***
I didn’t see J. R. after that. I assumed he was holed up in his room. Jess sat next to me in the lounge while I stirred a rum and Coke. She rubbed my arm and offered to text Casey to see if Jay had any messages for me, but I didn’t want that.
Jay had made it clear that this ended here. We were done. And I had to deal with that. Levi’s words, while harsh, were what I needed to hear. This wasn’t about me. Jay had much bigger problems than my hurt feelings.
When we disembarked, Colin and Riley were waiting for us. We spotted them before they saw us. Colin’s brow was furrowed as he searched the crowd for his sister. Riley was chatting away about something.
When Colin found Jess, he smiled and waved. Riley waved as well. Jess turned to me with a wary expression. “You okay?”
I was getting a little tired of her asking that. “I’m fine, really.”
She bit her lip. “Okay.”
When we reached the dock, Colin hugged his sister tightly and grabbed her bags. “Hey, you guys have fun? I expected to pick up two liquor-soaked rags, but you don’t look too bad.”
I felt like I’d aged ten years in a week. Was that what a first love did? Because if I understood anything, it was that I’d fallen for the famous bastard.
Jess was chattering about the parties and about Casey as she walked next to Colin. Riley fell into step beside me, his brown eyes thoughtful. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m always quiet,” I said.
He wasn’t having that. “This is a different kind of quiet. Something happen?”
Colin and Jess were about five feet in front of us, and because of the noise of the crowd, I didn’t think they could hear me. Riley and I hadn’t ever clicked; I thought we were too different. But he clearly cared, and was amazingly perceptive.
So I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and swallowed. “I, uh, met a guy.”
“Ah,” Riley said.
“What does that ah mean?”
He smiled and looked down at his feet. “I know what it’s like to meet someone in . . . unusual circumstances. It’s like every emotion is heightened.” He glanced at me. “This guy treat you okay?”
“I think . . .” I took a deep breath. “I think he really cared about me. Me. Like, he saw me, you know?”
Riley’s gaze drifted to the back of his boyfriend in front of us before returning to me. “Yeah. I do. So are you going to see him again?”
I shook my head. “It’s complicated.”
Riley was silent for a long moment, and I thought the conversation was over until he said, “Complicated doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jay
Two months later . . .
From the driveway, I could smell the spices of Ma’s famous ribs. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes, letting it soak in like a balm to all the cracked pieces of my soul.
I was home.
“Ma! Dad! D!” I called as I opened the front door.
“In the kitchen!” Ma yelled back.
I toed off my shoes—because no one tracked dirt in Ma’s house—and padded my way down the narrow hallway. In the kitchen, my family stood around the center island. Dad drank a beer while Darren stole a hunk of rib meat from the steaming plate in the middle.
Ma wagged her finger at him. “I told you we were waiting for your brother.”
Darren pointed at me. “I know, and I listened, but he’s here now, so lemme at those ribs.”
Ma rolled her eyes, then came toward me with her arms out. “Hey, sweetheart.”
I wrapped my mom in a hug, breathing deeply, her familiar perfume surrounding me. She wore the same paisley, threadbare apron she always did. We got her a new one last Christmas, but she wasn’t having it. She said this apron was her lucky one, the reason her food came out so delicious. Since no one wanted to mess with her kitchen skills, we promptly returned the new apron. “Hey, Ma.” Recently she’d cut her hair, so there was about an inch of short curls on her head. With her high cheekbones and light eyes, which she’d inherited from her white father, she was striking. “You look beautiful.”
She cocked out a hip and raised an eyebrow. “I know.”
I shook my dad’s hand. Everyone said I looked like my dad—the darker skin, the same eyes, wide nose, and full lips. It was Saturday, yet he still wore a nice pair of pants and a button-down shirt. Teacher mode was his default, and even now, with his glasses perched on his nose, brown eyes studying me, I wondered what he saw. Because I’d learned a hell of a lot the last year. “Good to see you, Dad.”
He squeezed my shoulder, his hand lingering. “You too, son.”
The sounds of chewing made me turn to Darren. “Man, you can’t wait five minutes?”
“I’m hungry,” he grumbled, but a smile was there. I pushed his shoulder gently and he grinned, then clapped me on the back.
My season of Trip League was over. I was home for a couple days before I flew out to film the reunion episode. I missed my family so goddamn much, it was like an ache in my gut all the time. I hadn’t been sleeping or eating well. Now that I was home, around my family who loved me, smelling the macaroni and cheese my mom was pulling out of the oven, I wanted to eat until I burst and then sleep for five years.
It was spring in New Jersey, so we ate outside on our patio. I knew I had the sauce from the ribs smeared all over my face and hands—oh, and there was a spot on my pants—but I didn’t even care. I set down a rib bone I’d picked clean and took a sip of my water. “How are classes, D?”
He swallowed a forkful of mac and cheese. “Good. I got finals next week.”
Darren took classes at our local state college. He lived at home to save money, and most of his tuition was covered by a scholarship because he was smart as hell. He wanted to teach high school—science and math. He would be fucking great at it. Which was another one of the reasons I’d work myself into the grave to make sure he lived long enough to do it. “You still seeing that girl?”
He pushed around the coleslaw on his plate, then peered up at me with a grin. “Yeah.”
“Good deal,” I said, smiling back at him.
Ma leaned forward. “So tell me more about this audition.”
I wiped my hands on my napkin and leaned back in my chair. I belched and slapped my hand over my mouth. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that extra helping of . . . everything.
Ma glared. “Jay!”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Excuse me.”
She rolled her eyes. “So, talk. About the audition.”
I gulped more water and then spun my glass on the table as the ice clinked together. “Uh, it’s a high school football show. With the TW network. I’d play the quarterback in a small southern town.”
I’d gotten the audition materials from Carl, and gone over the lines a couple of times. I wanted to hate the part of Drake Mason. Too bad I didn’t. Not at all. I wanted the part. I just didn’t want everything that came with it.
Darren pushed his plate away. “The TW network, huh?”
I nodded and he leaned forward with his forearms on the table. There were lines at the corner of his eyes and his color had paled. “Hey, you okay? Want to go inside?”
He glared. “I’m fine.”
“You look—”
“I’m not in pain, Jay. I’m pissed. What aren’t you telling us about this?”
I glanced at my parents, who sat still and silent.
When I met my brother’s eyes again, I swallowed. “My agent says it’s a family-friendly show and network, so I gotta play straight—”
The table erupted. Darren pointed his finger at me, his voice low and deadly. Ma was yelling, and Dad put his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth with a groan.
The neighbors were gonna think we were all fucking nuts.
“Ev
eryone. Stop!” I slammed my palms on the table. It took another minute or two for the grumbles to die down until I could speak again. “What the hell do you want me to do? This job could mean everything.” I stared down my family. “Money for Darren’s treatments, his surgery. Money to help pay off the fucking two mortgages you put on this house. Money so you could actually retire before you’re fucking seventy!” I blew out a breath. “It’s fine. I’ll stay with Andrea or date women.” And forget about Quinn. “It’ll be fine.” By the time I was done talking, my throat was scratched raw and my eyes burned.
Ma made a small choked sound with a napkin pressed to her mouth, then she stood up and walked into the house. Dad followed her with an unreadable glance back at me.
I dropped my head into my hands, wishing I could build a blanket fort in my bed and stay there forever. I was making this decision for them. Why were they mad?
Darren and I sat in silence until he finally spoke. “I don’t know what it’s like to be you. But I imagine even if you date women, you want to be able to be honest about who you are.”
I didn’t look at him, just nodded.
“And you want to be free to get with a guy you like, right?”
I lifted my head and met his gaze, then nodded again.
He tilted his head. “Levi e-mailed me, did he tell you that?”
“No.”
“After the cruise, he asked me to check in on you. Why is that?”
I dropped my gaze to my empty plate. “I don’t know.”
“Jay . . .”
I sighed. “I met a guy on the cruise. He was . . .” I leaned my head back, staring at the waning—or was it waxing?—moon in the dusky sky. My hand strayed to the pocket of my shorts, where I always kept the chip Quinn had given me. “He was so fucking nice. I was sick the first morning on the boat, and he saw me on the deck and offered me these stupid wristbands, but they worked. And he was quiet and was good at craps and loved to eat Lucky Charms, but he always saved all the marshmallows for last.” I laughed, remembering eating cereal on the deck with him. I looked at my brother as my vision blurred, as my cheeks grew hot. “I think I did something for him, too. I don’t know. I guess I like to think I did. He’s a really cautious guy, you know?”
Darren nodded.
“We had to hide to see each other. It was a risk, since he could have been exposed too, but he took that risk for me. With me.” I pulled the casino chip out of my pocket, rolled it in my fingers, then tossed it to Darren. He caught it and studied it, then looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I shrugged. “He gave that to me. I don’t have his number or anything, but I have that.”
Darren swallowed as he ran a finger over the chip, then threw it back to me. “So that’s it?”
“What?”
“You only saw him on the ship and . . .”
“Yeah. What choice did I have?”
“Would you have wanted to see him again? If you didn’t have to hide?”
I’d told myself I wouldn’t. But I wasn’t as good at lying to myself as I was to everyone else. “Yeah, I’d want to see him again.”
Darren shook his head and kicked the table, his face tight. “I don’t want you to do this.”
“Do what?”
His gaze burned into mine. “Hide. I can’t stand it anymore. Ma and Dad hate it because they see how miserable you are.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. When you first started Trip League, you were okay because you didn’t think it’d be long. But I can see what this is doing to you. J. R. isn’t my brother. Jay is. Jay is a whole lot of things, and bisexual is one of them. You should be allowed to say that, to tell people.”
“Carl said I’ll get less offers if I come out—”
“Fuck Carl,” Darren sneered. “I can’t tell you what to do, Jay. But don’t sit there and tell me you don’t want to come out. You talked all the time about how excited you were for your contract to be up, for you to be able to be honest with everyone about how you are. So don’t act like that doesn’t mean anything to you anymore.”
“What do you want me to do?” I pleaded. “I’m doing this for this family and for you and—”
Darren’s lower lip trembled. I rarely saw my brother cry, even when his pain was at its worst. Even when the doctor asked him for a scale, and Darren had to gasp out that he was at a ten. But he was on the verge now, and I felt the familiar pinprick in my own eyes. I rubbed them and looked away.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Darren said softly. “My life and this family’s have been dictated for too long by a disease that none of us asked for. I hate it. I fucking hate it, and I feel helpless.”
I risked a glance at him. A tear rolled down his cheek, a single sparkle in the light of the setting sun.
“So I can’t . . . won’t let it control your life.”
I tried to protest. “The money—”
“I don’t give a shit about the money,” he whispered harshly. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and he brushed his face angrily. “I refuse to accept this. That you have to be miserable for me. That you have to be a martyr for this family.”
It would have hurt less if he’d taken his fork and stabbed me in the chest. “D.”
“I’m scared for you. If you agree to stay quiet about your sexuality now, when will it end? There’ll always be another audition, another part, another reason not to be who you are openly. If that’s what you want, if you’re okay being in the closet, then fine. I’ll drop it. But I don’t think that’s what you want. Don’t use me as an excuse.”
“You’re killing me.” I thumped my chest, my voice strained as I held on to my composure with my fingertips. “I don’t know what the right answer is. What if I come out and no one wants to touch me? What if I never get another job in this business again? What the fuck am I going to do?”
He lifted his chin. “But what if you do come out, and people do want you? What if more doors open because of it? What then?”
I pressed my lips together and shook my head, all the words I wanted to say colliding into the lump in my throat that prevented them from escaping.
“That’s on you to make the decision, if you want to take that risk.” He pounded his fist on the table. “But I won’t be the cause. I won’t, Jay. I got enough guilt for everything I’ve put this family through.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as something wet trickled down my cheek. “I don’t know what to do. I’m fucking scared.”
Darren sighed, and when I opened my eyes, he was smiling sadly. “I’ll love you no matter what you do. Just please, for fuck’s sake, do what makes you happy.”
Coming clean to my castmates about who I was made me happy. Quinn made me happy. The thought of being honest with everyone sent a bolt of exhilaration and terror through me at the same time.
I laughed softly and gulped the rest of my water. “What would make me happy right now is to sleep for about twelve hours.”
Darren gestured at the table in front of us. “Let’s clean up for Ma and Dad. And then go into a coma.”
“That’s a good plan. For now, that’s my only plan. How does that sound?”
“All right, Jay.”
***
My mother had calmed down by the time we finished cleaning the dishes. Darren went to the basement to watch TV with my dad, while I found my mom in the living room, dusting.
We all had our ways to cope with bad shit. Ma dusted.
I sat down on the couch and waited until she finished cleaning the fireplace mantel and turned to look at me.
“I’m sorry I upset you.”
She shook her head and sank down into the chair beside me. “No, it wasn’t all you. Sometimes I feel helpless. With Darren. With you. I want you both to be happy, but I can’t snap my fingers and make it happen.”
“Your mac and che
ese helps.”
She smiled and patted my hand. “Well, that’s something I can do, then.”
I stared at her hand over mine. “Darren thinks I should come out.”
Her red nails dug into my skin until I raised my eyes to meet hers. “What do you think?”
“I think . . . it’s complicated.”
“How so?”
“There’s more to it than—”
“Spell it out for me.” She leaned back and speared me with that Mama Butler intensity. “It can’t be too complicated that we can’t sort it out.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Sometimes . . .” She let her gaze travel around the room. “A problem seems too big, too much. And I’m so anxious about it that I make myself sick. If I actually sit down and pick it apart until there’s no aspect of the issue I’ve left uncovered, it doesn’t seem quite so bad. Or at the least, I’ve addressed the big, bad unknowns. What are the big, bad unknowns?”
I chewed my lip. “I stay in the closet, but I’m miserable.”
“Why would you be miserable?”
“Because I couldn’t be honest with anyone. I couldn’t see a man, want him, and act on it.” I blushed a little at this conversation with my mother, but she didn’t even blink. “If I fall in love with a woman, I’d want to tell her about me.”
“So what’s the alternative?”
“I come out, and my career goes in the crapper.”
“Do you think it would?”
“I don’t know. But if it does, how will I help you? How will we save enough for Darren’s surgery? He told me he doesn’t care, that it’s not worth it to him for me to be miserable.”
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