Thank goodness I won’t be at the mill as much.
But the glaring reminder that the man was straight made itself known as he turned to introduce his now sixteen-year-old son, Clint, and his twelve-year-old daughter, Millie. They both looked like their father, which was lucky for them because his genes had produced handsome children.
“Landon here’s gonna be training you,” Landon’s father beamed. “He’s been managing the mill while we looked for a new manager.” He patted Landon on the shoulder proudly. “He’s been a big help while we’ve been short-handed.”
Jay’s eyes went wide. “You’ve been managing and makin’ hauls?” Jay seemed impressed.
“Yeah, it’s been a long year. Glad to have someone to take some of the load.” Landon almost groaned when his brain immediately supplied a dirty connotation to his latter statement. Oh, this was gonna suck. And not in a good way.
“I’m just glad for the work. Hope I don’t disappoint.”
Landon’s father waved off Jay’s concern and assured the man he was sure they’d made the right decision bringing him on.
Regardless of his traitorous dick, Landon couldn’t help being relieved. His dad was usually a good judge of this stuff and Landon felt that much closer to being free of so much extra responsibility. He also reminded himself how long it’d been since he’d gotten laid. He would be able to go to Jackson, to the bar, and find someone for some fun once he got Jay trained up. That’d surely make the whole horny-for-the-straight-man thing easier to handle.
He hoped.
Chapter 2
Jay hugged his daughter and told her goodnight before wandering to Clint’s room. He knocked and stuck his head in. “Hey, Clint.”
Clint looked up from his laptop with a smile. “What’s up, Dad? Have a good time?”
Jay tried his best to contain the grimace that tried to steal over his face. “Was your sister good for you?” he deflected.
“Yeah. Expected you to be later, honestly.” Clint rolled his eyes when Jay harrumphed.
“No, I gotta work early tomorrow. Thanks for watching Millie.”
“No problem. Glad you got out for a while. It’s been too long.”
“Yeah, well.” Jay didn’t want to touch that, but he felt lucky to have such great kids. They’d taken his first foray into dating life in stride. They’d had three years to get used to the idea, but he still felt weird telling them where he was going tonight. “Thanks anyways. Lights out in thirty, okay?”
Clint nodded his assent and went back to whatever he was doing on his laptop. His kids were great. They could have been much harder on him for moving them back down to Webster county or making them switch schools, but after three years, he’d needed a little more help than he could get in Columbus and his ex’s parents had mentioned that the Pettys had an opening for a manager at their mill. The new job meant more time at home. The pay wasn’t quite as much, but it was comparable, and the cost of living was half what he’d been paying. The kids were glad to have more dad time and to see their grandparents. Since Jay’s parents were dead and their mother was in Atlanta, they’d missed having family around so it hadn’t been a hard sell. Yeah, they’d balked at moving to the sticks at first, but it had gone much more smoothly than Jay had expected.
Jay made his way downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a beer and his cell phone before stepping on the back porch. As he dialed his ex-wife, he breathed in the fresh air and enjoyed the silence that came with not having neighbors for miles. He’d missed having a whole corner of the earth to himself.
“Jay!” Bethany’s happy voice chirped through the earpiece of his phone.