Attraction - a fraudulent marriage

26. meetings (new)

This is a completely new chapter of Attraction, enjoy :)

We were back in the car, getting ready to leave. Not to drive away, but to visit the town center. Lizzy had quickly ordered us to stay the night on the sofa that converted into a bed if you pulled some kind of lever beneath it, and staying the night meant birthday presents. It also meant meeting the family.

I had a feeling Tom and Luke hadn't talked it all out, they couldn't have, but staying the night would give them another chance.

"So, that went well."

Tom twitched, not looking as relaxed as I had thought he would be. "Yes." His tone was clipped.

"What's wrong?"

"This is a bad idea."

His words punched my gut. The change in his demeanor had been so sudden that I hadn't been prepared at all. "What is a bad idea?"

"Going into town. Together."

I almost snapped back, but my brain hadn't caught up, and I didn't want to make it worse by lashing out. Breathing slowly, I tried to calm down. I was hurt—because my first deduction was that he didn't want people to know about us, that he was ashamed. But just an hour ago, he'd showed me off to his brother. It didn't make sense. I knew we weren't really a couple but...

"I'm not following. What is bad about us going into town together?" There, I'd asked the question, and I'd sounded calm.

"You don't know what it's like here." Tom didn't even look at me, staring out the windshield. Antsy. Before today, I'd never seen him like this.

I touched his shoulder, but rather than accepting my caress, he flinched. I withdrew as if burned.

My heart was running a mile a minute, and not for the good sort of reasons.

He tilted his head and stared at the car's ceiling. I recognized turmoil when I saw it, but I had no idea what was going on and it was scaring the hell out of me. Had something happened in the house that I wasn't aware of? Had he been able to keep his composure until we sat in the car?

"Please, tell me what's wrong." Everything hurt. I was terrified of rejection. I thought we'd been doing great. Not this...

He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Joah. I can't expect you to know this." Another deep inhale. "I'm not sure what will happen in town. It might get bad. Very bad."

"Homophobia?"

"Yes. And more." Strangely enough, he seemed to have eased into his seat after my reply.

"I think we can deal with that. We're getting your niece a present. Harmless."

He took my hand, laced our fingers. The pain in my chest receded.

"Whatever I say, I fear you won't be prepared."

"Then we might as well just go. We can't sit here all day." The engine was running to keep the AC alive—otherwise we would have been fried by now.

"All right. Don't reply to anyone if they say something. And just know I won't let anything happen. Trust me, okay?"

"Okay." I didn't know what else to say. He still hadn't said what we would encounter. I'd dealt with homophobes before, and although it had never been a pleasant experience, I'd managed to walk away with my head held high.

We didn't drive far. The city was tiny by all accounts. Tom pointed at a building where he'd gone to school, but that was about it. No further trips down memory lane. It seemed like a cozy place with plenty of nice postcard houses. I had a hard time figuring out why he was so nervous about it all, but he'd asked me to trust him, which I did. Whatever was wrong with this place, it was hidden behind pretty façades.