Boneyard (The Thaumaturge Series Book 2) by Cal Matthews

part where he had been stabbed and temporarily dead.
    “Cody's in the big garage,” she told me. Her ice blue eyes fixed on me. She looked uncomfortably like my mother.
    “Okay, thanks,” I said. I tried for a smile and it felt weird on my face, like my lips pulled too tight, or in the wrong direction. I tried to adjust them and it made me bare my teeth at her. Her eyebrows dipped in.
    “Something going on with you?” she asked bluntly, in with the characteristic boldness that differed from my mom. My mom was all passive-aggressive simpering. Sharon attacked and asked questions later. With her at the helm, the ranch had never been anything but a success. 
    “No,” I said and stopped with the weird lip waggling. I took off my baseball hat, smoothed my hair back, and then put it back on. I lifted one foot and propped it on the lowest step. This close to her, I smelled the grassy smell of horse coming off her. Her spurs jangled as she shifted her weight. I wasn't dismissed and I knew it.
    “Cody's concerned for you,” she said after making me squirm for a bit.
    My head jerked up. “I'm concerned for him,” I said carefully.
    “He's alright,” she said and then heaved a sigh. “The divorce has been rough on him. I'm glad you're there for him, but I don't want you mixing him up in any trouble though. I heard there was a police car at your trailer the other day.”
    I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Officer Metz is a friend of mine,” I said.
    Her eyes narrowed. “A friend, huh? You might do well to remember that he is married .” 
    I scoffed, so surprised that I couldn't form words. She watched my reaction closely and my speechlessness must have passed some sort of test, because her expression eased a bit.
    “Not that I think you would do that,” she amended a little more gently.
    “Do what? He's a friend. A friend .”
    She nodded. “That's what I told your mom. Word just gets around, y'know, and people make up stories.”
    “What stories?” I asked quickly, panicked.
    “Oh, they don't know nothin’ about your private business,” she said, waving at me vaguely as though to indicate the gayness just oozing off of me.
    “I just want to talk to Cody,” I said, a little desperate to get away from her.
    “Sure,” she opened the screen door, propping it open with her hip. “You take care of yourself, Ebron.”
    “Yeah, thanks, Aunt Sharon,” I replied, and hustled away from her. I fled across the front yard and headed around the back of the main house towards the outbuildings. It was still light out, but a hazy red sunset started to edge the top of the distant mountains. I headed toward the light on in the big garage.
    Cody looked up as I slid the big metal door open and his face went from curiously welcoming to cornered stray cat in about half a second. I held up my hands placating.
    “I just want to talk,” I said.
    He stood up slowly from the edge of a blue tarp scattered with half a dozen greasy pieces of machinery. Wiping his hands on the legs of his dirty coveralls, he looked anywhere but at me.
    “Would have called you back, dude, if I wanted to talk.”
    I stopped, standing halfway away from him on the floor of the garage. He flipped a ratchet nervously through his fingers, squinted up at the dusty analog clock on the wall, nudged a splotch of grease with his boot, but he wouldn’t look at me.
    “Look, I’m sorry, man,” I finally just blurted out.
    He scowled. “I’m not mad. I just don’t want to talk yet.”
    “Okay,” I said, but I just stood there because the fuck I was just going to walk out, leaving him standing there all twitchy and sad.
    “I should have told you years ago,” I said. “When we were kids or something. I didn’t mean for you to find out about it like this.”
    He looked at me then, blinking at me owlishly. “You mean about you being gay, or you doing the other thing?”
    “The... other thing,” I paused, considering. “Or both, I guess. I