Boot(s)

37- Boot

Sergeant Jackson

I woke up clutching Bobby's naked torso, my good leg wrapped around both of his. His skin was sticky with sweat underneath mine, and we had lost most of the duvet, but still, I was smiling into his neck, waking him up inch by inch with my touch.

He mumbled a deep scratchy form of acknowledgment, tightening his grip on my shoulder as my hand dipped into his boxers. His back arched under the weight of my good morning. He turned to press his lips to mine. It wasn't a kiss, really. It was his mouth breathing hoarsely, raggedly against mine, silently telling me exactly how much I affected him. All with just one touch.

We were both showered and changed at the breakfast table, touching, stealing looks, cheeks turning red, when Bo brought it up. "Pete, we gotta tell my dad."

I nodded, pulling my fingers from his to take another bite of the bacon egg and cheese I had promised the night before. I swallowed it down with black coffee. "Definitely. Let's have him for dinner this week. Before Sunday."

"And Bella," he added, crunching up a napkin and tossing it on his plate.

I let out a low whistle. "Now why do I feel like that's gonna be the hard one?"

Across from me, Bo cracked his soft, charming side smile. The pink triangles that liked to form on his cheeks hadn't left all morning. "Because it is."

Bella knew something was up since the moment she tossed her pink Jansport backpack into the backseat. Bo was overly attentive, asking her a million questions about her day: what she ate a lunch, who she sat with, what she learned in her math class. I was silent—my usual teasing and sarcasm were absent—making the car feel a whole lot bigger.

"You guys are being weird."

"What?" Bo turned around to eye her from the front seat before quickly turning back to face the road. "No, we're not. Why would you say that?"

She snorted, catching the terrified expression on my face in the mirror. "Whatever."

We were pulling into the driveway and Millie was lounging on the front lawn—it was one of the last nice days of the fall—so she quickly lost interest in the conversation and bolted from the car as soon as Bo put it in park. Her hands were ruffling the lab's ears as soon as physically possible.

He took a deep breath before looking over at me. "Ready?"

"Don't have a choice now do we?"

Bella had found her seat at the kitchen table and was already pulling out pens and colored pencils and her sketchpad from the big pocket in her backpack when we walked inside.

"You want a snack?" Bo asked her, dropping the keys on the kitchen counter. He headed for the pantry closet without waiting for a response, his fingers snapping at his sides. "We got those honey mustard pretzels you like." His voice was shaking. I winced, taking a seat across from the source of all the nerves.

"Yes, please!"

She was chock full of pretzels and hummus—Bo had already restocked us twice—when Bo deemed her ready enough for the conversation.

"Get her in her groove," we had planned on the way over to her school. "Get her a snack, get her focused on something, then we slip it in. Boom, done."

So far, we were 2 out of 3.

"So," he cleared his throat. "Bella."

The two of us were sitting across from the poor girl, hands folded properly in front of us like we we're going to tell her we were getting a divorce. I could see the sweat on Bo's interlocking fingers. He eyed me, quickly, then cleared his throat again.

"Well, Peter has something to tell you."

I mouthed a quick what the fuck in his direction, thankful she hadn't raised much more than her hand for the past five minutes, and ignored his adorable anxious shrug to turn back to the girl I now had to reveal all the secrets to.

"Bella," I began, placing one hand in my lap, the other on her elbow. Finally, she glanced up at us. I guess the disturbed, blank stare I was probably wearing caught her attention.

"Jeez, what? I knew you guys were being weird. You look like a ghost."

She had called attention to all the emotions I had been trying to suppress (Bo was chicken enough for us both) and suddenly, I was speechless.

But lucky enough for us, when one couldn't speak, apparently the other could. "Bella," Bo took over. "You remember why mom told you I don't date people, right?"

She looked utterly perplexed. Like, why the hell has this got to with me, godpops? "Uh, yeah. They all think you're some celebrity or something. Hard to find someone who's normal."

"Well, yes, but –"

"Sorry, and you're gay. So that makes it harder too, she said."

I allowed myself a snort disguised as a measly cough. Bo shot me a look but maintained his ground. "Yeah. Right. That's right. But guess what?"

By now, she had deemed this conversation uninteresting. She had picked up her Tiffany Blue colored pencil and was coloring in those hydrangeas with no other mission in the world. "Hm?"

"Well, Miss. Bella," this voice got her attention. Bo hardly used his Miss. Bella voice, unless she was wildly uncontrollable. "What if I told you I'm dating someone?"

Her eyebrows raised along with her lips. The smirk on her face was absolute comedy. "Oh yeah? Who?"

Bo hesitated. Eyed me.

When I told her, "me," I tried my best not to sound so small. And then, I realized why I had to fight so hard to speak. What if Bella, the most important thing in Bobby's world, what if she didn't approve?

It took her a few seconds, but the smirk—it was a smile, now. "Oh my god! Yes! Two gay uncles! Two guncles! Finally, I have something to brag to Angela about."

Later that week when we had Pop over for dinner, while we were admittedly less nervous about telling him, Bo still gripped my hand under the table when he told his dad we were in a relationship.

Pop open-mouthed stared at the two of us, eyes drifting back and forth between us for upwards of 20 seconds. I can't remember if Bo or I gripped the other person tighter, then. 

Finally, Pop closed his lips, rolled them, then tilted his head and eyed his son. "Isn't that... Wasn't that already going on?"

"What?" Bo was chuckling. "No, Dad. It all sorta happened just this week ."

Pop still looked elaborately baffled. "But y'all... Y'all live together! You're trying to tell me this," he paused to gesture between the two of us. "This smilin' and secret touchin' and nonsense has been nothing but friendship?"

It was safe to say Pop wasn't going to be raising any hell at us.

And hey! We were guncles!