Page 21 of Offside

There. I'd said it.

"Does he know?" Garrett let out a breath.

"No."

"Is he still treating you?"

"Yeah." I looked at my right hand beside the gearshift.

"Then he can't know."

"I know. That's not all of it."

"Go on." The cabinet on his end closed.

I looked at the restaurant window across the street. My faint reflection stared back at me, broad shoulders filling the seat, face unchanged by what I was trying to say.

"I think I'm bisexual."

Garrett was quiet long enough that I checked the phone.

"You there?"

"Yeah. Just giving you room to decide if you're finished."

I watched my reflection in the restaurant window. "I'm finished."

"All right."

"That's it?"

Garrett's voice stayed flat over the line. "You want fireworks?" He sounded oddly amused.

"Wasn't asking for any."

"Good. I don't have any." I could hear the teasing in his voice. He opened the tap again.

The knot between my shoulder blades loosened.

"I've been with women," I said. "That was real."

"Nobody's said otherwise."

Headlights moved through the cab as a truck passed behind me. "This doesn't change that."

"I know, Bishop."

I'd expected the label to revise my history. It didn't. It just added an angle I should have seen earlier and hadn't. I could want men. I wanted one man in particular. That didn't reduce what I felt with women.

"Whatever word you choose fits you, does it change what you owe him?" Garrett asked.

"No, of course not."

"You good?" Garrett asked after the quiet stretched between us.

"Yeah." The answer came too quickly.

"Real answer."