His chest lightened as he let out a sob of pain he’d tried desperately to bury.
“Oh.” Sandra paused her examination. “You held the fundraiser at the gay club?”
“There wasn’t a fundraiser,” Kaiden confessed, lost on the temporary solace he got from his sister. “We just wanted to have a little fun. It was a nice time, but then these guys, they—”
“Well, that’s horrible,” she said rather flatly, returning to the microwave to grab the breakfast she’d made. “Just awful.”
Sandra slipped out of the kitchen, bringing her boys their meal, then made her way back into the kitchen, standing at the counter and eating her bowl.
Kaiden’s relief was quickly replaced with dread.
“Shame, you know, those men attacked you.” Sandra took an aggressive bite of her egg bowl mix. “But it sure as shit wouldn’t have happened if you’d been here.”
“What?”
“Just saying. You flaked, you lied, and went where you shouldn’t have been.”
“I shouldn’t have been at a club downtown? A public place where people go to drink and have fun?”
“Oh, come on, they don’t just go there for that.”
“What are you trying to say?” Kaiden let out an exasperated breath, having no fight in him, and wishing he could take back his foolish confession.
“I don’t know,” Sandra mused. “Just seems a little bit like karma if you ask me. Which you did.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying. You had a responsibility, and you blew it off to probably, I don’t know, blow some stranger.” Sandra laughed a little at her own play on words. “Maybe next time, you’ll think about that before ditching your family.”
“To be clear, your kids are not my fucking responsibility,” Kaiden snapped. “My free time does not belong to you.”
This had been a battle he’d waged with his sister for years, always surrendering because most of the time, Kaiden didn’t care to argue. Kaiden didn’t mind being the good guncle. But the more he offered, the more his family expected, the more they demanded.
“Look, whatever. You got drunk, you acted a fool, you got beat up by a couple twinks, or I don’t know, the bears? Whichever homos are the tough ones. I say karma has been served, and we can put this behind us.”
“I wasn’t assaulted by anyone in the club,” Kaiden fumed, practically snarling as he spoke. “I was outside, led away by—”
“Ooooh, that makes sense now.” Sandra nodded, connecting the dots to whatever bullshit version of events she’d concocted. “You were drinking, having agayole time, and then you went outside and started bringing that flirt game with drunk guys on the street. I have seen that happen before.”
“What? No!”
“It’s happened to Tommy plenty of times,” Sandra explained. “When it’s a girl, I handle it. But those gay boys think they’re cute, but that type of shit is not cute.”
“I…” Kaiden fumbled with his thoughts, with his words, sinking into a fit of frustration as his sister twisted what little she knew and turned it into a working theory based on whatever bullshit she’d experienced with her husband.
“Just saying, sometimes gays think they’re being provocative and funny, but they’re being aggressive and gross, giving unwanted attention,” Sandra explained like she was the authority on unwanted advances from men on men. “You said you’d been drinking, right? Went clubbing or whatever for that. Just saying, you probably did something to make those guys uncomfortable. Most men aren’t like you.”
Sandra gestured to all of Kaiden, as if every piece of him had been born wrong. He knew which parts she meant, though. His flamboyant behavior. His gay voice. His love for makeup. His need for flair. His stupid outfits that always drew attention. The wrong attention, according to his family.
Kaiden stared slack-jawed. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
He didn’t have the energy to explain how one of them had lured him outside, how they planned their assault, how they got him alone and away from everyone else before making their move.
Sandra had already made up her mind. She’d filled in the narrative and found a way to blame Kaiden for his assault. This was exactly why he didn’t want to follow up on the report, why he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. As much as he hated his sister’s reaction, it was normal and expected and not even the worst. Chances were his stepfather would say Kaiden brought it on by never learning how to act like a man. His mother would express how God worked in mysterious ways, and to be grateful He was giving Kaiden another chance. And the police? They definitely didn’t give a fuck about what happened. They only cared in shitty TV shows and bad action films.
“I don’t have time for this. I have work.”
Kaiden spent the next few days working for as long as Alison would allow him. She didn’t want him to overexert himself and would’ve preferred Kaiden take some time to recover, but he assured her work was the best recovery. In a sense, it was. He focused heavily on the distraction it afforded him.
