Never a Hero

sucks,” he sighed. “It’ll be months before I get all this shit unpacked.”
    “Where’d you move here from?”
    “Across town.” His gaze was sheepish. “Got busted by my landlord.”
    “Like, with drugs or something?”
    He gestured at the dogs, now sprawled around us on the kitchen floor. “Dogs. I only had Bert when I signed the lease, but more kept turning up, needing homes.”
    “What do you do?”
    “I’m a veterinarian. I have an office downtown.”
    That surprised me, although I couldn’t have said why. He was so comfortably good-looking. So casually sexy. Somehow, I’d expected him to have a glamorously dangerous job. Like a race car driver, although there were obviously no race car tracks in Tucker Springs. The idea of him as some kind of doctor, spending his days helping wounded animals, only added to his charm.
    Charm I was suddenly desperate to ignore.
    “So, you’re alone?” I asked, looking around at the boxes. “I thought maybe the guy with the tattoos . . .”
    I let my words trail to a halt, wondering if the question was too personal, hoping I hadn’t offended him by assuming he was gay, but he smiled. “Seth? No.” He leaned a little closer. “I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.”
    My heart began to race. I’d only thought to make small talk, to get my mind off how attractive he was, and I’d managed to make things a hundred times worse. The implication of his words filled me with something that was part dread, part absolute joy. I didn’t trust myself to speak without my old stutter appearing. “Oh,” was all I managed to say.
    He leaned closer, and I felt compelled to meet his gaze. He had dark blue eyes, and they bored into me with a directness that was unnerving. “Are you single?”
    Yes! Yes, I’m single.
    Fast on the tail of that thought came the fact that he had no idea how fucked-up I was.
    “Uh . . .”
    But before I could formulate an answer, before I could compel my heavy tongue to speak, his mood changed. The intensity of his gaze wavered, and his shoulders slumped. His playfulness gave way to something new.
    Regret?
    He sat back in his seat, looking down at his dogs. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
    My heart was still pounding. My palm was sweaty, and I wiped it on my jeans. I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “I think I started it.”
    He laughed, but it wasn’t the way he’d laughed earlier. This laughter had a hard edge to it. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
    “Forgot what?”
    He put his head in his hands and rubbed his face, suddenly looking weary. “It’s been a long day.”
    I had no idea what had just happened between us, but I knew when I’d overstayed my welcome. I stood up, and when he looked up at me, I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved.
    “It was nice meeting you,” I said. The words felt inadequate. Utterly mundane.
    “You didn’t even get a chance to finish your beer.”
    “Yeah, well.” I floundered for something to say. “Maybe another time.”
    It felt like a stupid thing to say, but he smiled at me anyway. “I’d like that.”
    I went alone back up the stairs to my porch and stood at the railing of my balcony, looking down at the yard. Bert and Betty were outside now, sniffing among fallen leaves and the dead husks of Regina’s flowers. The sky overhead was cloudless, the stars bright and clear. A cool breeze caressed my skin, and for once, I didn’t care that my left arm was bare.
    It was a perfect fall evening, the kind of evening that made every kid think longingly of pumpkin patches and corn mazes and trick-or-treating. But I wasn’t thinking of those things. I was thinking of Nick’s parting words.
    I’d like that.

That night, I dreamed about Nick. I couldn’t remember the details when I woke, but I knew it had been about him, and I knew it had been erotic. I was left with a lingering sense of arousal that made me uneasy.
    I’d known since I was a teenager that I was attracted to men—I was well past being able to deny it—but somehow, I’d never pictured myself in a homosexual relationship. There were plenty of gay men who married women and made normal lives for themselves. That was what I wanted, not because I thought homosexuality was a sin, but because I’d already disappointed my mother too many times. First I’d had the bad luck to be born flawed. Later, the stutter had developed. Then there’d been high school.
    I didn’t want to think about