Page 88 of These Secret Years

“Your secret isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”

“Are you gonna tell me?” I ask.

He takes a longer, deeper drink, draining more than half his bottle. “The man who bought me that car is also paying for my school.”

My scowl deepens. I’m glaring at the car, though, as I try to parse through his meaning. “Your uncle…?”

“He’s not my uncle.”

“Is it easier if I guess, or do you just wanna tell me?”

“I didn’t drive out here to talk. Technically.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got all night, so…”

He sighs. “It’s a fucked up situation I don’t really like to talk about. Chelsea knows. I think that’s all I’m comfortable with right now.”

“Is it that bad?”

He gestures at the car. “It’s a fucking Audi.”

“And a college education apparently.”

“Exactly,” he says and drains the beer. “Can I have another?”

I give him another beer, and he gets to work on it in a hurry. Meanwhile, he pulls a vape pen out of one of his pockets and takes a long hit off it. “So, who was the guy? I mean, you don’t need to tell me his name, but how’d you meet him? What’d he do? Why’d you break up?”

“He plays for another team. And he announced his engagement to a girl in a post from an account he knows I follow, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Seriously?”

All I can do is nod, the betrayal from Blake still able to burn a hole in my chest wall.

“Were you two, like—official?”

“Obviously not.”

“I mean—like—was there a commitment?”

“No,” I say. “But I was dumb enough to think we were exclusive.”

“It’s hard to stay exclusive long distance.”

“You would know, I guess.”

He laughs sharply, but the sound disappears as quickly as it came. “What can I say. You made me curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“What I wanted. What I liked. Sexually curious.”

“Oh. I assumed you were…” I don’t know what I assumed about Sullivan. That he was gay at first, I guess, because of that first night in the woods. Then I assumed he was bi after I heard about his girlfriend. What I never thought was that he wasn’t sure of himself. His boundaries have always seemed clear. What he wants, what he doesn’t.

“I’m not anything,” he says. “Or I don’t know what I am.”

“Is it always transactional?” I ask, and I feel pretty brave doing it.

“Not always. But it’s not really emotional, either.” Staring hard at his car, he adds, “But I guess that’s normal, right? Being unemotional about sex? It’s just sex.”