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“I promised him and I owed him so much, I swore on my life I would never tell anyone,” she let her gaze skip around the table and land on all of us. “Remy was g*y. He was my best friend, my surrogate family but he was a homosexual. He was involved in a serious relationship with a guy named Orlando Fredrick that he met his last year playing ball. That was the real reason he moved to Denver after school, Lando goes to DU as well.”
Disbelief foreign and cold snaked up my spine. Rome let out a string of nasty words and my mom started bawling in earnest. Shaw turned sad eyes in my direction and I looked at her like I had never seen her before.
“No way. He would have told me.”
She shook her head, sending white and black hair sliding across her shoulders. “He wanted to but he was worried you wouldn’t understand his desire to keep it quiet. He was scared you would push him to come out. It was never about worrying how you would react, he just knew it would kill Margot.”
“We were twins god damnit. He would have told me.”
“Rule.”
I pushed away from the table and glared down at her. “This is bullshit.”
Rome got to his feet as well and I noticed he was looking at Shaw with hard eyes as well. “You don’t need to make up lies about the deceased to try and fix things for Rule. That’s desperate and uncalled for Shaw.”
Tears trailed down her face as she looked back and forth between us she opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by my dad clicking his spoon against the side of his champagne glass.
“Alright everybody sit down and shut the hell up.” He cut a hard look at my mom and pointed to the seat she had vacated moments ago. She looked like she was going to faint and she looked about as happy to sit next to Shaw as she did when I stopped by a few weeks ago. I sat back down begrudgingly but surprisingly Rome was the hold out. He hovered by the back of his chair until my dad glared at him and pointed, “Ass in the chair solider.”
Shaw was crying next to me and now instead of wanting to comfort her all I wanted to do was get as far away from her as possible. My dad cleared his throat and crossed his arms on the table.
“Things in this family have been in shambles for a long time. There has been too much dishonesty and too much subterfuge for everyone’s sake and I’m done trying to sweep it all under the rug just to keep my wife happy because she isn’t, none of us are.” He rubbed a hand over his chin and suddenly he looked a hundred years older than he actually was. “Margot don’t pretend to not know that the way you’ve been treating Rule these last few years is cruel and uncalled for. I lost my son the same as you and I’m done watching you try and turn the remaining one into a stranger or into someone that hates us. He’s a good boy; he works hard, loves his family and clearly has qualities that are good enough for our girl to appreciate. I’m finished with freezing him out. We both know Shaw has been in love with him since she was a kid, we saw the way she watched him, the way she defended him and don’t think for one second I didn’t notice that’s why you were always trying to shove her in Remy’s direction.” He heaved a sigh that seemed like it came all the way from my youth and looked at me and Rome. “Shaw isn’t lying to you boys. Your brother did in fact live an alternative lifestyle. He might not have wanted your mother and me to know about it but teenagers are crap liars and he wasn’t exactly as discrete with it as he might have thought.” He slid a sideways look at my mom while Rome and I gave each other shocked looks. “Margot thought it was a phase that’s the main reason she was so eager to welcome Shaw into our home and family. At first she was convinced you were going to change him, make him like girls or more specifically like you but like I said it was pretty obvious your interest was in Rule and there was no way even if he had been straight that he would have done that to you. After a while we just adored you so much and saw how much love you were missing and how much you had to give that we couldn’t let you go even though I never approved of the way Rem let everyone just believe there was more between you two than friendship.”
I growled. “He would have told me.” I smacked the flat of my hand on the table and my dad glared at me.
“No son, he wouldn’t have. Remy struggled with it, he struggled with who he was supposed to be verses who everyone else thought he was and that’s not something you’ve ever done. You’ve always owned you, and screw anyone that didn’t like it.”
I looked at Shaw and then at the table. I had tried to change for her and it had been an epic failure. I climbed to my feet again and let my gaze fall on my mom.
“I don’t understand why you’ve never been able to love me the way I am when you obviously had the capacity to love him regardless of his choices. It just doesn’t make sense. I need to get out of here.”
“I’m with you.” Rome looked as wild I was feeling on the inside. I looked down when soft hand clasped around my forearm. I flinched involuntarily and I think I actually saw her heart break in her eyes.
“Rule,” her voice was a broken whisper. “I’m sorry.” She let me go and I almost couldn’t talk over the lump in my throat.
“I understand what you meant about those closest to you hurting you the most now. I’ll be in touch.” But as Rome and I hurried out of the restaurant I wasn’t sure I was telling her the truth and I refused to think about how much walking away from her like this hurt.
Chapter 16
Shaw
It had been three weeks give or take a day with no contact from Rule. No text messages, no phone calls, no e-mails, no carrier pigeons, just a whole lot of silence and heartbreak on my end. Rome hadn’t even returned my calls or texts telling him goodbye and that I would miss him while he was gone. He had left for the desert mad at me and as upsetting as that was the daily battle I had with myself to call Rule and beg him to forgive me, to plead with him to understand that it was never my secret to tell regardless of our relationship was soul crushing. Ayden kept saying he would cool off and come around while Margot and Dale firmly believed he wasn’t going to speak to any of us ever again. They were in the same boat as me, neither of the boys was speaking to them and Margot had nearly had a nervous breakdown when Rome had refused to allow them to drive him down to Fort Carson for his send off, instead the brothers went together leaving the rest of us out in the cold.
I was hurting but I was also sick and tired of my love and affection not being enough for anybody. I had loved Rule longer and harder than anyone else in my life and that still wasn’t enough for him to look beyond his own hurt feelings and sense of betrayal to work things out with me. I was still pissed that he had spent the week prior to the bomb being dropped trying to act and behave in a way I had never asked for or wanted, but when I was alone at night and crying in bed I had to admit that while it was misguided it was still a really sweet gesture and if things hadn’t gone so south we could have totally gone somewhere great with everything. I remembered telling him to beware of how bad things could be if we tried to do this and somehow even finding him in bed time and time again with every skanky girl this side of the Platte River couldn’t hold a candle to this complete freeze out.
