Weight of Silence(25)

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” He tried to take a step backward, away from the car, and his knee flared. He stumbled.

Rey grabbed his right elbow and held him steady. “Easy.”

Jace felt like a jackass for running out into the street like that. “I got caught up, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“No kidding. Seriously, though, are you hurt?”

“Banged my knee a little, I think.”

Rey looked down, as if he could assess the damage through Jace’s sweatpants. “Listen, I can drive you to the hospital—”

“No! I mean, it’s not that bad, really. I’m sure I’ll walk it off.”

“Jace, if you did something that needs a doctor—”

“I didn’t, I promise. It’s just sore.” As if to prove his point, Jace took a few steps back and forth next to the idling car. His knee hurt like a son of a bitch, but he wasn’t going to let Rey feel guilty about this. Or have the accident mess with his insurance. Mostly Jace wanted to go home and back to bed.

Rey gave him a dubious look. “At least let me drive you home, okay? Sam will kill me if I don’t do that.”

“You’re going to tell him?” Something about the idea of Rey’s cop boyfriend knowing about this frightened him, and he couldn’t explain why.

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t? It was an accident, Jace.” Rey frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, shaken up a little, but I’m fine.”

“Well, shaken up is to be expected. Hell, I’ll be coming down off an adrenaline high here soon too.” He gave a rough laugh, and Jace saw exactly how worried Rey was—not only that he’d hit a pedestrian, but that he’d hit the son of a friend. He couldn’t imagine the things going through Rey’s head right now, and the last thing Jace wanted to do was make it worse.

“A ride home sounds good,” Jace said.

“Good. I mean, it’s the least I can do.”

“Weren’t you going in the other direction, though?”

“Just some errands, but they can wait. Come on.”

Rey opened the front passenger door for him, and Jace slid inside the small hatchback. It smelled like spices, warm things like cinnamon and clove, as if the car had been full of sticky buns. His knee ached from being bent, but he’d had knee injuries before and this was most likely a simple bruise. He’d ice it when he got home. Air from the heaters blasted him in the face and made him sweat more than he already was. He angled one of the vents toward the window.

Jace buckled up as Rey climbed back into the driver’s seat. He tried to covertly study Rey as the older man used someone’s driveway to turn the car around. He didn’t know Rey or Samuel very well, not like his parents did. Jace envied the couple. It wasn’t easy being gay in a small town, but both men were extremely easy to like—according to Jace’s father, because Samuel intimidated the hell out of him. They lived quiet lives and had a lot of friends, not to mention the support of most of the community.

“Something on your mind?” Rey asked, and Jace realized he’d lost his covertness and was openly staring. “Other than your knee?”

“Can I ask you something?” He didn’t know what possessed him to bring this up. He just had to talk to someone else. Someone who wasn’t close to him and who could provide an unbiased perspective.

Rey gave a gentle laugh. “Considering I nearly ran you over with my car, yes, ask away.”

“It’s pretty personal.”

“If I’m offended, I’ll tell you. Ask.”

Jace swallowed, suddenly horribly thirsty. Now or never, though. “How old were you when you came out to your parents?”

In profile, Rey’s jaw twitched, but his face remained otherwise neutral. He negotiated a left turn that took them into Jace’s neighborhood. “Well, my father died when I was twelve, so that was never an issue. I figured out I was gay in high school, and at the time, my best friend was a girl my age named Carly. My junior year, Mom kept bugging me about Carly and why we weren’t dating when we spent every minute together. One night I blurted it out over dinner. Mom was actually pretty cool about it. She was cool about most things.”

Something sad passed across Rey’s face, and Jace didn’t have to ask to know she was dead. Was he supposed to offer condolences years after the fact? Or simply thank Rey for his honest answer to an extremely personal question?

“Any particular reason you asked me about that?” Rey asked, and when Jace didn’t speak up, he added, “You know, anything you say in this car stays in this car.”