The Outside Series - Complete Trilogy: Books 1-3

by Kristina Renee

“Okay, sure.”

  As soon as Adam stepped away from me, I felt cold. The warmth of his presence was replaced by an acute sense of how far away from me he was standing. I wanted his arms around me again so I could melt into him and never let go. But...I didn’t want to rush into anything. My nerves were shot, and I was certain I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself until I settled down.

  A relaxing bath did sound like the perfect way to unwind, so I gathered my things and headed into the bathroom. The tub was huge and had tons of jets inside. I had always been more of a shower person, but a few minutes in that tub made me a believer. Baths could be truly amazing if the tub was big enough for soaking.

  Hot water and steam wrapped around me, seeping into my knotted muscles. I sank lower into the water, letting it come up to just beneath my nose, and just sat there while my thoughts untangled themselves.

  I’d been keeping my feelings for Adam bottled up for so long that once I finally gave myself permission to let them out, I’d gotten overwhelmed. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what Robin would’ve said. If I wanted to truly understand how I felt, I needed to take this one step at a time. We weren’t heading home until Monday morning, so there was no reason to rush.

  I finally dragged myself out of the tub, beyond relaxed and certain I could handle just about anything.

  When I emerged from the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel, I found Adam asleep on one of the beds. He was stretched out, wearing only his boxers, in what I’m assuming was meant to be an enticing pose. But I guess I’d taken so long in the tub that the exhaustion from the drive and all the pent-up sexual tension had taken its toll.

  But he looked so peaceful.

  I stifled a yawn and quickly rifled through my bag for some Pjs. Maybe this was for the best. Everything was all still so new to me, and I didn’t know which way was up half the time.

  I got dressed and looked between the empty bed and the one Adam was sleeping on. The memory of our last kiss was still fresh in my mind as I crept to the edge of the bed. After everything we’d gone through to be here together, it seemed like a waste to sleep alone, so I carefully climbed onto the bed beside him and positioned myself so I could look at his face as he slept.

  We weren’t touching because I didn’t want to wake him up, but I felt warmer just by being near him.

  As he slept, I studied the lines of his face more deeply than I’d ever allowed myself to before. He was beautiful and masculine and perfect. Slowly but surely, my eyes grew heavy, and I fought to stay awake so I could look at him a little longer.

  36

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of the ocean and the smell of pancakes. Adam must’ve covered me with a blanket at some point because I was tucked in all safe and sound. As my eyes drifted open, I was greeted with the sight of Adam bent over a tray table where several plates of food had been arranged.

  “Hey, you,” I said through a yawn as I stretched.

  Adam glanced back at me with a smile. “Just in time.” He picked up the plate in front of him. “Your breakfast is served.”

  I sat up and reached for the plate as he handed it to me. A stack of pancakes had been topped with chocolate chips and fresh strawberries arranged in the shape of a heart.

  “This is sweet.” I grinned and looked up at Adam. “Thank you.”

  “Anything for you,” he said with a little growl in his throat that made my stomach flutter. He leaned in for a kiss, and I tilted my head back to meet him. Our lips brushed and an electric tingle ran down my spine. It was a brief interaction, but the intimacy was overwhelming. Adam returned to the breakfast tray and left me breathlessly wishing that I could have a good morning kiss like that every day.

  “You’re adorable when you sleep, you know?” Adam winked at me as he carried his plate back to the bed and sat down beside me. “I was worried I would wake you up, but apparently, you sleep like the dead.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.” I was a little embarrassed but I didn’t let it bother me. “It’s been a long time since I slept that well.” I actually couldn’t remember ever having slept as good as I did that night. I’d always thought I just wasn’t a morning person. But, given how energized and well rested I felt, I was beginning to rethink that notion.

  “So, what do you want to do today?” Adam cut a piece of pancake and popped it into his mouth.

  “I don’t care.” I shrugged. “Whatever you want is fine with me.”

  Adam glanced at me with a mischievous grin. “We could just stay in all day long and get to know each other more intimately.”

  As enticing as that was, I wanted us to be able to have some actual, normal first date type stuff under our belt first. We’d been together a few months already and we didn’t have anything like that. “I do want to do a lot of that, but maybe we can walk around the boardwalk, ride some rides or play minigolf. Ya know, stuff we can’t do at home.”

  Adam held my gaze and smiled. “That sounds great.”

  After we finished eating, we set out for the boardwalk with high spirits. I almost threw up worrying about it, but after a few minutes, I tentatively reached for Adam’s hand as we stepped onto the boardwalk. There were crowds of tourists enjoying the early morning sunshine and nobody gave us a second glance. Still, it was one of the scariest moments of my life. “Is this okay?” I whispered to Adam.

  He wrapped my arm in his and kissed the back of my hand. “This is perfect.”

  We were just a normal couple out for a stroll on a beautiful day. I even spied a few other gay couples dotted throughout the crowd. It was liberating, and I felt myself growing bolder by the moment.

  We made our way through the shops and stopped in at a photo booth along the way. I picked up a few knickknacks to commemorate our first date. Nothing fancy. Just silly stuff like a cat wearing sunglasses while surfing and a coffee cup with a silhouette of the boardwalk on it. Adam was amused with my purchases, but I didn’t feel the need to defend myself.

  I liked weird stuff…and he seemed to like that about me.

  If I had my way, my entire bedroom would’ve been decorated with memorable items that signified important moments in my life. Sentimentality was my curse, and I usually went out of my way to hide it. After all, it wasn’t a particularly masculine trait.

  “You’re adorable, you know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re doing all this, right? To slay me with your cuteness.” Adam tickled my side then wrapped his arms around me after my third purchase. I looped my arms around his neck and looked up at him with absolute bliss.

  I’d never gotten to see this side of him before and I loved it. “I’m just...you know.” I blushed a little and averted my gaze. I was worried he’d think I was moving too fast and assuming too much.

  “Just what? You can tell me. Whatever it is, zero judgment here.”

  I chuckled and flushed even deeper red when I realized we were still standing in the middle of a crowd.

  “Don’t worry about anyone else, babe.” Adam could practically read my mind. “They have their own lives to worry about. They don’t care about us. They don’t factor into this. It’s just me and you.”

  I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to meet his once more. “I just keep thinking about what these things would look like on a shelf in our apartment... Ya know, if we got one together someday.” I bit my lip and looked away again.

  Adam gave me a little squeeze of reassurance. “I think they’d look great,” he said softly. “I’d really like that.”

  When I turned to look at him again, he was already leaning in to kiss me. Our lips met, and it felt like a dozen fireworks were going off in my chest. I heard a passerby whoop with encouragement, and it made me break the kiss with an embarrassed chuckle.

  “See, we’re okay here.” Adam kissed the tip of my nose. “Nothing to worry about.”

  I glanced around to see the crowd still moving, save for the one guy who gave me a thumbs up before moving on. I was flooded with embarrassment and had to l
ook away from the stranger. When I did, I locked eyes with the only other person to stop and take note of us.

  My blood ran cold.

  “Mrs. Fredericks...” I stepped back from Adam as my brain reeled. An elderly woman stood nearby, flanked by her two grandchildren who were close to Eric’s age.

  “Bryant...it is you?” Mrs. Fredericks sounded both appalled and confused. “W-what...are you…?” Her voice trailed off, and she didn’t finish her sentence. Her gaze flicked between Adam and me with an air of judgment. “I’m sure your mother would like to know what you’ve been up to,” she said, shaking her head in disappointment. She turned and began walking away.

  “M-Mrs. Fredericks, please wait.” I ran after her, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. Of course, I had none.

  “I will not be complicit in your deception, young man. Do not even ask the question,” she snapped over her shoulder at me. Without another word, she ushered her grandchildren away as if trying to shield them from whatever influence I might project.

  “Who was that?” Adam asked, laying a hand on my shoulder.

  I flinched away from him. The illusion had been shattered. “She goes to church with my parents.” I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I could barely breathe.

  “Do you think...” Adam’s voice trailed off but I could hear the worry in his unspoken words.

  “What? That she’ll tell my parents? Absolutely. She’s always had a mean streak. She’s pretty much isolated herself in her tower of piety where she thinks she’s above everyone else on the planet.” I could feel myself beginning to fall apart. I wasn’t going to cry in public, but I definitely felt a panic attack coming on.

  “Bry...” Adam glanced around for any sign of Mrs. Fredericks, but she was long gone. Probably off to gleefully look up my mom’s phone number. As one of the heads of women’s ministry, Mom’s number was readily available via the church directory. Anyone who wanted to reach out to her could do so with ease.

  “Maybe you can get ahead of this by telling your parents it was a misunderstanding,” Adam suggested as he tugged me toward a bench away from the crowds.

  “And then what, Adam?” I dropped heavily onto the bench. “We’re hours from home, and somehow we wound up at the same tourist trap as someone my parents know. You saw how many people were at dad’s birthday party. That was only a fraction of the people they call a ‘friend.’ We’re never going to be able to run far enough to avoid being seen.” My heart was pounding and a migraine was creeping in behind my eyes.

  “What are you saying, Bry? What do you want to do here?” Adam sat beside me and looked me in the eye.

  “I’m going to come out to my parents...” I said, surprising myself. But the words felt right.

  “Why?” Adam’s shoulders slumped a little. “Why risk it?”

  “Because I’m tired, Adam.” I leaned back and held my hands over my face. “I’m tired of always lying to my parents and being afraid that they’re going to find out the truth. If they kick me out, so be it. At least I don’t have to hide anymore. If they try to ‘fix’ my gayness, then well, joke’s on them I guess. At least this part will be over.”

  “And what if things go the way they did with my parents?” Adam asked, frowning at me. “What if you come out to them and they get into an argument over whose fault it is? And they keep yelling at each other until you pretend it was just a hypothetical question for a paper you’re writing. Then, three months later, they’re getting a divorce.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for their marital issues,” I said, tentatively reaching for his hand.

  “What if someone sees you?” he countered, pulling his hand back and narrowing his eyes at me.

  “I don’t care anymore, Adam.” I turned to face him. “We’ve barely spent any time together, and I’ve already enjoyed myself more in the last twenty-four hours than any other time in my life.”

  “You’re braver than I am.” He shook his head slowly but let me take his hand. “I’ve already seen firsthand how bad it can go. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  “I appreciate that but it’s too late. I can’t keep hiding. I love you too much to keep it inside.”

  Adam’s head snapped up and he looked at me with surprise in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry.” I smiled and rubbed the side of his hand with my thumb. “I’m not going to out you, but I am going to ‘break up’ with Allie. I can be your gay friend at school or whatever.”

  “I’m not worried about that.” Adam’s eyes were shining and he looked at me differently than just a few minutes earlier. “Do you really love me?”

  “You think I’d suffer through all this shit if I didn’t? These last few months have been some of the hardest and most miserable of my entire life. But it’s been worth it for those moments I get to spend with you.” I squeezed his hands and smiled at him.

  “I love you too, Bry,” Adam said, cautiously leaning forward and giving me a peck on the cheek. He rested his forehead against mine for a long moment before sighing heavily. “So, what do you want to do now? I guess the weekend is kind of ruined.”

  I nodded sadly. “I’m sorry about all this...”

  “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

  “We should probably head home. I don’t think this is the kind of conversation I should have over the phone.” I took a deep breath and tried to steel myself for what was to come. The truth was, I was terrified. Home was the last place I wanted to go, but I needed to deal with my mess.

  “Agreed.”

  Adam and I walked back to the hotel. I packed up our things while he tried to get a refund for the rest of the stay.

  The trip back home was solemn. We didn’t talk very much, and my thoughts were focused on trying to prepare for every possible scenario waiting for me.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Adam asked as he pulled up to the curb outside of my house. It was late afternoon, but both cars were in the driveway.

  “No,” I said with more confidence then I felt. “I’ll call you after and let you know how it went.” I reached over and gave his hand a little squeeze. “Wish me luck.”

  37

  I climbed out of the car and grabbed my bag from the backseat before turning toward the house. My feet were leaden, but I forced myself to walk up the driveway to the front door anyway. I had spent so long trying to hide that all the instincts I’d honed over the years were screaming at me to run the other way.

  I was crazy to do this.

  As I reached for the doorknob, I heard Adam pull away in Austin’s car. I was truly alone now, facing down this uncertainty on my own.

  The door swung open and I slunk inside like a stray cat. There was no one in the living room. That was a good sign. I glanced toward the hallway and wondered if I could sneak into my bedroom without being noticed. Maybe I could delay the confrontation just a little bit longer.

  I quietly shut the front door and slipped to my bedroom without a sound. I could hear voices coming from my parents’ room and their door was closed. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I assumed it was probably about me.

  Safely inside my room, I closed and locked the door behind me.

  I gasped for breath and let my backpack fall to the floor by my bed. I felt like I had just run a marathon. My pulse fluttered in my veins, sweat was beading across my brow, and I realized I had sweat stains in my arm pits. My nerves were getting the better of me. I was an idiot for thinking that I was ready for this.

  I changed my shirt and paced my bedroom floor trying to rehearse what I was going to say to my parents when I saw them. Everything sounded stupid.

  The groan of squeaky hinges drifted down the hallway as my parents’ bedroom door opened. Their steps thudded down the hallway in time with my heartbeat. When they stopped, so did my heart. I was frozen in fear. For all my bravery earlier, I couldn’t shake the story that Adam had told about his experience in trying to come out. I hadn�
��t even considered that possibility in my list of things that could go wrong.

  There was a knock. Light and tentative. My mother’s knock.

  “Bry? Are you in there?” she asked, her voice was calm. She didn’t sound upset, but it was hard to tell for sure what was waiting for me on the other side of that door.

  I backed away from the door. My throat was dry and every response I came up with sounded like a bad idea. My fight or flight instincts had kicked into over drive and I’d picked flight.

  Silently swearing at myself, I turned and slid my window open before knocking out the screen. We only had a single storey house, but it was still a long way to the ground. I climbed onto the windowsill and took a deep breath.

  “Bry? Please, we just want to talk. You’re not in trouble, I swear.” My mom sounded worried.

  There was a moment where I almost went back inside, but fear got the better of me. I jumped to the ground, tripped and sprawled in the grass, and scrambled to my feet again.

  I didn’t know where I was going except for away. I sprinted across the lawn and then up the sidewalk and around the corner. I don’t know how long I kept running, but I didn’t stop until I reached the main street. Gasping for breath, I leaned against a street post and tried to figure out what I was going to do.

  I had run away from home. My cell phone was in my backpack and my backpack was on the floor of my bedroom. Whatever situation had been about to unfold was probably going to be ten times worse when I went back home. If I went back home.

  I still had my wallet and the credit card my parents had set up for me. If I could find an ATM I could pull out all the money, buy a bus ticket and go anywhere. I’d figure things out from there.

  That idea evaporated almost as soon as I thought it. Nothing had even happened. I wasn’t running away from abusive parents or anything. I was running because I was scared of what might happen if I faced them. They’d always been good parents but now their faith was at odds with one of their children’s lives. As much as I wanted to believe they’d love and support me no matter what, I just couldn’t be certain.