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Gay.
I’m gay.
I run a hand through my hair and shake the melancholy off. Everyone I know is gay or bi or whatever, and they’re fine with it. Ollie seems like the happiest person on earth and when my friend Wesley decided to be with a man, he just did it. There were no tears, no second-guessing.
And yet here I am, blubbering about it.
“You okay?” Ollie asks as he hands Charlie a pouch of applesauce. Charlie squirts half of it out on his shirt before placing it at his lips.
“I’m fine,” I say with a small sniffle as I try my best to clean him up with a wet-wipe.
“I mean, you look like you’re sad. You can talk to me about it, if you want.”
“I know I can.”
I know I can tell Ollie anything and he’d never judge me, but I just can’t get those words out. I can’t utter them. Last night, I had felt nervous but relieved, alive, new, fearless. I’d said those words to Alec and he held me tightly. He comforted me, almost as if he knew exactly what I needed.
But as soon as the morning came, I started to second-guess it all.
I know what this admission would mean and what I could lose.
So I don’t unload on Ollie, I just swallow my fears down and jog off to play with the kids. And play with them, I do. I play with them until I’m breathless and exhausted, and then I return them to their parents completely passed out.
“You sure wore them out,” Brian says with a smile when he answers the door and takes Charlie from me. I’m currently juggling two kids and walking a zombie at my side. My sister moves up to take a sleeping Julia from me. She carries her to the bedroom, and I haul Jordan into my arms and follow.
“They haven’t napped like this in forever,” my sister whispers as we lay them in their beds and tuck them in.
“Hopefully it will give you and Brian a little more time together,” I say and she nods, looking like she wants to hug me but pulling back at the last second. We never were an affectionate family, and after we lost both our parents in the same year, my sister was too stressed to do things like wrap her arms around me in reassurance.
Even when I needed it.
She moves past me and takes Charlie from her husband’s arms and disappears into her room. I’m left standing in the foyer with my brother-in-law. He eyes me, looking a little exhausted with rumpled clothes and bags under his eyes. Probably completely jetlagged from his recent business trip. Even so, he’s a handsome man. Some people are just naturally gorgeous despite it all.
“We really appreciate you,” he says after a moment of silence. “I know Hayden isn’t good at telling you that. But we do. And the kids adore you.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and nod, “I love those kids like they’re my own.”
“I know you do. You’re a great uncle.”
He walks to the door and pulls it open, and I step outside. “Thanks again, Jude,” he says before closing the door and leaving me to stand there once more, fighting off tears.
Fuck, maybe I just need a good cry. Maybe I just need to let it all out.
I walk to the car and turn it on, music whispering through the speakers. My fingers crank the volume up and I let it blast the entire way home. I’ll deal with all of this later. All of it, including Alec, whose texts have gone unanswered. I just can’t right now. I can’t face him.
It was too much.
He’s too much.
So I let it go. Just for now. Just until I can process it all.
I don’t have much time to process it because an hour after I get home, I hear Ollie scream for about a minute straight. Lucas and I rush into the living room, expecting to see Ollie with a missing arm, but instead see him beaming as he hangs off Wesley. Simon is standing to the side, his lips tilted up in a small smile.
“You guys! They’re here!” Ollie says, and I stumble forward, pulling Ollie off my friend and replacing his body with mine. I crush Wesley to me and squeeze. His hands wrap around my back and he pats me roughly.
“Oof, man,” Wesley says with a laugh. “Missed me?”
“Yeah,” I say, pulling away and then turning to pull Simon into a hug too. He comes mostly unwillingly, but I force it on him anyways. This fucker needs a hug. And I need one too. I missed them. God, they’ve been gone for so long. It’s been like over half a year since they’ve come to visit.
