I was in the sheriff’s office and my raised voice caused a couple of heads to turn, including my sister-in-law Beth and the kids who’d stopped by to bring Luanne some raffle tickets for one of the Hootenanny contests. I immediately lowered my voice to a hiss instead.
“Get your goddamned ass back here by sundown or I swear to god, Otto Wilde…”
His grin was obvious by the tone of his voice. “What? You gonna spank me, Sheriff?”
My face ignited. “Yes. If I have to.”
“You gonna do it while I’m handcuffed, Sheriff?”
Now my face was red and my dick was stiff. He knew what that voice did to me. Asshole.
“Please come home.” Okay, maybe that was more of a whine than I’d intended.
“Any updates on the case?” he asked softly.
“Not that I know of. Teri mentioned expecting some more lab results back but I don’t know what they are.”
“You going to come over and let me fix you dinner?”
“Why don’t you come to my place?” I offered.
“Nah, Grandpa and Doc have been looking after Fire Kitten so I want to relieve them from duty.”
“Okay. Text me when you’re almost there and I’ll meet you.”
I hadn’t been off the phone for five minutes when Teri and Chief Paige walked in. I knew right away by the looks on their faces, the news was bad. I walked up to the counter and said a quick goodbye to Beth and the kids before turning to Teri and the chief.
“What is it?”
“Do you know where Otto is? He was supposed to be back from Dallas on Monday,” Chief Paige asked.
“He’s still there, but he’ll be back this evening. Why?”
“We got some lab results and have a few more questions for him, but we can wait till morning. I don’t want to worry him while he’s on the road. Will you ask him to come by the station tomorrow around noon? I’ve got training exercises in the morning I can’t miss.”
“Sure.”
Teri shot me a sympathetic smile before the two of them turned to leave. I was desperate to ask them what the lab results were, but I knew they wouldn’t tell me. They knew as well as anyone I wouldn’t be able to keep from telling him.
When I settled back at my desk, I received a call from my mother.
“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“Hi, Seth. Listen… your dad and I were hoping you could stop by and have dinner with us tonight. There’s something we’d like to talk to you about,” she said.
I didn’t like the sound of her voice and wondered what was going on.
“I can’t stay for dinner, but I could duck out of here early and come see you around five. That work?”
“Why can’t you stay for dinner?”
“I have plans to see Otto. He’s been out of town, but he’s getting back tonight.”
Silence on the line.
“Well… we can talk about that when you get here. See you after work.”
The line went dead, and I spent the rest of my shift with the churning gut that usually accompanied getting judged by my parents and found lacking.
By the time I arrived at their house, I had the beginnings of a headache. My parents were sitting at the kitchen table, and I could see a crockpot steaming on the counter.
“Smells good,” I said, leaning in to kiss Mom on the cheek.
“I made your favorite. I figured you could reschedule with your friend,” she said, pursing her lips on the word friend.
I blinked at her.
“Mom, I’m not rescheduling with Otto. And he’s a little more than my friend.”
My parents exchanged a look before my dad told me to have a seat.
“That’s what we wanted to talk to you about, son,” he began. “We’ve been hearing plenty of rumors around town and we feel your association with the Wilde family needs to come to an end before this nonsense goes any farther.”
He said Wilde family as if it tasted like horse shit in his mouth.
I tilted my head and studied them, realizing I’d spent my whole life knowing there were two sides to them. There was the loving devoted parent side—the parents who’d supported Jolie and me in Tisha’s early years and gave us a house to live in when we arrived in Hobie—and there was the homophobic, bigoted side—the side I tried so hard to pretend didn’t exist.
“By nonsense, do you mean the gay nonsense?” I asked, suddenly knowing for sure this conversation had been a long time coming.
My father’s nostrils flared. “Among other things. Surely you know Otto Wilde is the primary suspect in the fire that almost took our family home.”
“Surely you know Otto Wilde is the man who discovered and put out the teeny-tiny fire that didn’t even touch that house,” I corrected with a growl.
Before my father could say another word, I continued. “You have known since I was a teenager that I was both gay and in love with Otto Wilde. You also know that I’ve spent the past ten years trying to forget about him and prove my devotion to this family. This is not a phase. This is not going away. Regardless of what happens about the fires, Otto will be in my life as my partner for the rest of my days. If you have a problem with that—with Otto, with gay people, with the Wilde family—then you are the one who will lose out. You won’t see Tisha and you won’t see me. So before you say anything else about Otto Wilde, think about what you want in your life.”