May
Shite.
He’d done it again. Kissed her. Spontaneously. He’d walked out to the paddock to help clear the partially demolished barn. Snogging hadn’t been on the agenda.
Her smile had drawn him in, and her laugh when he’d caught her. Her beautiful eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Words might have abandoned him, but his feelings for Andie hadn’t.
Conflicting feelings had been what sent him on his worldwide writing tour. Though neither writing nor forgetting had happened. He thought maybe they both needed to talk.
“Doc?” Andie offered him a pair of gloves. “Give me a hand with this beam? Think it might’ve been part of the load-bearing wall in the barn.”
“You might be right. It’s large enough.” Doc pulled the gloves on. He eyed the beam, trying to decide if the two of them could even manage to lift it without breaking their backs. “Always important to have a good solid base to keep a building standing.”
“A building. A relationship. A barn.” Andie laughed when he rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “How bad is your writing slump to bring you to voluntarily help me with a rubbish pile?”
A fair but harsh assumption. He did have a deadline. One he’d watched go by several times already.
“Less about writing, more about wanting to be outdoors and spend time with you.” Doc wondered if he’d been too honest. He could never tell what a neurotypical might find too blunt. He tested the weight of the beam, giving one end a lift. “How did you plan on carrying this on your own?”
“I’d figure it out.” Andie had been studiously avoiding his gaze. Finally, she peered over at her dog. “Rups might help.”
“Rupert isn’t a pack mule.”
The dog in question rolled around in the grass in response. Doc chuckled. He laughed harder when Rupert sneezed loudly and seemed to go back to napping.
“Doc?”
“Hmm?” He paused while bending down to scratch Rupert’s belly and went to help her instead. They managed with a lot of effort to drag the beam toward the skip. He had to take a moment to stretch his back out when they’d finished. It was now or never. He had to say what he’d been practising on his walk over. “I’m not sorry I kissed you. Either time. I do regret leaving. Conversations aren’t always easy for me.”
“And now?”
“Still not easy.” Doc busied himself by brushing some dirt off his jeans. “I’m too old to run from things that I find difficult.”
“Not sure what your empty manuscript would say in response.” Andie laughed while she chucked what looked like a few rusted tools into the tip. “Fancy a cup of tea and a biscuit? I brought a snack with me.”
“A biscuit to soothe my wounded author pride?”
Andie seemed to turn contemplative after a moment of watching him. She shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand. “I wish you’d stayed.”
Doc sighed deeply. “So do I.”
Regret never solved much of anything in his mind. He’d wasted too much time already, bouncing around aimlessly, trying to talk himself out of his feelings. And maybe away from hers. Absence had served only to make his heart confused.
His fondness for her had never changed.
“I didn’t mind the kiss. I enjoyed it. Both times.” Andie grabbed a thermos out of the bag she’d brought with her to the barn site. She poured tea and offered him the first sip. “We’ll have to share.”
“But?”
“Not a but so much as a clarification.”
“Been cracking open the thesaurus you’re giving me as a present so I can remember all my words?” Doc teased. He tried to lighten the conversation a little, but it was hard to keep his mind from shutting down on him. He wanted to have a complete talk with her. To be able to listen and absorb her thoughts and be capable of responding without needing time to process. “What’s the clarification?”
“We’ve never talked about sex.”
Doc choked on the tea he’d just drunk. He turned his head away from her and coughed a few times, trying to clear his throat. “All right.”
“You know I’ve dated.”
“I’m aware.” Doc had hoped for her happiness while admitting to himself he’d felt a small measure of envy each time.
“I’ve never really come out to my family. My dates have always known if things progressed into anything even slightly serious. My friends know.” Andie reached down to scratch Rupert when he trotted over to lean against her, likely sensing her unease. “I’m asexual.”
“Okay.”
“I enjoy kissing. I experience love. I’m mad about cuddling. But I’ve no interest in sex. Never been sexually attracted to someone.” Andie trailed off when she glanced at him. “Doc?”
“It has a name.” Doc closed his eyes while everything in his mind seemed to spin around like a whirling dervish before slamming to a halt. It was too much to process. All those questions. They had answers. They had a word. A definition. “Oh.”
“What?”
“How I feel. It has a name. Asexuality.” Doc had struggled with a sense of being abnormal for a lot of his life. Society tended to reinforce that. Being autistic certainly played a part for him, but so did his sexuality, particularly as he got older. “You’re going to laugh.”
“I won’t. Though, maybe a bit of research, since there’s an entire spectrum.”
“It doesn’t always occur to me to do research about how I feel.” Doc shrugged. He couldn’t shake the sense of awkward anxiety. He didn’t really have any idea what words were coming out of his mouth. His mind had stopped processing. “To be honest, I’m never a hundred percent certain how I’m feeling in the first place with just about everything. Sexuality included. I imagine I’ll find myself somewhere on that spectrum.”
“You enjoyed the kissing?”
“I did.” He grabbed a couple of biscuits from the packet she held out. “But I didn’t want more.”
“From the kissing or me?”
“From the kissing,” Doc rushed to clarify. “We’ve danced around our feelings for each other. But I’ve never been interested in sex—or attracted to someone that way. I’ve had romantic thoughts about you.”
“Danced round though never quite to the same rhythm.” Andie hopped up to sit on a crate beside him. “We’re stuck on the farm for the time being. Nothing to prevent us from figuring things out together.”
“I’ve been told I’m bad at relationships.”
“Or maybe you’ve spent most of your relationships trying to be someone else? Trying to be what a lot of society thinks we should be?” Andie tossed a toy from her pocket across the field. Rupert was off like a rocket after it. “Who says you can’t evaluate things for yourself? Decide for yourself?”
She made an excellent point. They weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. And writing clearly wasn’t going to happen if he tried to force it.
“Can you be patient with me while I’m figuring it out?” Doc bent down to grab the ball Rupert dropped at his feet. He launched it across the paddock. “Off you go, Rups.”
“I’ll do you one better.” Andie slid closer and placed a hand on his arm. “We can figure it out together.”
Rupert spat the toy out at his feet. Doc sent him racing after it once again. The dog did a brilliant job of releasing tension from difficult moments in the conversation, if nothing else.
“Give me a hand with more of the timber. I made enough sandwiches for two. We can have a late lunch, then go for a walk.” Andie glanced around at the barn. “I’ve made a surprising amount of progress for one morning.”
“In more ways than one.” Doc got to his feet and surveyed the area with her. “I thought you’d gotten someone to demolish it and handle removing the remnants.”
“I had. They did the demolition for the most part but wound up not being able to finish. They’d planned to come back in a month or so.” Andie gestured around at the piles of rubbish. “Not sure when that’ll happen, given the state of the world at large. If I can fill up the skip, maybe I can have them pick it up and empty it. Save some money and give me something to do as well.”
“You can reuse some of the wood. It’s not all rotted out.”
“I’ve thought about it. Some of it I can use while setting up the polytunnels. A lot of it’s ruined, though. Better off not to start with a faulty foundation. I’d only wind up doing triple the work and likely the cost at replacing things for a second time.” Andie launched what looked like a horseshoe at the skip. “I’m keeping everything I can recycle on this trailer. I’ve got a tarp to put over it once we’re finished.”
They worked for another hour before deciding to call it quits. Doc enjoyed sharing her packed lunch. They found a nice shady spot under one of the large trees to eat.
It was almost a date. Almost. Not enough to make him nervous about messing everything up again but enough to seem more than just sandwiches with friends.
Societal niceties had always been a confusing muddle for him. He’d leaned into the reclusive author mystique the older he’d gotten. It made for a brilliant excuse to avoid situations where he felt doomed to fail from the start.
If no one expected him to be chatty or charming, he wouldn’t have to put on the mask. To play pretend. Part of what made him fall in love with Andie was she’d never needed the façade.
She was as comfortable in the silence as she was in talking about the most mundane things. None of it mattered to her. She simply enjoyed his company.
Hard not to fall in love with that.
Andie tapped his hand, offering him one of the two water bottles she’d brought with her. “Not a bad spot for a first impromptu date.”
“Not bad at all.” Doc had to chuckle. He’d missed how often they seemed to almost be able to read each other’s minds. “I’ll even walk you home when we’re finished.”
“And kiss me at my door?”
“After we’ve eaten sandwiches with pickled onions and cheese?” Doc managed to maintain a straight face before they both dissolved into laughter. “Maybe after you brush your teeth.”
“Have you tried writing a book of jokes to cure your block?”
Doc gave her a wounded look, clutching at his chest while she continued to laugh. “Way to hit where it hurts the most.”