Page 57 of Josh’s Play

My brothers took their seats while Dad scooped out pie. Mom stood, looking a little dumbfounded, in front of the refrigerator.

“Sit, Mom. I’ll get the coffee.”

“Okay?” It was more a question about my behavior than an affirmation that she was agreeing to sit, though she did that as well.

I handed Mom her doctored cup of coffee, and Dad passed me a piece of pie, which I placed in front of her as he slid two to the boys.

“Mom, Chase, Danny.” Dad put a hand on my shoulder and a piece of pie on the table in front of me. I sank down on the bench and came out once again. And then we ate pie for breakfast, helped with morning chores, and spent our day preparing Thanksgiving dinner.

Josh and I had started texting again, and I knew it was dangerous for me to open myself up to him, but I was so excited to tell him about my day at the farm that the rest of it just sounded like noise.

My dad had said to keep an open mind and an open heart, and I thought about the Josh I knew. He’d told me he was a player, but he’d also told me he hadn’t hooked up with anyone since we met. He hadn’t said those two things like they were related, but if I was going to heed my dad’s advice, the least I could do was keep an open mind.

I was excited to see him at the Delta Tau party and had spent my day trying to figure out how to get him alone. When the guys and I got there, I looked everywhere for him and was about to text him when the door opened, and a group of people walked in, led by two guys and a girl, followed by Josh, who was arm in arm with a man who appeared older than us. The guy kept his head down, a skull cap pulled low over his ears. Josh hung on the guy as the group beelined for the kitchen. I took a step back, deeper into the game room where we had congregated, hoping not to be seen.

My heart hammered at seeing Josh with someone else, but I convinced myself there must be a logical explanation. I tried hard to think that as I excused myself from our group and headed to the kitchen. I could tell that Noah had seen Josh and knew exactly where I was going.

“Logical explanation,” I muttered to myself as I approached the archway entry to the kitchen, whereupon I froze in the entrance as Josh leaned in from behind and whispered in the guy’s ear. The guy nodded in return and smiled softly at him. I wanted to run, but it took a few beats for my mind to receive the message. I turned around and thought about simply leaving the party, but after the amount of shit I’d taken for going up to my room early on the night of my big win, I knew I had to hang out for a little while.

“Cam!”

He’d yelled it so loudly I felt like the party stopped around me to stare. It wasn’t true, though. The party was loud, full of pulsing music, laughter, and chatter. I was the only one frozen.

I pretended I didn’t hear him, but Noah found him on his way to the kitchen, and before long, a very drunk Josh and his roommate were making awkward conversation with Noah and me. Noah eventually took the roommate away for more drinks, but Josh was pretty out of it. He actually mooed at me at one point when asking about the farm.

And I wasn’t much better, my anger growing the more I thought about it. Much as I had no right since I was the one who had pulled away from him before the holiday, I was angry at him for being there with another guy, and I was also angry at him for leaving the other guy to come talk to me. That wasn’t the Josh I thought I knew. So that made me angry at myself for liking a guy who could be such a complete asshole. None of it made sense.

I tried to steer clear of Josh, avoiding him as much as possible, afraid as much of my anger and confusion as of his drunken state. It seemed very likely one of us would show a passion that would spill our secret.

Devon eventually got Josh out of there, and soon after, Noah looked at me knowingly and asked if I’d walk home with him because he thought he might have had one too many. I knew it was bullshit, but we made our escape from the party shortly after Josh and Devon had left.

“Guy from the party seemed a little out of it tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what that’s about?”

My instinct was to say something like, No, why should I?, but then I remembered what I’d told my parents about wishing I could just be me.

I took a deep breath. “We’ve been hooking up.”

“Aw, shit. I owe Diane twenty bucks.” He shouldered me, an enticement to continue. Just like that, I had come out to someone else.

“It was supposed to be just hooking up. But I may have panicked last week and low-key ghosted him. And he walked in with that hot guy tonight. Which shouldn’t matter, because we were just fooling around, and because I haven’t seen him since our last game, but as it turns out, it really fucking matters to me.”

“Wow, Cam, you really care about him, don’t you? But what hot guy are you talking about? The roommate? It didn’t seem like they were together.”

“No, not him. Didn’t you see that guy he walked in with? With the hat?”

“Cam, unlike you, not everyone clocks that man’s movements every time he walks into a room. Oh, okay, I see it now. How did I not know you two were together?”

“Not together, hooking up. It doesn’t matter now anyway. He’s with some other guy.”

“From what I saw, he was with you most of the night. He was drunk and stupid, but he wasn’t with some other guy. Just the roommate, but he wasn’t wearing a hat.”

“No! There was another guy, and Josh just left him to talk to me. What kind of asshole does that?”

“One who wanted to spend his night with you!”