Of course, by the time he’d gotten off work and headed home for the night, he’d been awake and working for over eighteen hours.
Landon’s offer to come over, even if just to talk, tempted him as he made the journey to his house. There were things left unsaid, yet he’d said more than he ever had in one sitting. He felt a keen guilt that he’d never been that open with his ex-wife. But he felt a comfort around Landon that he’d only felt a couple of times in his life.
He hadn’t told Landon about the time he and Bethany almost split up between her miscarried first pregnancy and her second a couple years later. They were miserable and fighting the better part of a year after the miscarriage and Jay stayed later and later at his job, welding at a machine shop back then. He said it was to earn extra money, but in reality, he’d made another friend like Sammy.
Neil Palmertee had been big and loud and full of life. Jay thought the man was funny and his down to earth attitude was addictive. Jay couldn’t stay away. Again, he hadn’t gotten the implications, the strangeness that his being around another man and thinking the man’s twinkling eyes were so addictive didn’t exactly fit with his being 100% heterosexual.
He’d told Neil things, shared with him in ways he’d felt guilty about at times when Bethany had accused him of being distant. Again, he’d thought it was about men talking about certain things with other men that they didn’t talk about with their wives. That was the way of the world, according to his folks. But thinking back on it, Neil had been his confidant, Bethany an afterthought during that time.
He’d been on the phone with his mother one time, checking in as he did, and he must have mentioned Neil one too many times because she’d been quick to start discussing his failures as a husband. She brought up, again, how he’d worry his daddy if things with Bethany didn’t get back on solid ground.
Jay had been more than a little bitter toward Bethany for having spoken to his mother about their marriage. Bethany knew how easily the woman could guilt him back into toeing the line. That’d almost led to them splitting up, but he’d stayed away from Neil after that. He’d found another job shortly after, to avoid the temptation before even knowing exactly what that temptation had been.
All these years later, he felt guilty for having been so angry at Bethany. He felt even guiltier for not realizing how in the dark she’d been. But she couldn’t know something he himself hadn’t understood.
And now he wished he’d never clicked on that goddamned porn. He wished he didn’t know what it was like to be touched. Because his mind was a flurry of activity, his skin a bundle of need.
After he’d gotten home, showered, and eaten, he felt slightly better. But his body wouldn’t simmer enough to let him sleep any time soon. And there was an open invitation that lingered in that traitorous place in the back of his mind. That damn place had been dark, the door shut for so long, now it was wide open and had a big fluorescent bulb blinking.
He wanted.
Jay wandered upstairs and looked side to side as he stood in the hallways. The doors that opened to his kids’ rooms hung open, revealing the surprisingly clean rooms. Little bits of personality lay about each room. His heart was full when he thought about his kids and how great they’d been over the divorce and Bethany being so far away for now. They wanted him to be happy, even if little Millie still occasionally mentioned wishing Jay and Bethany could reconcile.
Could he do this to them? Was it worth even exploring whether he was as into Landon as he feared he may be?