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Except I’m not sure that that’s even true. Maybe I’ve gotten it wrong this whole time. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted everything.
Maybe I don’t know Stefan at all.
25
STEFAN
The car ride to the diner was tense. The dinner itself was worse. And the ride home is the worst.
“You alright, bud?” I try again, staring at the side of his face while he drives.
“Yeah,” he responds, his voice as cold and dry as it was the last five times I’ve asked since we left.
“You’ve been weird as shit since we left,” I point out again—just like the last five times.
“I’m fine.”
I don’t let up at all. “No, you’re not.”
“I just didn’t realize it’d go down like that.”
I already know what he’s pissed about. I knew it since we left the stupid place. I just want him to man up and say it. I want to hear it from his lips and not from my assumption-making brain.
“Like what?” I prod.
He sighs. “She already knew that I’m gay, apparently. Or at least she strongly suspected.” Ryan’s voice is as deadpan as a … pan. He’s got no life in him. He’s driving on autopilot.
I don’t take my eyes away from his face. “You mean Dana?”
Ryan just rolls his eyes at that and says nothing, driving.
“Alright. So she knew. Big deal. Now you don’t gotta worry about her assaulting your nuts every day at school.”
He doesn’t laugh. Humor’s not working. I need a new tack.
“You know I meant all of that,” I tell him. “What I said.”
He smirks, not taking his eyes off the road. “Which part?”
“About you being my mate. You’re my buddy, my bro.”
“Your bro.” He sighs at that, his jaw tightened. “Just two … totally normal guys, huh? That’s what we are? A straight mate and a gay one. Buddies.”
And there it is. “Is that what you have a problem with? That I said I was straight? In front of two women I don’t really know?”
His face wrinkles. “Is that your problem? Afraid of people knowing the truth?”
“Truth?” I chuckle. “You’re acting like there’s some dark thing I’m keeping from the world.”
“You don’t identify as straight.”
“I don’t identify as gay, either. We’ve talked about this.”
“Yet when we broached the subject in front of those women,” he points out, “you were so quick to slap that ‘straight’ label on yourself. God forbid anyone thinks you’re a homo.”
“Bromo,” I correct him with a smirk.
Again, the humor isn’t working on him. Not tonight. I don’t know why I keep having to make jokes about everything. He’s got me all fucking nervous suddenly, like it’s not okay anymore to just be myself. I feel guilty for something and can’t even identify it yet.
He must have had a lead foot on the way home because we’re already pulling into his driveway. After he kills the engine, he’s out of the car in an instant and heading for the front door.
I get out of the car myself and call out at him. “Seriously?”
He vanishes into the house without a word.
I follow him, frustration sitting heavily on my chest. I pull open the front door and let it shut loudly at my back as I pursue Ryan into his bedroom where he’s getting out of his nicer clothes. “Ryan. Did a hedgehog crawl up your ass or something? You’re being a little bitch right now.”
“Why?” he fires back, not even facing me as he peels off his shirt and fishes through the closet for another. “Because I’m in a relationship and I’m the only one who knows?”
“Relationship??”
“What else is this?” He spreads his hands, as if indicating the bed, the rest of the house, him, and me all at once. “We kiss. We show affection. We do sexual stuff that involves lubrication. We share our lives with each other. We live under the same damned roof, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m staying at your house,” I correct him. “Temporarily. Until I get my shit figured out. I don’t pay your bills. I didn’t pick out … fucking paint colors or whatever. And we show affection with each other because we care about each other.”
“Yeah?” He pitches the shirt he was about to put on toward the bed (it misses and falls lazily to the floor) and then he faces me challengingly. “Do you care about Parker?”
“Of course I do.”
“So you kiss him, too? You let him suck your cock?”
I shuffle my feet uncomfortably, narrowing my eyes at Ryan. “Dude. He’s married.”
“And if he wasn’t?”
I stammer two or three words before shutting up. Blood is boiling in my cheeks and my hands keep opening and closing. In an instant, I want to smack that superior look off of Ryan’s face and tackle him to the bed to kiss him. I don’t know whether I’d kiss him just to shut him up or to show him how much I feel for him.
