“Jesus,” I hear Luan mutter under his breath, quiet enough so my father wouldn’t hear. He squeezes my hand, only then making me realize I am even holding his.
However, I shake off my fear, clear my throat and say, “Dad, this is myboyfriend.” Again, I leave out Luan’s name for a reason. The second my father learns his name, he will try to drag it through mud, and I’d rather not have him do that. I’m not sure my father knows who Luan is, that he’s the son of the CEO of his rival company, but on the off chance that he doesn’t, why give my father more fuel to light this whole world up in flames?
He scoffs, nodding slowly. “Boyfriend,” he repeats back to me with venom. He knows my relationship with Luan is serious because I have neverseriouslyintroduced anyoneto my father, hence why he doesn’t pretend to be okay with this. He won’t yell at meafterLuan leaves like he did with every other guy I’ve ever brought home, he won’t pretend to be a nice man.
“You’re twenty-six, Grey!” he yells.I’m twenty-five, as of now. “Your stupid little gay-phase was supposed to end withCollege!”
“It was—”
“I am talking, Grey!”Of course. “When I talk, you listen.”
Yeah, how dare I speak?
He waits… like I’m supposed to say something now. “Oh, am I—”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”
Well, okay then.
From the corner of my eye, I can see Luan turning his head to look at me, but I don’t have a death wish, so I don’t look back just yet. Who knows, if I do, my father might as well throw a knife at me. I do, however, squeeze Luan’s hand to let him know I’m okay.
I expected this. The yelling. The insults that surprisingly haven’t come yet. Getting disowned.
“You have a career, Grey.” My father looks at Luan but back at me a second later. It’s like he can’t even look at my boyfriend without having to throw up. I’m sure he feels the same way about me. “What is the NFL going to say?”
“NHL,” I correct. “I play ice hockey, not football.” Moon used to play football when he was in high school, but never beyond that.
He waves a hand around. “So? Excuse me for being such an awful father just because I can’t get one abbreviation correctly. But of course that makes me the bad guy. You’re the good one, you don’t make mistakes. You’re perfect.”I want to punch him.“What do you think is going to happen when the NHL finds out that they have a gay guy amongst them? In a team filled with other men!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I am not gay,” I tell him for probably the millionth time in twelve years. I don’t know why I keep on trying to make him understand because I know it’s useless. No matter how often I tell him that I don’t just like men, that I don’t put a fucking label on myself, to him, unless I am straight, I am gay.
“But you have a boyfriend,” he says with disgust. “So you’re gay. You’re such a disgrace, a disgusting piece of shit. What do they call people like you… a fa—?”
Before he gets the chance to finish that word, I allow myself to cut him off. “Is that the only word you know that’s offensive towardpeople like me? You can’t insult me any other way, do you really have to revert back to degrading my sexuality just because you don’t see eye-to-eye with me?” In order to keep myself from jumping over that table and punching my own father, I take a deep breath and ball my hands into fists.
He ignores me, but of course he would. He got the reaction from me that he wanted, made me feel degraded, so that ends the conversation. My father looks from me to Luan, rolling his eyes. “You made my son gay,” he accuses.
Oh, okay, so now that he’s done with me, he moves over to Luan.
Luan cocks his head and as it seems, he’s about to explode more than I thought he would. “With all due respect, sir,”—he points at himself—“I didn’t do that.” He looks at me again, then back at my father. “Nobody can make anyone gay, that’s not how this works. But how would you know?”
Luan lets go of my hand, and for a second there, I panic, even more when he takes a step closer to my father. It feels like there’s no oxygen making it to my brain, like my blood is pumping through my veins a little faster yet at the same time it’s running cold and freezes.
“Take another step and—”
“And what?” Luan laughs. “If you lay a hand on me, or even just try to threaten me, you’ll end up in jail. You might have tons of lawyers supporting your ass, but so do I. And your wannabe charming ways won’t do much this time, want to know why?”
Uh oh.
This was a bad idea. Not finally taking control over my own life but bringing Luan. I should’ve known this would happen. You can’t put two people with narcissistic tendencies in one room together and expect it to go smoothly. Especially when one of them hates you and the other one somehow loves you.
“You can pretend to be the victim here, but I can do it a million times better.” Luan chuckles at the more-or-less stunned expression from my father. Said expression quickly vanishes when he realizes. “What? You’re not used to people talking back, huh? Especially someone younger than you. Oh, the disrespect on my part. Not only am I gay and very much venomous as I have apparently infected your son with my gayness, but I also talk. How dare I?”
“I don’t want you here,” my father spits out, now clutching his hands around the edge of his desk.
“Aw, but I was just getting comfortable.” Luan takes a seat on the chair on the opposite side of my father, humming like all of this is a game to him. He leans back, makes himself comfortable. “What’s that? Fake or real leather?” Luan runs a finger over the material of the chair. “Judging you, probably real leather, but I think you’d rather skin your‘gay’ sonthan animals, am I right?”
My father straight upgrowlsat Luan, to which my boyfriend, once again, laughs.
