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Was it possible to drink oneself into an alternate dimension?
“Are you sure?” Ramsey asked.
Hunter nodded.
“Fill me in.Now.” Before this drove me over the edge.
Hunter pressed his back to the closest wall and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “It took me a long time to figure out my preferences, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it when I was younger. My parents are religious, and so was the community I was raised in. If you thinkheterois the default assumption, multiply that by one-hundred and press that weight on a kid whose entire world expectedgreat thingsfrom him.”
I’d seen that before. I’d heard it from more than one of the kids in my shelter. There was what most people experienced just from existing, and then there was being paired with the opposite sex from the time a kid was old enough to walk, for appearances. Forisn’t that cute? Isn’t he such a lady killer?Moments.
“Anyway.” Hunter sighed again. “Fast forward through a couple of decades of denial that I’ve told my therapist about so you don’t need to hear it, and a series of events that forced the pieces to fit, and I realized I’d been in love with my best friend for as long as I could remember. Telling Ramsey was the most frightening thing I’d ever done.”
I couldn’t be jealous of that. Not of the pain or sincerity in Hunter’s story.
“Fortunately that went well,” Ramsey said and squeezed Hunter’s hand.
Hunter’s mouth twitched in an unformed smile. “He went with me to tell Mom, and that was the second scariest, because she’d always been my biggest supporter.” His frown was back. “She dropped a bombshell on me, too. Assured me first she still loved me. All the stuff a parent is supposed to say, but Dad had been diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer less than a week earlier.This will ruin your father, she said.You know how he is.”
“I’m sorry.” My sympathy felt ineffective, but I didn’t have anything else to offer.
Hunter tugged his hand free from Ramsey and crossed his arms. “He only had six months to live. Mom begged me not to send my father to his grave knowing his only boy was queer.”
Goddess, my heart was breaking for Hunter.
“Dad’s still with us, thank God.” Hunter’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “But he hasn’t recovered, he’s simply holding on because he’s a tough bastard. And every chance my mother gets, she reminds me,begs me, to keep the secret just a little longer.”
I couldn’t believe I was considering going along with this, but the reasons had changed, and I’d heard variations of Hunter’s story—seen the negative fallout—too many times to fault him for his decision. “How long are we talking?”
“After the elections, Hunter will be out of the public eye. No scrutiny. No one is going to notice or care if he quietly divorces, and his parents will think he gave marriage a try.”After the elections. Ramsey wasn’t talking about the primaries.
“November?” I couldn’t hide my disbelief. “It’sJanuary.”
“November is the worst case scenario, right Ramsey?” Hunter’s voice was pointed. He didn’t want to be married to me any more than I did him. “We’re not going to stop looking for solutions. All I’m asking is that you work with me on a plan that doesn’t involve having papers drawn upright now.”
Money and connections get things done, but frequently not the important things.Hunter’s words from the plane bounced into my thoughts. Something neither he nor Ramsey ever did, remind me of the favors they’d done for me in the past. I was going to do this. Please don’t let me regret it. “Okay. But the ring?” I held up my hand. “I can’t wear this.” It was Ramsey’s ring for fuck’s sake, and now that it was on my finger, I could admit to myself I’d hoped it would end up there. But not like this.
“Of course not,” Hunter said quickly. “We’ll get you something more appropriate to us.”
“You can’t tellanyonethis isn’t real.” Leave it to Ramsey to drive home how important the facade was.
More pieces of reality sank in. “But our friends…” Shared friends, thanks to Lyn’s relationship with Owen and Kingston. “When Hunter and Ibreak up…”
“We’ll tell them this is why there’s been friction between you and me, because of you and Hunter.” Ramsey had figured too much of this out too quickly. “But on this trip we talked, and we’re all friends again. And then you’ll have an amicable break-up.”
Which would make it harder to be with Ramsey after. This was such a fucking mess. “I have to tell Luna. I won’t lie to her.”
“I’m fine with it as long as she will be,” Hunter said.
I still didn’t know if I was.
Sixteen
Talking to Luna, making things right with her, was my top priority. I sent her a text,We’ll talk as soon as I get home. This afternoon. I’m sorry.
Her reply was instant—it’s fine.
All lower case. Period at the end. She was furious with me.
