“No, uh…” Marcus replies with a smile. “I’m buying him a car for his sixteenth birthday—one of those old-style Volkswagen Beetles. I found one for sale on the west side of the state, and the guy’s bringing it up today. It’s going to be a surprise at the party.”
“Seriously?” I can’t help but grin.
“Yeah. He found a bunch online that he fell in love with.” Marcus shrugs one shoulder. “Apparently, this couple in Alabama totally vamps them out for shows and stuff. One, in particular, he fell head over heels for. They gutted it, reupholstered it with pink rose-patterned material, and then they painted the outside this shimmery pearly pink. I think it was called Rose, actually. Well, anyway, he was dying over it, but they weren’t selling that car, so I thought we could try to recreate it together.”
“Pink and all?”
“Pink and all.”
“That’s really cool.” I grin. “I didn’t realize he was into that sort of thing.”
“I’m discovering rather quickly that there’s a lot more he’s interested in that he’s been keeping from me,” Marcus says, his face dropping slightly as he looks at me.
I feel a twinge of guilt run through me, thinking that his statement could easily be meant for me if he only knew what I was keeping from him. Marcus sighs, turning his head to look back out at Luke’s truck in the driveway.
“He came out to me recently, you know,” he says after a moment. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet, but he’s gay.”
I can feel my brows rise in shock. “Ryder? Seriously?” What are the fucking odds of that?
Marcus nods, swallowing hard. “He’s known since he was twelve, apparently. But he told me for the first time last month. He’s got a boyfriend, too—a kid from a different school. I don’t even know how they met. Snapchat, I think? They’ve been dating for the last six months. A secret boyfriend. Can you believe that?”
My face twitches slightly, and I’m hyper-aware that my very own secret boyfriend is just beyond the door at my back.
“He said he was terrified to tell me about it,” Marcus continues, looking at me again, and I see tears in his eyes. He smiles, but there’s pain hidden beneath it, so much so that my chest tightens. “He was worried I’d hate him for it. Kick him out, even. All the worst possible reactions a parent could have after learning their child is gay. He honestly believed I could love him less for this. That shit broke my heart.”
Warmth floods my cheeks, and I drop my gaze to the floor. Now, I’m too cowardly to meet his eye. I know he’s not talking about me, but he might as well be with how viscerally his words tear through my chest. The sting of betrayal is plain to see, mixed with the fear that he’s done something wrong to deserve the secrecy. Suddenly, it feels hard to breathe.
“Am I a monster or something?” he asks me suddenly. “Do I come off as someone who can’t be trusted with that kind of truth? Like I wouldn’t understand? Do I really seem like the kind of person who would hate someone just for being gay?”
“I don’t think it’s anything to do with you,” I say on a shaky exhale.
“Apparently, it is. If he’s that afraid to come clean with me, what does that say about me? Why wouldn’t he just tell me when he figured it out?”
“God, Marcus. Try to put yourself in his shoes,” I blurt, my voice rising in a knee-jerk defensive tone I have no control over. “It’s probably really fucking scary discovering something like that about yourself and then having to wonder if your whole life will change because of it. Having people who have known you one way your entire life suddenly see you differently and wonder if anything will ever be the same again once they find out you’re different. Youknowwhat this town is like. What kids at his school are probably like. He was probably terrified of the potential that he’d lose something precious to him, even if it is illogical because it’syou, and he knows that you love him unconditionally.”
It's the closest I can bring myself to a confession, the words incredibly personal and fueled with passion, but safe under the guise that we’re still talking about Ryder. Not me.
Marcus regards me thoughtfully for a moment before slowly nodding his head. He rubs a hand along the back of his neck. “Okay. Yeah, no, you’re probably right. I guess I understand it, but it still fucking stings. At least he told me eventually, I guess. I’ll have to be content that I know for now and worry about the rest later.”
I clench my jaw slightly and look away, feeling a knot in my stomach. Even with the conversation throwing the door wide open—and all the windows, too, for that matter—I’m still too weak to cross the threshold. Only this time, I bury it under the excuse that I’m trying to be there for Marcus right now. Not everything needs to come back to me.
“Is Luke coming to the party today?” Marcus eventually asks, blessedly switching topics.
I nod. “Yeah, he was planning on it.”
“Good. He’s a cool guy. I like him. It seems like you two hang out a lot, too. It’s nice that you’re becoming really good friends.” He smirks, and I wince slightly but say nothing to correct him. “It’s about time you have someone to hang out with besides me. I was worried that you were becoming a hermit, living in your little library fortress with no one to talk to.”
“Okay, you know what…” I scoff, but I'm unable to hide my smile. “You should probably be a little nicer to the person giving you money, dick.”
Marcus shakes his head and laughs, and then I turn and head inside, leaving him in the garage so I can go get the cash. As I head for the stairs, I see that Luke has fallen back to sleep, curled up on the couch. I’m quiet as I head up to the safe in my closet so I won’t disturb him. Then, I stash the money in my sweatshirt pocket so that even if Luke wakes up, he won’t see it as I come back downstairs.
I go back out to the garage and hand Marcus the straps of bills, and he frowns when he sees the check on top of it, written out for a hundred thousand dollars.
“What the fuck is that?” Marcus balks, staring at it dubiously. “Take that back.”
“$15k for the car, the rest for the materials to fix it up.” I shrug.
“I don’t need that, Ethan.” Marcus picks up the check and tries to hand it back to me. “I don’t evenneedthis to pay for the car, but I knew you’d have the cash on hand, and it was too last minute to get it out of the bank.”
