Hope on the Rocks (Rainbow Cove)

“Sooner we get going, the sooner we can get back.” I slipped into the passenger seat before I could talk myself into snatching another kiss.

“Sounds like a plan.” Settling himself in the driver’s seat, he swapped his usual glasses for sunglasses. The sunglasses made him look more like a rich pilot than his usual hot-nerd self, and something about the look turned my crank, made me that much more determined to take him apart later.

I watched him enter the store’s address into the car’s GPS. “I am sorry for springing the change on you,” I said.

“It’s all right. I don’t mind helping your mom.” He headed for 101. I was happy to see traffic was relatively light.

“Thanks. It’s her busy season, so there’s a lot that needs doing.” I stretched my legs. Quinn was a competent if cautious driver, checking his mirrors often and going a few miles under the speed limit. I could relax for a spell.

“You’re a good son.” Slowing for a red light, he gave me a warm smile.

I was usually more about handing out praise than receiving it, but his appreciation did feel good, made my shoulders lift. “She’s a good mom. The best, really. She built an amazing business after my deadbeat sperm donor skipped town, and she’s always been there for me.”

“It’s important to have people in your corner.” Quinn spoke like someone who truly understood that and had been burned by trusting too freely in the past.

“Word. My senior year of high school sucked. My mom is the only reason I graduated.”

“What happened?” Quinn sounded all concerned.

I shifted around in my seat, wincing. Quinn hadn’t been around when my teenage life had blown up, making me the hot topic of small-town gossip for a few months. It was ancient history, but there was no reason not to tell him. “I had a thing on the down-low with another football player. He was a far better athlete than me, with a scholarship waiting for him. We thought we were so sneaky, but someone outed me.”

Quinn made a dismayed noise like he’d actually known me back then or at least cared about what had happened. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“Eh. Now, I mainly look back and shrug.” I didn’t quite know what to make of Quinn’s empathy, so I hurried through the rest of the story. “Someone shared a pic. It was obvious that two guys were making out in the cab of my truck. I was visible, easy to recognize, but he wasn’t. I was fucking sick of the rumors, so I finally just said, ‘Fuck this noise, yes, I’m gay, deal with it.’ ’Course that was over twelve years ago, and the stupid comments and practical jokes, like filling my locker with inflated condoms, were enough that I quit the team rather than deal with more idiots. My mom was my rock through the whole mess.”

“Wow. You were so brave.” Quinn said it like I was some sort of hero, which was laughable. I’d just been a kid with a temper who’d been pushed far enough.

“Mom deserves more credit than me.”

“Well, I think you were both brave. You never found out who shared the picture?”

“Nope. Doesn’t matter. Like I said, ancient history. Whoever it was, they gotta get right with their own conscience.” I’d long ago decided that I was better off not knowing. I had to live here, and letting anger consume me with what-if scenarios was not healthy. “The other guy wasn’t about to come out, so that ended. He went on to play Division 1 baseball, got himself a degree. And last I heard, he was in Seattle, married to a dude, so guess that worked itself out eventually too.”

“Wow.” Quinn shook his head. “You weren’t tempted to seek out a fresh start somewhere else too?”

“Where would I go?” I scoffed. “I wasn’t a decent enough ball player to get scholarship money. Not book smart enough to hack it on my grades either. And Mom and Ramona needed me. They stuck by me. I wasn’t about to be one more person letting them down.”

“That’s admirable. Really.” At the next light, he gave me another of those hero-worshiping looks.

“Eh.” I slunk a little lower in the seat. I wasn’t all that. “I don’t know about admirable. I just did what needed to be done. I stayed close with Mason, and when the chance came to buy the Rainbow Tavern, I grabbed it because what better fuck-you to any narrow-minded folks than success. Mason’s dream of turning the area into a magnet for LGBTQ tourism is a good one too.”

“It is. That’s part of why I took the job here. I saw an article about the restored resort and decided it might be the right change of scenery for me.”

“See? It’s working already, getting fresh blood to the town. What I went through sucked donkey balls, but maybe some of the kids in school right now won’t have it so rough.”