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You could take away my career, the awards, the money, and I would survive. But if you ripped this day from my soul…I don’t think I’d want to.
At night, in bed, William and I lie on our sides, facing each other. The fire crackles opposite, warming the air that’s unusually chilly for a July night, and the glow creates the illusion of troughs and shadows on William’s face. William says his son would put it down to the effects of global warming. I tell him I don’t know as much about it as I probably should, considering Andy had me attend and donate to a climate change charity event several months ago.
William’s flyaway comment about his son prompts me to ask more questions about his children. Partly because I’m genuinely interested in discovering everything about the man whose back I’m leisurely stroking, but mostly because I adore watching his expression light up when he talks about them. Over the course of a couple of hours, we get to know each other on a deeper level. We swap lots of stories. Share our childhoods. I leap further into love with him.
“Do you ever think of her?” I ask when William tells me he hasn’t seen his mother since the day he sought her out to tell her he was getting married. I feel almost guilty for being blessed with the love of two mothers. My dad’s wife, Emmett and Caleb’s mum, loved and cared for me as though I was her own. I was so young when she met my dad, I don’t remember life without her, and I adored her until the day she died. William deserves to know what that feels like.
William’s entire body clenches next to me. “I try not to…but fail. Sometimes, I wonder if she thinks of me, if she misses me, if she’s heard anywhere that she has grandchildren and, I dunno, feels like she’s missing out. But really, I think she just wants to pretend like the part of her life where I existed never happened.”
“Where your dad never happened,” I say, with no knowledge of whether it’s true. But I can’t bring myself to believe the alternative, and it amazes me how William has grown into a man with so much compassion and love to give when he was raised without a drop of either.
“Maybe, but I’m part of him.”
I pull him closer and, for a while, we stare in silence. Studying each other’s faces, talking with our eyes and expressions. He’s so beautiful this close. Traditionally handsome, like an old-fashioned star.
“Have you ever slept with a woman?” William asks out of nowhere, his finger tracing the dip of my clavicle.
Surprise makes me hesitate. “No, I haven’t.”
He thinks on that for a moment, biting his bottom lip. “Could you, do you think?”
I feel my brow furrow, wondering what point he could be trying to make. Having sex with women isn’t something I’ve given much thought to. I knew from a very early age I hadn’t been designed that way. “I suppose,” I say. “Like, I’m not repulsed by the idea of a woman, or a woman’s body, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t get excited by them either. I’m…indifferent to them, I guess.”
“Hmm,” is all he says before falling quiet for a moment.
“But if my eyes were closed and someone sucked on my dick…pretty sure I could get through it, regardless.” I let out a chuckle, hope it brightens William’s sombre mood.
“Would you say that makes you bisexual, then?”
“Me personally, no. Sexuality is in the head, I think, and just because I assume my dick wouldn’t care who’s touching it, I do. In my head. I would never choose to be with a woman, because I’m not attracted to them like that.”
“Right. Makes sense,” he says, but his expression doesn’t seem to agree.
I bring my hand to the back of his neck, move my face until we’re inches apart. “Do you think you’re bisexual? Is that what this is about?”
“I don’t know.” He sighs. “Sometimes I think I must be, what with being with Becca for so long. I can’t just erase those years. Become gay, right? But then what you just said…I think maybe that’s what I’ve been doing. For years. I think I’ve had my eyes closed.”
I fight hard not to recoil as a sudden image of William and Rebecca being intimate springs unwanted into my mind.
“And it’s been fine, you know. It hasn’t been a case of grin and bearing it. Once things got…going, so to speak, it was always nice.”
My breath shudders. I can’t stop it.
“Sorry,” William says, noticing my discomfort. “What I’m trying to say is it’s never felt nice with you. With you, from that first time we kissed in your trailer, it feels like a bomb going off at my feet. Heat rising. Ground shaking. Heart pounding. It’s not nice. It’s…mind-blowing.”
