Learning-to-Feel Read Free Page B

at the front of the shop, and Trent was soon behind me. "No?" he asked incredulously.
    "Please, just drop it," I urged him. Surely he could see the pleading in my eyes.
    "Okay," he said softly as he nodded. Then his tone changed, as did the topic of conversation. "So, what's on the grocery list?"
    We grabbed a few things from each aisle, and it was easy. We liked a lot of the same things, ate similar foods. He told me he enjoyed cooking and shook his head at me when I confessed that being a doctor in the ER usually meant I lived on coffee and sandwiches from a vending machine.
    I paid, at my insistence, and we made a quick stop at the hardware store. Back in the car, he showed me the police station, the library, the high school, the diner and the park.
    "Aaaaaand now you've seen Belfast," he said with a smile. He offered to show me the National Parks and Searsport, a smaller town about twenty minutes away, tomorrow after I checked in at work. “ It’s a little tourist town, markets and stalls and hippie stuff.”
    He smiled when I agreed.
    That afternoon, he finished doing whatever he was doing upstairs while I finished unpacking. I was sorting my books when Trent came back downstairs. "Beer?" he asked, but didn't wait for my response, he just walked back into the room and handed me one.
    "I’m not much of a drinker," I told him.
    He looked at me, baffled. "So, you don’t eat real food, you don’t drink, you don’t sleep, you don’t have a girlfriend... " he took a mouthful of his beer and swallowed. "You don’t have a boyfriend... "
    His words trailed away suggestively, and I was again unable to answer.
    "What do you do?" he asked with a tilt of his head.
    "I work."
    He stepped closer to me, like he might have touched me, but instead put his beer on the shelf beside me. I exhaled shakily, and my body responded to the close proximity of him. My chest tightened and my cock twitched, and I blurted out, "I’m not gay."
    He looked at me, both surprised and amused. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him or me.
    "Really?" he asked with that goddamn smirk. "I thought I had a pretty good radar for things like that." He stepped up close to me again, so close I felt his body heat, and he reached out for his beer as he watched me.
    I was so thrown by my reaction, my body's reaction, my mind's reaction. I was a doctor for fucks sake. He rendered me speechless with his blue eyes, full lips, strong jaw and those dimples turned my mind to mush.
    He could tell I was stuck, but thankfully he didn't push me. He stepped back and said, "I'll start dinner," and he left me standing in front of the book case trying to control my breathing.
    I was deciding whether to stay where I was, to join him in the kitchen or to hide in my room when my phone rang. Pulling my cell from my pocket, I checked the caller ID before I answered. "Mom."
    She asked me fifty questions, and I reassured her everything was fine. I talked to her for a while, told her of my plans to meet the hospital staff tomorrow and about the house and how the house came with a housemate . That of course ensured another fifty questions, to which I answered as vaguely as possible, knowing Trent probably heard me.
    "Well, he sounds nice," Mom said. "I’m glad you're not there alone."
    When I said goodbye, I found myself on the sofa, exhausted. I smelled whatever it was Trent had started cooking, and it smelled good. But I was tired, thoroughly fucking confused, and my stomach turned.
    Trent came into the large lounge room and said dinner wouldn't be too far away.
    I stood, and for some reason I couldn’t look at him, like if I did, I'd change my mind. "I’m not hungry," I told him. "I’m sorry, but I think I’m gonna head upstairs."
    He didn't speak for a second, while my feet felt planted to the floor. He walked right up to me, but he wasn’t smirking or smiling. He looked concerned. "I’m sorry if I came on a bit strong, Nathan. I thought... " he stopped talking,