Page 101 of Courageous Hearts

“You’re okay, though?” she asks.

“Fine. Just a little scratch,” I reply, pausing as I hear the front door open and close. Finally. Bo’s back. “I gotta go. Talk to you both later?”

“See ya,” Sophia says lightly, waving and walking off screen.

Grant gives me a tipped smile. “Take care, brother.”

“You, too,” I answer before ending the call. I pocket my phone and rush, as calmly as I can manage, toward the front door. It’s only been half a day since I last saw Bo, but that never seems to matter.

I can’t get enough.

Yet, when I round the corner and catch sight of Bo near the front window, standing perfectly still as they look outside, my excitement shifts to concern.

“Bo?”

They flinch slightly before turning my way, eyes red and puffy. I step toward them on autopilot, but when Bo holds up a hand to halt me, I stutter to a stop, shocked.

“I almost ran,” they say before I can utter a word. They hug their middle, turning inward. “I didn’t wanna come back here tonight.”

Tingles race across my skin. “What are you talking about?”

“I wanted to run,” they repeat. “But I knew I had to come here and talk to you about it. You taught me that much. How important communication is. So I’m here to hash it out.”

“Bo…” I shake my head, gut hollowing. Hash what out?

“I won’t hide, Jameson,” they say, the use of my full name hitting me harder than I anticipated it would have the ability to. Maybe it’s the tone with which it was said. “I hid for so damn long. Hid who I was. How I wanted to express myself. I promised myself no more.” Bo’s lips tremble as they go on. “There are a lotta things I would do for you, but that’s not one of them. I won’t hide this. Us. I won’t be a secret.”

“Bo,” I repeat, taking a step closer, feeling like I’ve been slashed when Bo holds up their hand again and takes a responding step back. I still, even as every fiber of my being urges me forward. Urges me to fix this. Whatever this is. “I’m not asking you to hide.”

“That’s exactly what you did, though,” they say harshly, their chest rising and falling when they stop to take a full breath. “You acted like I didn’t exist.”

I shake my head, scrubbing a hand through my hair, wanting to pull the strands out because I don’t understand. “What are you talking about? When you left? Before you went to see your Little?”

Did I miss something? A kiss goodbye? Some sign that they needed me which I completely overlooked?

Bo’s expression flickers, confusion followed by anger. “When I saw you at the school,” they state.

I stare, blinking, mouth agape. “What?”

“At the school,” Bo repeats, frustration lacing their tone. “I called out to you, and you ignored me. You looked right at me, and then you ignored me. ’Cause you didn’t wanna be seen with me.”

My breath leaves me in a rush. “Bo, that wasn’t me.”

Their expression hardens in an instant, face set in stone. “I know what I saw.”

“It wasn’t me,” I say, tone pleading. “It had to have been my brother. It had to have been Grant. He’s a teacher.”

“D’you think I’m an idiot?” Bo asks, sounding so damn hurt I want to scream.

“I swear, Bo. Grant and I look exactly alike.”

I take half a step forward, but Bo braces. Holding out my hands, I come to a stop, feeling as if my heart is cracking. Bo has never, not once, refused my touch.

“You’d have to be identical twins,” Bo replies, tone flat.

“We are,” I rush out, nearly laughing with how fucked up this whole thing is. “We are twins.”

Bo goes stock-still, looking at me with wariness but also something that might finally be hope.

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