“Big plans for your half day, Ms. Lynne?” Landon asked as he signed off on his mileage log and put it in the bin on Ms. Lynne’s desk.
She glanced up from the stack of paychecks she’d been sorting through and smiled at him. “Nothin’ major, sweetie. Thought I’d go see my sister up in Starkville.”
“Ah, so the usual,” Landon teased. He always asked that question on their half-days, every other Friday, and she always gave the same answer. Life didn’t change much around these parts. Landon glanced back in the direction of Jay’s office, knowing it’d definitely changed in some drastic way over the last week, though.
Landon was almost afraid of how happy he felt. He’d figured after that night, the beautifully awesome night when Jay had made love—because there was no other way to describe what they’d done that night—with him, maybe Jay’d go M.I.A. But no, Jay had come by almost every night that week.
Yes, they’d gotten each other off each time, sometimes twice, but they’d also gone back to their comfortable friendship. Except, there was touching. Sometimes, Landon would be cooking and Jay’d come up behind him and wrap his arms around Landon’s waist. They’d be watching a game and Jay would put his hand on Landon’s knee. He always seemed to be feeling it out, but Landon wasn’t complaining. He was shocked at how affectionate the man was.
It was almost a dream. He’d always thought, back when he was a closeted kid in a small town, how nice it’d be to have someone there whom he trusted, who wanted him. He wanted someone who got his love of his small town and the country and sat with him on quiet nights with their heads leaned together on the porch swing.
He snorted at himself for being so corny. Since it was a half day at the saw mill, he’d only had to do one haul to Laurel and Jay’d only had to go in for payroll, so Landon offered to help finish Jay’s deck. The weather had started cooling down over the last couple of days, so when Jay said he wanted to finish before it got too cold to work, Landon thought it’d be a good time to test the waters, see if Jay would be okay outside of the comfort zone of Landon’s house.
Landon was not ready to give Jay up yet, and he feared at this point, he was already in over his head.
“Landon?”
He turned his attention back to Ms. Lynne, who arched one of her painted on brows. “Ma’am?”
“I asked if you were doing anything special.” Her frown held a level of displeasure Landon hadn’t ever had turned his way, even if the old bat didn’t particularly care for him. She cast an unhappy glance back toward Jay’s office, then back to size up Landon.
“Oh, no ma’am. Nothing special.” Nothing that was her business anyway. He did his best to keep his game face on. Jay would not look kindly on Landon’s mooning outing their current… situation.
“You behave yourself, y’hear?” The words loaded with innuendo did not fall on deaf ears, nor did the calculating look in Ms. Lynne’s eyes go unnoticed. He didn’t figure she’d cause trouble, but she’d definitely not been fooled by Landon and he had not one clue how to control any damage other than smile at her as usual, and affect his best aw shucks attitude.
“I’ll do my best. Figure it’ll be a lazy weekend, doing some chores, helping out where I’m needed.”
Ms. Lynne eyed him another moment before smacking her tongue in her mouth and going back to her work. Landon’s shoulders lost a bit of their tension as he fled her front office and trekked down the hall, giving his daddy a wave.
As nonchalantly as possible, he stuck his head in Jay’s office. “Headed out, boss man.”