All That Glitters by Kate Sherwood

Author:Kate Sherwood [Sherwood, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-525-5
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-06-26T05:00:00+00:00

STUPID. BEN was so stupid, letting himself get dragged back into the old patterns with Liam.

Sure, he was easy to talk to. Easy to work with, look at, be around. Easy to admire, easy to care about.

Easy for Ben to get his heart broken. Again.

“My back’s a bit sore,” he told Uncle Calvin. “Maybe there’s a different job I could do for the rest of the morning? I don’t mean to wimp out—” I just can’t trust myself around Liam Marshall.

Uncle Calvin, in some sort of modern miracle, nodded. “That’s fair,” he said. “I can make some changes.” He pulled a well-folded sheet of paper out of his back pocket, peered at it, then bellowed, “Seth! Liam! You two and Ben are going to do some painting.”

“No,” Ben started, but Uncle Calvin steamrolled over him.

“We’re painting the trim before we put any of it on,” he explained. “Once it’s installed we’ll just touch up the nail holes and be done with it. And it’s all white, so that’s easy too. You can set up over there, by the shed.”

“No,” Ben started again, but by then Liam and Seth had both joined them.

“No more framing?” Seth asked. “I thought we were really getting into the rhythm of things.”

“Little Benny’s back is hurting him,” Uncle Calvin explained.

Seth nodded. “It’s been a while since Little Benny has done any real work.”

“He did okay with your raspberry bushes,” Liam said. Then he added, “And, honestly, my back’s sore too. I know, I’m just another spoiled office drone, right?” He turned to Ben. “Right between your shoulder blades? Feels like someone’s cutting you with a razor blade every time you move your arms?”

Well, yes, damn it, that was exactly what it felt like, but the idea had been to get further away from Liam, not to have the man stick up for him and commiserate about their shared pain.

“Maybe we should just fight through it,” Ben suggested. Not that it really mattered—going back to work on the framing with Liam would be just as intolerable, just as irresistible, as shifting over to work on painting, still with Liam.

“Take a break, stretch out, come back to it later,” Uncle Calvin advised. “This is a weekend-long marathon. Can’t have you falling apart the first morning.”

Falling apart. A melodramatic way to refer to a sore back, but strangely apt as a description of Ben’s actual issue. He felt like he was dissolving—well, no, not all of him dissolving, just the outer parts. The barriers he needed in order to protect himself from Liam were crumbling. Ben was left exposed and vulnerable. And he didn’t like it.

Or at least he shouldn’t like it. But when Liam grinned at him and wondered out loud when they’d turned into old men, it was impossible not to grin back. And having started grinning, so very difficult to stop, or to persuade himself he should feel bad for not stopping.

They got back to work, and after a while, Ben gave up on trying to resist.

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