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“Don’t be ridiculous.” There was a huge chunk of me that felt terrible for not being able to give Jonah what he was looking for. He wanted a little piece, and I wouldn’t hand it over. “There’s no debts here. Just friendship.”
“Right, friendship.”
The way Jonah said “friendship” made it sound like a bad word.
But what else was I expecting?
I had no time to be bitter about it. My phone started to ring, pulling my attention away from the issue at hand.
“It’s Ayana, the hacker.” I answered the phone, Ayana’s melodic voice greeting me on the other end.
“Fox, my trip ended a little early. Are you close by? I want to get my hands dirty, in a technical way of speaking.”
“I can get to you in the hour.”
“Great. I’ll have a bottle of champagne on ice in the meantime.”
I looked to Jonah, a curious look on his face, and slid the phone back in my pocket.
“Looks like we’re back on the clock.”
23 Jonah Brightly
The hacker we were meeting with lived right off Ocean Avenue in South Beach, which was about a half an hour drive away from the park where we had spent the afternoon.
I was grateful for that time. I was following behind Fox’s car as we drove through the busy Miami street, and while I was paying attention to the road, my mind was definitely elsewhere.
Fox had opened up to me, in a way that was clearly painful for him. I hadn’t been expecting it, even though I wanted it. Fox was a stiff-upper-lip kind of guy, and I didn’t feel like I had earned enough of his trust yet. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to hurt him, he didn’t. Our partnership was still fresh; he had no idea if I was actually out to get him or not. Clearly I had proven I had his back when we were out on the field, but sharp blades weren’t the same as sharp tongues. Information could hurt in ways that knives couldn’t, and by him giving me his past, he was also handing me a weapon. One I would never wield against Fox.
Thick-trunked palm trees lined the road we were currently stuck in traffic on. Music was playing over the radio, but I hadn’t even realized until the song switched to one I absolutely hated.
“Nope,” I said to myself, changing the station.
The next song that filled my car was an old ’90s hit, about love and hearts and time.
I bobbed my head along, tapping on the steering wheel, trying anything to stop thinking about the man sitting in the car ahead of me.
Fox. His heart was shattered. I could see that now.
And I wanted to be the one to put it all back together.
What the hell is going on with me?
I lowered the windows, my small Honda’s interior feeling more and more stuffy by the second.
We inched along down the road, past a busy shopping center, past a red light. All the while, I could see Fox in front of me, glancing occasionally in the rearview mirror, his eyes catching mine for a few brief seconds before we’d look away.
There was something between us. Something that went much deeper than friends, than coworkers. This was serious, and even though it was fast, it was real. Lightning strikes at a speed of two hundred and twenty-two miles per hour… so why can’t love strike that fast, too?
Love. Holy shit.
No. This isn’t love. I’m not even…
…
I am. I am, and I know it.
I’m gay.
Holy shit.
It was the first time I’d ever thought those two words in sequence: I’m gay.
I’m gay.
Holy fuck.
Was I gay?
No, maybe I wasn’t… but God was I attracted to Fox. And not just him—I’d always been attracted to men. I’d always snuck glances, and I always indulged secret fantasies, fantasies I would try to forget about the second I climaxed. I had felt so damn guilty, it would eat away at my insides as I lay in bed next to a lightly snoring Wendy. There were days I’d be too tired to have sex with Wendy because I’d been jerking off to gay porn in the bathroom. Those days hadn’t been all that frequent, but only because I’d fought hard to make sure I denied that side of me.
But then Fox came along, and he made denial an impossible feat.
Fox was the first man who I ever felt, kissed, tasted.
And in the same way someone starved of chocolate their entire life feels after they get their first bite of Godiva, I was fucking hooked.
This was all too much, too soon, and it was frying my circuits, exactly how a bolt of lightning would do. I needed more time to sort through my frayed emotions, that was all.
I should talk to my brother…
The rest of the stop-and-go way to the hacker was filled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. It felt good thinking those words to myself, but I still had never said them out loud, and I still didn’t trust myself to accept the truth in a time when my life was so in flux. I didn’t even have a place to call my own yet, and that was something that needed to be sorted ASAP. I had been searching for apartments whenever I got the chance, but everything was either too expensive or too run-down. I could look into getting roommates, but at twenty-seven years old, I really would have liked to avoid that.
