KEVIN COULDN’T remember when he’d last had so much fun. He’d had to brush up on the rules of Candy Land. It had been about a zillion years since he’d played it last. Wyatt knew the rules, though, which really shouldn’t have been a surprise. And he was smiling. A smiling Wyatt was a simply adorable Wyatt.
Why would anyone want to see Wyatt do anything but smile?
What pleasure could Howard have gotten from making this sweet little man do anything else?
He was startled when he quite abruptly realized that this was the first real one-on-one time he’d ever had with the little bear. Getting signed in at the front gate at Camp during Men’s Festival didn’t count (especially when gatekeepers always had a partner), and that drunken pass Wyatt had made at him one night most certainly didn’t either.
It did hurt Kevin’s feelings a bit that Wyatt didn’t remember the last time they’d played a game together. Of course, that was about seven years ago, and there had been a bunch of them sitting around that dining room table playing the card game Magic: The Gathering. And Wyatt was being the social butterfly and entertaining everyone with his jokes and antics, while Kevin had only had eyes for Wyatt. Thinking back on that day, Kevin wondered if that was when his little crush on him had begun.
I don’t have a crush on Wyatt!
But he’d no sooner thought the denial when he understood he was lying to himself.
Wyatt had been adorable that day too. His face had grown dark with a thick shadow over the week, and he was wearing this big necklace of clunky carved bears and a sarong so short his balls were showing. Not that Kevin had been looking, per se, but a card dropped on the floor had to be picked up, after all. More than once even. Wyatt’s thick brows had been all bunched together, the tip of his pink tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated, trying to decide what card to play next. It had been fun that day too. Howard hadn’t been playing, but then it all seemed to fall apart when the big man did join them.
For just a moment Kevin was brought up short as he semiremembered that day. He had to stifle a gasp. Had Wyatt’s lover been rushing him? Pushing him? God! Yes. And he’d slaughtered Wyatt, hadn’t he? He’d destroyed Wyatt’s hand with about twenty points in Fireball damage when it would have only taken about three points to take him out of the game. Humiliating.
And then Kevin was remembering that day, even if he couldn’t quite remember the rules of that game anymore or the exact sequence of cards played. Wyatt had been clearly shocked when Howard threw down the cards that inflicted the damage. For a moment Kevin thought Wyatt was going to cry and then—clear as a bell—he remembered what Howard, Wyatt’s “lover,” had said that day.
“Oh no! Is the wittle bear-wah gonna cwy?”
And then the expressions that had flashed across Wyatt’s face—all very fast—panic and hurt and embarrassment and maybe anger but ending with the magnificent (if not completely believable) smile that he had chosen to let win.
Kevin remembered Howard’s words, and he almost broke out into a cold sweat because he’d heard words like those himself once upon a time, hadn’t he?
“Oh, are you going to cry now, Kevie?”
…and…
“For Christ’s sake, Kevin! Can’t you fucking shut up for just one single solitary goddamned second?”
…and of course…
“Children should be seen and not heard. And preferably not seen.”
That moment, that day, sitting at that long table in the dining hall across from Wyatt, filled Kevin’s mind.
That’s when I fell in love with him.
What?
Fell in love?
Or at least got my crush.
Kevin came back to the real world then because Wyatt was asking Kevin if he was okay, and he found himself sitting across another table from Wyatt, Candy Land spread out between them.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry. Woolgathering.”
And he understood clearly then why Wyatt hadn’t wanted to play any games.
Those voices. Wyatt had heard voices asking him if he was going to cry. Or expecting Kevin to hit him with twenty points of Fireball damage—or whatever Candy Land’s equivalent was.
But now?
Now Wyatt was smiling. It looked genuine. He seemed to be having fun.
And that made Kevin very happy.
But there was one thing Kevin didn’t do. He didn’t tell Wyatt, “I know just how you feel.” Because he didn’t know just how Wyatt felt. Was there anything worse than someone telling you they knew just how you felt?
Echoes from the memorial service….
“Oh, Kevin. I’m sorry about Cauley. Be strong.”
“He’s in a better place.”
Except Cauley didn’t believe in “other places.”
“He did what he came here to do, and it was his time to go.”
Maybe. But Cauley wouldn’t have thought so.
“I understand just exactly what you’re going through.”
But they didn’t!
And he really didn’t know Wyatt at all, did he?
Wyatt won the first game, and Kevin could have easily beat him the second time, but instead he let the little bear win. Somehow he thought it was important. Wyatt gave him one or two suspicious looks, but Kevin did his best to return an expression of pure innocence.
They advanced to Chutes and Ladders after that, and just as Kevin was convincing Wyatt that they could progress to Sorry! there was a knock on the door.
It was Saffron, and she was inviting them both to lunch. And it was delicious. A big pot of soup. Chicken noodle. And of course it was homemade. Saffron didn’t do anything else.
After that Kevin offered to take a shift with the plow, but Gryphon turned him down.
“It’s my job, Hodor.”
“Call me Kevin, okay? Please.”
Gryphon smiled and Saffron gave a laugh and shook her head. “So different.”
“Different?” Kevin asked.
“Most people who come here? They want to leave their ‘real’ names behind. It’s not just you Men’s Festival people with your Faerie names.”
Kevin nodded. Yes. He knew that, didn’t he?
“And how many of them want to be called Raven?” Wyatt asked.
Saffron gave a pursed smile. “As many as want to be,” she said. “As well as Phoenix and Cat and—”
“Don’t forget Griffon,” Gryphon said. “Of course, I spell mine differently.”
“Because nobody does that either,” Saffron said.
They all laughed.
“You know, it’s almost always the new pagans,” Wyatt said. “I wanted to go by Ursa! I had no idea there were hundreds of Ursas. I was so naïve. Thankfully a few people clued me in. What we need is someone in charge of all of that. Registering names, you know? Warning them that they’re picking a name a thousand other people already chose.”
Saffron leaned forward on the table and clasped her hands together. “But why? What difference does it make? So they want to be called Merlin or Morgan? Brigid or Morgana? Who cares? Don’t you think those gods, those archetypes, are happy to inspire a thousand-thousand people? Look how many Jesúses there are. How many Marys. Marias. Johns. My family is Jewish, so I grew up knowing several boys named Moses, and there were some Jacobs and Isaacs as well. I knew at least two men named Ram when I was in college. How many Mohammads do you think are out there? There is a lady who comes here who kept her real name. It’s Tara, and she was given that name by her Buddhist parents. I dated a man who went by Tenzin, the fourteenth Dalai Lama. So what’s wrong with wanting to name yourself Thor or Athena? Why can’t there be a hundred Phoenixes? Why not a thousand Ravens?”
It was food for thought indeed.
Wyatt had certainly gotten very quiet. A silent Wyatt wasn’t anything Kevin was used to. In fact, he looked a little stung. He wanted to reach and lay his hand on Wyatt’s, but balked at the idea. How would that look?
“How did you choose your name, Kevin?” Saffron asked then. “Your Hodor name that is. Isn’t he a character from Game of Thrones? Big hulking man? Mentally challenged. Can’t talk except to say his name? That doesn’t seem like you.”
“Somebody gave me the name,” Kevin replied, trying to recall exactly who it was. “I don’t remember. We were all sitting on the big raft in the lake one night and I was being quiet as usual, and they started talking about the books—this was before the series even started—and somebody said I reminded them of Hodor because I don’t talk much….”
“But you’re talking now,” Gryphon said. “You have since you got here.”
Kevin shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.
“Maybe you’re comfortable here?” Saffron offered. “I hope you’re comfortable here.”
Kevin looked around the table. At Gryphon. Saffron. And… Wyatt, who finally seemed to have come back from wherever he went, eyes sparkling in the way only his could. “I guess I am.” A smile tugged at the corners of Kevin’s mouth. He nodded. “I know I am.”
After lunch, Kevin insisted that he take at least an hour shift on the plow. He liked the work. In New York he didn’t even have to shovel the sidewalk, of course. Keeping his condo clean, and his workouts at Club Fitness, were about the only physical exertion in his life.
The air was crisp but not terribly cold. It gave him a little alone time, and Wyatt too. Except for the muffled roar of the jenny that was providing Gryphon and Saffron with power, and the little Bobcat, there was no other noise at all. How many hundreds of hours had he used a snowplow like this to clear his parents’ driveway? Most kids thought it was the worst chore in the world, but it got him away from the yelling. The silence had become his only true friend. Like in that song he loved so much.
When they stop fighting to turn out the lights
I pretend I’m already sleeping
After the violence alone in the silence
Just me and the secret I’m keeping
But then…
But then Kevin couldn’t stop thinking about Wyatt. What was the little bear doing? What was he up to? He couldn’t blast his music—not if he wanted his iPod to last.
Kevin finished the parking lot by the main hall and dining room. Gryphon had been focusing on the huge hill that went down to the main gate, and that was a good thing. The hill was mostly gravel and it was steep, and Kevin had no experience with anything like that. His grandparents’ little farm (where he’d spent Christmas breaks when he was a boy, and the only reason he’d had any kind of traditional holiday) had been as flat as Kansas could be. He would leave the hill to more practiced hands.
And he wanted to see Wyatt.
He wanted to talk to Wyatt.
He wanted to see if he could get him to smile again because that made his pulse quicken (as well as a few other things, dammit!).
They could play Sorry! That was a fun game. Play some music. They both had their iPods after all, and he had a charger, and he was sure that Gryphon and Saffron would be happy to let them charge their devices. He could play Wyatt some of his favorite songs. He wouldn’t blast them like Wyatt’s boom box, but it would give them something to listen to and help calm his nerves. Wyatt gave him goose bumps. The good kind. And music would keep Kevin from blurting out something stupid. Fears of such occurrences were another reason he preferred to keep his talking to a minimum. But that wouldn’t really work today, would it? With only the two of them? He couldn’t just sit in the background and let others do the talking.
But then he got an idea. It would take some time, but it was something he wanted to at least start.
So he went to Saffron—Gryphon was halfway down the hill in the Bobcat—and asked if he could use the snowblower. Gryphon had made a path only a few feet north of “their” cabin and stopped. It would have to go a good bit farther. Of course she said yes. She even insisted on topping it off with fuel, despite his objections.
“I can do it.”
“Posh,” she’d said, and the deed was done before he could say much else.
So he took the blower to where Gryphon had stopped and started it up and began clearing the snow past North Four. He was worried that Wyatt might stick his head out the door and ask what he was doing, and he didn’t want him to do that. Not yet.
He did grow more and more conscious of how long he was leaving Wyatt all by himself, though. And while he knew Wyatt had come here to be alone, mightn’t he wonder what was taking Kevin so long? Or was he happy to have this time alone?
Kevin hoped not.
Because he was growing more and more anxious to be back with his little bear and…
Your little bear?
He is hardly your little bear.
Oh shut the fuck up!
At least parts of the path north were easier to handle. There were a lot of trees, of course, and their overhanging branches had helped some to deflect the depth of the snow. He was beginning to get really cold and longed for the warmth of the cabin, but he was so close to his goal. Just a little farther?
Kevin reached North Five (he’d often wondered why the cabin was so far from North Four. A cabin could have easily been built between them. Maybe there had been a cabin there once upon a time?) and glanced off to his left. It was hard to tell, but he was looking for where the road took a decided sharp turn to the right and—yes—he saw he had reached that bend he was looking for.
He was going to do it.
Kevin pushed the snowblower down the steep embankment to the road and then made his way to the little path that cut into the dense trees there. It was tougher going on the road—the snow there was the deepest yet—but when he finally got to where he was going, what he saw made him laugh with joy.
Perfect.
Absolutely perfect!
But now it was time to get the hell back to Wyatt. He would be wondering what was taking so long. Kevin had said he would be back in an hour, and he knew he’d been gone at least twice that long.
When he got back to the cabin, though, what he found stopped him in his tracks.
Wyatt looked terrible.
He pulled off his hat. “Wyatt?” he asked, concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, Kevin!” Wyatt looked like he was going to cry. “Is Howard right? Am I a total turd? Was the only reason anyone had anything to do with me was because I was with him?”
Kevin jerked. What? What was he saying? Where had this come from?
“Wyatt, sweetheart. What are you talking about?” He pulled off his gloves and laid them on the table, stepped toward Wyatt. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t get what Saffron said out of my head.”
Kevin had to think. What Saffron said? What hadn’t Saffron said? He took another step, rubbed his hands together, resisted the urge to lay them on Wyatt. “Wyatt? What… what did she say that’s upset you?”
“The part about the names, Kevin. About how people should be able to go by any name they want.”
Kevin shook his head. He wasn’t sure what this was about. “What about it, Wyatt?”
“I was being so negative.”
Negative? Wyatt? Negative?
“What do you mean?” he asked, unable to keep from placing his hands on Wyatt’s shoulders.
“I was being so judgmental. Making fun of people for the Craft name they wanted to use….” Wyatt’s eyes were glassy, wet. It was obvious he was trying to prevent himself from crying.
“Wyatt. Sweetness.”
Sweetness? Did you just call him “sweetness”?
Kevin took a deep breath. “You weren’t making fun. You were just pointing out something a little amusing in the pagan community. We have to laugh at ourselves.”
“But I wasn’t laughing at myself. I was laughing at other people.”
Kevin shook his head. “I can’t imagine you laughing at anyone.”
Wyatt pulled away, turned his back. “But I do. I do. Howard used to think it was funny, and I liked to make him laugh. It was better than the yelling. But what I was doing. I wasn’t thinking….”
Kevin didn’t know what to do. What to say. He never did. That’s why he’d hired Theresa Nash to do the public and presentation speaking for him. And this not knowing what to say was another reason to remain silent and let others do that talking. But today there was no one else!
He took another deep breath. What would Malcolm Kane say?
“I don’t know what you were thinking, Wyatt. But if there is anything I know about you, Little Bear, it’s that there isn’t a malicious bone in your body.”
Wyatt spun around, his face quite wet now. His tears had been so silent! “Not thinking is my problem. Maybe if I thought—used my brain—Howard would never have left me.”
Maybe if you had “thought,” you would have left him years ago, Kevin wanted to say. But he didn’t. Instead: “Wyatt, just because you were a little insensitive about the magic names people pick doesn’t mean you are an unthinking person. I mean, we’ve all joked about—”
“It’s not just that,” Wyatt all but spat. “I say things all the fucking time without thinking about it! Like the day I found out Howard was HIV positive—”
Kevin’s eyebrows shot up. He couldn’t help it. Howard was HIV positive? Dear God! Did that mean…?
“—I was talking to Kitty, and she was saying that the guy who manages the gas station next to the store was a dickhead—”
Kevin couldn’t even wonder who the hell “Kitty” was. All he heard was “HIV positive.” Was Wyatt…?
“—and I said that she should say ‘vagina’ and not ‘dickhead’ because penises were good things, and then Katherine pulled me into her office and gave me this lecture about how I shouldn’t use the word ‘vagina’ in a negative way and I said—”
“Wyatt!” Now Kevin did grab Wyatt’s shoulders. Hard.
“Ow!” Wyatt looked up into Kevin’s face. “I didn’t mean anything bad when I said it, Kevin! I was just trying to be funny. People use the word ‘dick’ to be a bad thing! So why isn’t it okay to—”
“Wyatt! My God! Howard is HIV positive?”
Wyatt stopped. Opened his mouth. Shut it. He gave a slight nod, and then the tears began to flow down his sweet, round, beard-shadowed face. “Y-yes.”
No! No no no no no! Had that bastard infected Wyatt? “And you? God. You?”
“What about me?” Wyatt asked.
“Did he infect you?” God! Oh God! He wanted to scream. Could someone else he loved have HIV?
Wyatt’s eyes were huge and round and so very dark. Eyes that had always struck Kevin as beautiful now looked like holes into the abyss.
“N-no. I’m okay.”
Okay? Okay? Did he mean…?
Wyatt shook his head. “I’m okay. He—Howard—he didn’t infect me.”
The relief was immense. Like nothing Kevin could remember in years. He pulled Wyatt into his arms, trying to pull him into his bones, his soul, and he did everything he could not to cry himself. He didn’t succeed. Crying. Him. What would Theresa think?
But all he could think was Thank God, thank God, thank God! Hadn’t Wyatt been through enough? Hadn’t Howard already put him through enough, then to give him a final “gift” of HIV? Thank God Wyatt was okay. But then the worry came rising back to the surface like a rocket launching from a hidden submarine.
“A-are you sure?” he asked, letting go of Wyatt just enough so he could see his face. HIV! Fucking HIV! Hadn’t the virus done enough?
Wyatt nodded again, his lower lip trembling. “Yes. I was tested. The guy there… he said enough time had passed since I was last sexual with Howard and—”
Kevin pulled Wyatt tight against him once more. He couldn’t remember feeling like this. Discovering that Google wanted to purchase the apps he’d created—a couple of them he’d even thought of as silly—and had been willing to pay a hell of a lot for them hadn’t brought him this much joy.
“K-Kevin” came Wyatt’s muffled voice. “I can hardly breathe.”
Kevin jerked and stepped back, if only by inches. “I—I’m sorry, dear.”
“Dear?” Wyatt asked, that lower lip trembling again.
It was all Kevin could do to keep from kissing Wyatt. Wyatt’s beautiful sweet mouth.
“You scared me, Wyatt. I thought that Howard had given you—”
“No.” Wyatt stepped back. “And how do you know it wasn’t me that gave it to Howard? How do you know it was him?”
He looked angry, and that was not what Kevin would have expected.
How did he know? He just knew. But could he say that? “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so relieved.”
Wyatt turned away, walked over to his bed, and sat on the edge of the mattress. “Seems to be a lot of that going on. Me making crass comments on the names people choose for themselves. Me using the word ‘vagina’ to be a bad thing.”
Kevin winced. Wyatt’s comment hadn’t hit him the first time. All he had heard was “HIV positive.”
Boy! What would Theresa say if she’d heard Wyatt call someone a vagina? They would all have heard a lecture.
“Katherine said that women are made to feel bad about their bodies. About their… female stuff. That their… girl parts… were nasty and dirty. I didn’t know that! All I knew was that I’ve heard straight guys wax poetic about them. I had a friend in high school go on for days about how beautiful he thought they were. It was listening to him go on and on about them that made me realize I was gay. He wasn’t fooling. He was serious. He really did think they were beautiful! And I knew right then that was how I felt about penises. That they were beautiful, and not just hot. I liked dick and he liked vaginas. I mean, don’t a lot of people like them? Vaginas? Rita Mae Brown loved them so much she wrote a book about it and called them ‘rubyfruit jungles.’ And didn’t Georgia O’Keeffe paint her flowers to look like vaginas?”
Kevin fought the abrupt urge to laugh. He couldn’t help it. Even in distress Wyatt was adorable.
“I’ve heard that wasn’t really intentional,” Kevin said. He’d seen an exhibit of her work at the Whitney Museum several years back, and he was sure that was part of what he heard while he was there.
Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Yeah! Sure! Whatever! I may’ve not seen too many vajayjays up close, but I know one when I see one. And that’s just what those paintings are!”
Now Kevin did laugh. He couldn’t help it. One minute Wyatt was in tears because he thought he was an unthinking “turd,” and now he was going on about Georgia O’Keeffe and vaginas. “The point, Wyatt, was that you didn’t realize you were doing anything wrong.”
“But shouldn’t I have? Known?” Quite suddenly he was looking desperate again.
Kevin moved over to the bed and sat down next to Wyatt. “You probably don’t spend much time talking about vaginas, Wyatt.”
“…and I was watching this recent Margaret Cho special and she was talking about ‘pussy’ and doing this routine about gay men having to eat them for the first time in order to save the world, and it was sooooo funny and I was laughing so hard, and now all I can think of is that I’m some kind of misogynist and—”
“Wyatt!”
Wyatt jerked and looked up at him. Oh, those eyes!
“You are not a misogynist. I can’t imagine you hating women. I can’t imagine you hating anything.”
Wyatt slumped. “You don’t know me very well.”
Ah, but I want to.
Now how to make Wyatt feel better?
“Wyatt, we can’t help what we’ve done. We can only try and help what we are about to do.” He was drawing from Malcolm Kane now (and again). “We can only do our best from day to day. And that is going to change each day. Yesterday’s best will be different than today’s best and tomorrow’s. Whatever we do, we must simply try our best. You didn’t know that there were women who were made to feel bad about their genitals.”
“Margaret Cho sure doesn’t seem to feel bad about hers,” Wyatt said with comically wide eyes.
Kevin almost laughed again. But not now. Later. They could laugh about it later.
“Nevertheless, now you know. So now you know never to use the word ‘vagina’ as a bad thing. It doesn’t matter that people use ‘dick’ as a bad thing. We should always keep other people’s feelings in mind whenever we can. We can’t monitor every single word we say. We can’t know how everyone feels.”
Wyatt gave a little sigh and looked at him with those big brown eyes again. At least now they didn’t look quite so sad.
“And people shouldn’t use the word ‘dick’ as a bad thing either,” Kevin said.
“That’s what Katherine said. She said, ‘You’ve never heard me use that word, have you?’”
“I’m glad she did. It sounds like she was trying to help you.”
Wyatt nodded. “She’s like my mom.” There was a flash in Wyatt’s dark eyes, but it was gone as fast as it was there. “I love her so much.”
“Then I’m glad you have her in your life.” In fact, Kevin found he was a little jealous about that. “You know, ‘dick’ isn’t the only word we shouldn’t use in a bad way. What about ‘junk’? I hate that people use that word! Is that what they think of their genitals?”
“Yeah!” Wyatt cried. “I sure don’t call my stuff ‘junk’!”
“Me either. Even if I’m not all that big when—”
Wyatt’s eyes went big. “Not big? Your cock and balls are fabulous!”
Kevin felt his face heat up. Wyatt had been looking at his…?
“I mean, your balls are so big! And your dick, it might not be flopping around like Rat Bastard’s, but it’s so thick. And that’s when it’s soft. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered how big it—” He stopped, and then it was his turn to blush.
It only made Kevin blush all the harder. Wyatt had wondered about his hard-on?
Wyatt looked away. “I’m the one with the tiny dick,” he whispered.
Tiny dick? “Wyatt…. You don’t have a tiny dick.”
Wyatt nodded. “Yes, I do. Howard said that was one of the reasons he needed to be with other men. That mine wasn’t big enough to satisfy him.”
“Howard is a fucking fool,” Kevin said with distaste. God, he couldn’t stand that man! Imagine, making your lover—your lover—feel bad about his most personal part. “Wyatt, I think your penis is perfect. Perfect for you. You’re not a big guy.”
Wyatt looked back. His cheeks, which had gone from red to pink, heated up again. “You think my penis is perfect?” His voice cracked at the end.
“I think all of you is perfect,” Kevin replied, and once more his face grew hot. How had they gotten into this conversation? And he did think Wyatt’s penis was perfect. His testicles weren’t small by any means, one always riding up higher than the other, especially when he came out of the lake when the water was cold. His penis, stout and riding up over his balls, was cut, and he had seen Wyatt with an erection. In the shower house for one, when men were rousting about late at night, catcalling and tickling each other and playing grabass (and more). “And yes. You have a very nice penis.”
“You’ve looked?” Wyatt’s expression was unreadable. Was it sad? Happy? Hopeful? What?
Kevin nodded. “I’ve looked,” he said very quietly.
“I’ve looked at yours too,” Wyatt said, equally as quiet.
They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Kevin found he was getting hard right then. But this wasn’t the time or place. Or at least the time.
But what to do?
Then he remembered his plans for the snow. And what he’d done.
“Hey.” He grinned. “Want to play in the snow? It’s the best kind. Snowball weather!”
“But it’s so deep!” Wyatt said. “How could we do anything?”
“At least two feet!” Kevin smiled all the wider. “But the parking lot is all cleared now. Want to?”
“You won’t throw one in my face, will you?” Wyatt asked with a little pout.
“Well… I can’t promise anything.”
Wyatt laughed… then grew serious. “You just came in from two hours out there. Aren’t you cold?”
Kevin shrugged. He’d warmed up. And how! “I’ll be fine.”
So they got all bundled up and went to the parking lot and had a wonderful time. It was so grand to hear Wyatt laughing. And they both got a few snowballs in the face.
It wasn’t until they were returning to the cabin that Wyatt noticed the path that Kevin had cleared to the north, past their cabin.
“When did Gryphon do that?” he asked.
“I did it,” Kevin said and felt himself blush once more.
“You did?” Wyatt looked down the path, then back. “Why?”
Kevin cleared his throat and was surrounded in a plume of frosted air. “You said you wanted to do a little ritual down at Pax Place. I cleared the way for you.”
Wyatt’s mouth fell open. “You did?”
Kevin nodded.
Then Wyatt did what Kevin absolutely loved. He smiled. Wyatt had the most wonderful smile in the world. Then he jumped into Kevin’s arms.
“Oh, thank you, Kevin! Thank you! I just love you.”
Kevin felt his heart leap.
If only you did, Little Bear. If only you did.