. “Stay here with him.”
Giving Mac’s fingers a squeeze, I step back from the two of them and Lemon immediately burrows into Mac’s chest.
My heart pinches to see it, the two of them, and when I meet Mac’s swirling greenish eyes, I have the craziest thought ever in a moment like this.
He’s gonna make a great dad.
Swallowing hard, I rush to the door and pull it open.
Just as Lemon said, there’s an entire line waiting outside. It’s long enough that I can’t tell where it ends, and though it’s shrouded in the darkness of the cold early morning, it’s the second most colorful group I’ve ever seen.
“Oh, shit, it’s him,” someone mutters, and several people turn their gazes on me. And then a few more. More until almost the entire block is looking at me.
A silence falls over the rainbow-speckled crowd, and I swallow thickly.
“Hi,” I manage to say to the closest person, half breathless and confused. “Can I help you guys?”
“Yeah! We’re all looking to sign up for your gym. This is yours, right?”
I mutter something affirmative, though my brow dips, and step back to start ushering people in.
Lemon and Mac both meet them as they file in, clipboards in their hands and start taking information.
My gym is near standing capacity when I finally see a face I recognize.
“Poe!Poe,” I call out and squeeze my way through the throng of people. “What the hell is all this?”
He shrugs his slim shoulders, a small smile tugging on the corner of his lips.
“You haven’t seen the video?”
My brows meet and he pulls out his phone, the case a clash of color to his all-black attire and loads up a video.
“Get the fuck outta my house,” my voice filters through the speaker, kept low for the two of us and my stomach rolls. “Maybe it’d come with your own queer-awakening like it did mine.”
I swallow. Hard.
“How the fuck did this end up online?”
“Everyone is welcome here,” The voice on the phone says—my voice—and I meet Poe’s gaze. “And I mean everyone.”
I was so frustrated … soangryat Craig. Hurt even. That someone I’d let into my spaces had such vile thoughts and feelings toward someone that was different than him.
It clouded my judgement.
I had no clue I was being recorded.
But as I look around, some of the crowd watching me with smiles, some nodding when I make eye contact, I don’t have it in me to regret a single second.
“They’ve been looking for somewhere safe. Somewhere tobelong.” I swing back around to Poe with a burning in my eyes. “They saw what they needed to come here.”
“You did this. You made people feel welcomed here,” says a voice I’d recognize in my sleep, and I turn to Mac.
“But I didn’t post that. I wouldn’t have.”
“Doesn’t matter, baby,” he says softly and cups the back of my neck, tugging until I fall into him and my forehead rests on his shoulder.
