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My father swallows roughly, giving me a hard glare.
“Yes, I did.”
“And you knew his husband was white?” I demand before he’s even finished answering.
“Yes,” he snaps, closing his teeth so hard I hear them clack together.
I can’t…I can’t believe this. We started this merger before they found out about me and JJ. All this time, he’s preaching to me that I can’t be wealthy or black or a queer man at the same time, and he’s doing business with one that embodies all three behind my back.
My mother tries to soothe it over.
“Why don’t I get you a glass of water, Remington, or better yet, a cup of coffee.”
“I’m not drunk,” I say with a chuckle, then laugh a little bit harder. “Okay. Yeah. Maybe I am.”
My fake smile falls from my face as soon as I see the two men sitting across from me again.
My parent’s hiss at me, but I don’t pay them any attention.
“That’s not the problem here though. Theproblem,” I say, raising my voice on the word. “Is that we hate gays, don’t we, Dad? Can’t stand the sight of them. They’re bad for stock prices,” I mock. “Especiallyblackgay men. It’s okay if old white guys pay prostitutes to stick dildos up their asses!”
I’m all but yelling now, and gasps explode around the table as I scream out obscenities.
“What you do on the side is your business, right, Pops? Hell. Trump basically won the presidency with that as his fucking slogan! But heaven forbid a black man fall in love with another man. A pink rubber cock is okay, but kissing the man you love is over the line.”
My father rises from the table and grabs my arm when he reaches me, trying to yank me bodily from the chair. I shove him away, keeping eye contact with the man sitting across from me.
“We hate most in others what we hate about ourselves,” Adam says calmly, and I scoff in derision at his psychotherapy bullshit.
“Oh yeah,” I laugh, standing up from the table. “You don’t have to tell me. Only I don’t hate it about myself, do I, Pops?”
Every eye at the table turns from me to zero in on my father. Every eye but Adam. His stare stays on me. He’s fuming, his fists clenched on the table. His jaw might as well be wired shut with as tight as he’s clenching it.
“I fucking LOVED that about myself.” I look at the man welcomed with open arms at my father’s dinner table while I was shoved bodily into the closet. His facial expression is trembling, and his husband peels his fingers apart to slip them into his hand, trying to calm his partner’s seething rage.
That’s what a marriage should be. Lucky fucking bastards.
I slowly rise from the table, unsure if it’s the wine or my anger that’s made my legs so weak. My father tries to grab me again, and I plant my palms against his chest and shove until he lands on his ass.
I give my attention back to Adam.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to accept that? To realize that I lovedhim? I lovedhimmore than anything. More than I loved myself. Thathissmile andhislaugh and the way he made me feel was better than any feeling on earth. But let’s not forget her. She was easy to love though, wasn’t she? She was allowed, and expected. But him? Between you and me, I think I loved him just a teeny bit more.”
“I do,” he says quietly, and I want to cry at the acceptance in his voice. “I really do.”
I run the back of my hand under my nose.
“And now they hate me, as they should. Because I told them that stock prices were more important.”
I pick up the glass of wine at my elbow and throw it against the wall with all my strength. People scream and cover their faces when the glass shatters into a thousand bits. The red of the wine slithers down the wallpaper like a crime scene, splatters and drips reminiscent of blood.
Finally, a decent representation of my heart.
Adam doesn’t even flinch.
“I told them—the two people that I loved most in the world and that loved me the same—that if the Lancaster heir came out as bisexual, the entire world would implode. That it simply wasn’t something my family would allow. That they would tolerate.”
I don’t know if I’m laughing, or crying, or all of the above.
