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My insides clenched up at the memory. I just wanted to see Evan that happy again. I wanted to be that happy again, too.
“Here you go,” Red said, emerging with a big mug.
“What is this?” I said, inspecting it.
“Lemon-ginger herbal tea,” he said. “Drink up.”
“Since when do you drink herbal tea, cowboy?” I asked. “And watch Frozen, for that matter?”
“I’ve got many layers,” Red said. “And they ain’t all soaked in liquor.”
I took a sip of the hot drink. “This is delicious. And much more appropriate than the coffee I had earlier. Thank you.”
“So what happened with your boy?” he asked, continuing with his inventory as he spoke.
I was silent for a moment, trying and failing to think of any way to express what I was feeling for Evan.
“I… I’m so afraid he’s going to leave,” I finally said, the weight of the words feeling enormous.
Red peered at me from behind the bar, trying to figure out what I meant.
“Red, how did you know you were gay? Or that you liked men?” I asked. The question felt impossibly complicated, but I was shocked when Red just shrugged.
“I’ve got to admit that it was pretty easy for me to tell. I met a guy who I wanted to be around. I wanted to sleep with. I wanted to do everything with.”
I nodded silently, staring intently at a knot in the wood on the bar. I ran my fingertips over it again and again, trying to piece together what the hell was going on in my head.
“Mitch, it’s completely normal to be confused when you first have feelings for a guy,” Red said. “I’m not the kind of person who typically gives a fuck what society thinks, but that gets me into trouble, too. Society can view a lot of things in a shitty way, and it’s normal to be freaked out by it.”
“The strange thing is that I don’t think I really give a damn about that, either,” I said. “Hell, my own fourteen-year-old kid told me he doesn’t care, and even if I was embarrassed, I sure was proud of him for saying that.”
“So what’s eating at you so badly you can’t sleep?” Red asked.
“I... don’t know how to take the plunge into commitment. Even with someone who is the most important person in the world to me.”
Red furrowed his brow, looking at me like I was an alien. “Sorry. What do you mean by that?”
“I failed at marriage. I feel like I failed at it from moment one until year fifteen, when we divorced. And the thought of any serious commitment to Evan makes me so fucking scared. Not because he’s a guy. But because I’m so afraid I’m not cut out for real relationships, or that it’s only going to turn out horribly again.”
My heart rate had increased as I talked to Red. I suddenly felt like so much was at stake.
I had just admitted, and honestly had just realized myself, the core reason why I was so afraid of thinking of a future with Evan.
Red tipped his head back and laughed, a full-belly laugh that echoed throughout the tavern.
I couldn’t fucking believe it.
“Are you laughing at me?” I said.
He just laughed again.
“You’re laughing when I just poured my soul out to you,” I said. “I’m not typically a soul-baring kind of guy. I’m more the type to stuff my feelings down and do a hundred pushups. Do you not realize how intense this is for me?”
“I know, I know,” Red said, finally calming down as he slapped a palm down on the bar. “I’m sorry. I’m the same way. But I just can’t believe what you just said to me.”
“What’s so funny about what I said?”
“It made me realize that you’re even more hopeless of a romantic than Evan,” Red said, a big grin still on his face.
“I said I was afraid of real relationships. How is that romantic?”
He let out a long breath, resuming his work. “You care about Evan so much that you’re afraid of failing him in a committed relationship. You’re head over fucking heels in love with him.”
I paused for a moment, blinking at him, realizing how incredibly right he was.
“I really am head over heels in love with him,” I said quietly.
“Yeah. Duh, my man,” Red said. “You told me you jumped into a marriage right away with Jess, right?”
I nodded. “I knew it was the right thing to do. For Zach.”
“Right. Of course. But you had zero hesitation, even though you’d only been dating her for...”
“A few weeks, in high school,” I said. “And yes. I had no hesitation.”
“And yet you’re hesitating now to even call Evan your boyfriend, even though you’ve known him for your entire life, you’re in love with him, and you can’t imagine your life without him,” Red said. “It’s because for the first time, your heart is on the line.”
