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Saturday mornings, we go to his soccer games. Where he wears a helmet. He told his coach about the seizure—I think mostly just for me. Nobody minded. Not even the college scouts who came to see him play two weeks ago.
Saturday nights are movie nights...sometimes downstairs, sometimes in my room. When we do them downstairs, Dad and Suzanne skirt around us, like they want to give us privacy or something. But sometimes we see them smiling. They don't mind that we're together. Every day, it blows my mind.
Last week, Carl asked if my "depression" was because of being gay, and he said Mom had told him I was at Sheppard Pratt for four months. I didn't know she had. I mean, I'm not surprised...but when I first got here, I guess I didn't care what he knew.
I wasn't sure what to say, so I just told him "yes." He asked if I had talked to mom about it—like, come out—and I told him no; I told him that's because she's so religious. He seemed like he understood.
Dad said he thinks God would be happy about me being gay, and he would want me to be happy, too—not hiding or ashamed. Then yesterday, when I got home from school, I found this post-card-looking printout on my bed of a Jesus figure surrounded by a bunch of rainbow-colored sheep. There was a yellow sticky note on it that said "-Dad" and had a funny little smiley face. I don't know what that shit was, but apparently Dad is down with the rainbow.
"Ez?"
I jump, clutching the book in my hands, as Miller strolls into my room in just a towel.
"Hey," he says with a soft smile. He steps closer, tilting his head to read the book's spine. "The Color Purple. That one's pretty heavy, right?"
I nod.
His eyes move over my face—checking on me.
He sits on the bed beside me, leans his cheek against my shoulder.
"Don't be doing that," I whisper. We're leaving for Miller's Dad's house in...supposed to be ten minutes.
He rubs his cheek against me, tease that he is. "You can't feel my cheek without getting your dick up?"
I give him a light shove. "Yeah, I can't."
"Maybe I should suck you off," he whispers. "Hate to have this problem on the drive to Dad's."
Fucking Miller. He's got me out of my nice khakis—well, his—and on the edge of the bed, gritting my teeth to keep from groaning and then lying on my back, wrapping a leg around his shoulders as he sucks me so good I come hard enough to make him choke.
Then we're both laughing.
"Can’t let it be one-sided,” I say.
I blow him, too, and then we hurry to get dressed.
When we're stepping out onto the porch to go to his dad's, I miss a call from my mom. By the time we leave his dad's house four hours later, I've missed three calls from her. And I've got thirty-seven texts.
Fuck.
I don't turn the phone back on till Mills is sleeping. Then I slip onto the roof.
Six
Josh
Thanksgiving day, we eat a big lunch with my grandma, Mom, and Carl. It’s a good day. Grandma’s really into Ezra, even calling him her new grandson. When no one’s looking, I catch his eye and mouth, “Grandson in law,” which makes him smile.
He’s wearing one of my hunter green Polo shirts and a pair of my jeans, which fit him a little loose. At one point, as he gets up from the table, I see my mom noticing he’s got on my clothes. She smiles this funny little smile and then lifts her eyebrows at me, which makes my face heat up.
But they’re cool with it. Somehow, we fucking lucked out.
After lunch winds down, my dad calls, inviting Ez and me to come over to his place an hour early for the pie buffet—this thing he does where they put out like twenty kinds of pies and invite the whole extended family over to induce a sugar coma.
“Figured you boys might want to get in and get out, maybe fish a little while before it gets too crowded,” Dad says.
I’m pretty sure that’s code for I want a whole hour to talk to Ezra about which college he’s going to next year. But it’s okay. I’m glad my dad is into Ezra. I’m not coming out to him anytime soon, but one day maybe he’ll be happy with who I chose.
Just as I suspected, Dad talks Ezra’s ear off as Ez polishes off slices of pumpkin, chocolate, and pecan pie. I end up inside a sheet fort with Pipsa, helping wrap her baby dolls in toilet paper casts, which she makes me promise not to tell her mom about.
Finally, Ezra and I make our way into the garage, grabbing bait and poles and kissing over a bucket of crickets.
