True fact, some people were not as taken with Dunn’s quick wit as I was.
Dunn laughed, because of course he did. “Tuck and Parrish woulda been a tragedy, Ms. Vienna,” he said. “Trust me. Not good.”
“If you say so. I s’pose you’d know, since y’all are friends.”
“Not just friends, best best friends,” Dunn corrected. “Tucker Wright is the finest human on the planet, and he deserves nothing but love and happiness in this life. Parrish wasn’t right for him, but some lucky guy will be, and I’m gonna personally ensure Tuck ends up with him. I won’t let him settle for less than pure, head-over-heels love.”
Aaaand there went my foolish heart again. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, like Dunn Johnson’s personal stress toy, just the way it had since I’d moved back to the Thicket. Didn’t matter that I was eight years older than Dunn, or that I’d vaguely remembered him having been my little brother’s goofy friend in high school, or that he was four billion light-years hotter and more interesting than me, or that I was six hopeless notches on the Kinsey scale gayer than him.
Even though my logical, science-loving brain knew that all those things meant we would never be more than friends—friendship wasn’t the same as love, no matter how many “bests” Dunn threw in there—my foolish heart kept hoping.
I was starting to think it always would.
“Speaking of love,” Vienna said coyly. “I heard a certain someone might have some news to share, Dunn?”
“Who, me?” Dunn sounded so shocked I nearly laughed out loud and gave myself away.
As his “best best friend,” I happened to know that his on-again, off-again thing-that-wasn’t-a-thing with Jenn Shipley was firmly in the off position and had been since the Pickin’ weeks and weeks ago.
Gossip at the Wisteria Cafe said Jenn had been really put out when Dunn kissed me that day, even though it had been super platonic, and totally inconsequential, and a Thicket tradition… sort of.
Funnily enough, even though it had been all of those things, I’d still added it to my mental playlist of Tucker’s All-Time Favorite Moments. Dunn’s sun-warm body, his soft green eyes, and his smiling lips on mine had been better than any of my many, many fantasies.
So I waited for Dunn to say something a little snarky to Vienna about how he wasn’t settling down anytime soon, or how Jenn’s low-key homophobia was unwelcome and disgusting, or how Jenn had particularly hirsute toes and laughed like a donkey doing Lamaze breathing. Any of those things would have been acceptable, really.
Instead, Dunn swallowed audibly. One might even say nervously. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Aw, honey. You remember you’re in Licking Thicket, right? Where folks know your business before you do?” She sounded sympathetic. “So then a few of us asked your mama to confirm—”
“Oh, Lord.”
“And she said she’d already talked to you about it, and you’d said—”
Dunn swore under his breath, and the chair creaked like he was sitting forward again. “The things my mother and I talked about were… were… were hypothetical, Ms. Vienna. Not something I need the Thicket gossiping about just yet. Or ever.” He cleared his throat and said faintly, “This would change everything. My whole… identity. The most fundamental parts of who I am.”
I frowned and pushed my glasses up. What the heck was he talking about?
“Sweetie, don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic? It wouldn’t change everything. It’s just one part of who you are, after all. Every living person changes and redefines themselves, sometimes daily.”
“But not like this! This isn’t like changing your socks, Ms. Vienna. This is a big deal. It’s a fork in the road. You don’t get to backtrack.”
“Now, that’s not true at all. Look at your brother! He and Ava were the closest thing to engaged, and now he and Malachi are planning their wedding.”
I froze in place. I’d been starting medical school around the time Dunn’s big brother graduated high school, but Thicket legend said Brooks had been the Bovines’ quarterback and all-around golden boy, even down to dating the head cheerleader, until he’d outed himself publicly at the Lickin’ eleven and a bit years ago and left town the next day. Now he was back in the Thicket and planning a dream wedding.
To a man.
Did that mean Dunn was thinking he also might be—?
“Brooks was still a kid then, though, and I’m not. When I decide, I’ve gotta decide for good.” There was a sound of rustling fabric, like Dunn was rubbing his palms on his thighs—a rare but unmistakable sign he was anxious. “And I’m not saying I’m not gonna, you know, be open and honest about it, if it feels right to me. I’m just saying I’m not in a hurry to slap a label on things. Labels don’t change the way a person feels about another person.”
My jaw dropped, and the spit-soggy Milano cookie landed on my sweater.
“I’m gonna think on it,” Dunn continued. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as anybody. “And I’m gonna talk to Tuck, obviously—”
Vienna sighed. “Tucker’s got enough on his plate, honey. You don’t need to drag the poor man into your love life when it’s got nothing to do with him.”
“No, ma’am, it’s got everything to do with him!”
“It does?”
It did?
“Sure! Tucker and me… We’re not just friends, you know? What we have is special. I can’t be happy unless Tuck is happy too.”
My heart beat fast.
Too fast.
Concerningly fast.
See-your-cardiologist fast.
Dunn was considering changing his identity? The most fundamental parts of who he was? He was worried about labels? A-and… he couldn’t be happy unless I was happy too, because we were not just friends?
It almost sounded like—though it wasn’t and couldn’t be, obviously, since Dunn had never shared a homosexual thought with me, and to be frank, I wasn’t that lucky—Dunn was conflicted about his sexuality?
My brain flipped and flopped around, trying to figure out what the heck else he could mean, but I couldn’t land on a single thing. I needed more data, more clues to cross-reference. I listened impatiently.
“But, Dunn,” Vienna began hesitantly. “You’ve gotta be careful with Tucker. You know he—”
“Will be coming back any minute?” Dunn interrupted politely. “Yes, he will.”
“But—”
“Ms. Vienna, you know I always want what’s best for him, right? You and I have that in common. You can trust me.”
Vienna sighed again, which was unusual. She wasn’t normally the sighing sort. “Alright, Dunn. I’ll just go keep an eye out for Doc and let him know you’re here when he gets back.”
“’Preciate it.”
The door shut behind her with a click, and the chair squeaked as Dunn sat back once again.
“You can come out now,” he said softly, the laughter back in his voice. “The coast is clear.”
I stowed my cookies and crosswords, put my glasses in my shirt pocket, brushed the crumbs off my sweater, and prayed my cheeks were not as red as they felt. Then I reached for the latch and pushed open the secret storage area, blinking against the brightness of the office.