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The warm burn of anger ignited once more in my belly.Why would they lie to me?“But he’s the one who signed all my papers and stuff, the one the school always called, the—”
“Think about it, Wes. I was always there too.”
Well, yeah, because Max and Win were always together.
I shook my head, somehow unable to wrap my mind around this. “But the hospital, after my accident, Win was there. He talked to the doctors, signed the paperwork. You…” My voice faltered as I thought back to waking from surgery. How I looked for him, but… “You weren’t there.”
He made a strangled sound, one hand pressing into his chest for the briefest of moments as though the accusation hurt him. “Oh yes, Nemo. I was there. I was there every single day.”
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered, voice wet. Then I looked at him and challenged. “Where were you?”
“I sat with you mostly when you were sleeping. I slept in the waiting room chairs.”
My heart thudded slowly, warmth pooling in my chest. All this time, I thought he wasn’t there. But he was. “But… why?”
“I didn’t want to confuse you.”
I let loose a rude noise. “I thought you were disgusted by me. Disappointed.”
He moved so fast I couldn’t evade him. One minute, he was across the room, and the next, I was being squeezed into his broad chest, his palm curling around the back of my head to hold me tight. “You have never once, not ever, disgusted me. I’m so goddamn proud of you. I just couldn’t get too close. It was… too much.”
“I don’t understand.” My heart wanted to make his words pretty, to accept and move on. But how could I? Three years of yearning. Three years of thinking everything he did was because he didn’t want me.
But maybe he did. Maybe he suffered just like me.
It didn’t matter. I still needed an explanation.
“I was angry after your assault. Violently so. I made some decisions that weren’t the best, decisions I shouldn’t have made, and they put you in danger. I didn’t want you to see me like that. I didn’t want you to know. Win has always been our sunshine, yeah?”
I nodded, my arms winding around him to clutch at the muscles in his back.
“He was better for you that first week. But I was there. I was always there.”
“I thought maybe you just accepted me being gay because we’re brothers,” I whispered.
“Wanna know a secret?”
I nearly gave myself whiplash pulling back so fast to nod. His chuckle was like warm honey, coating all the raw pieces of me, soothing it with comfort and sweetness.
“Come back here, and I’ll tell you.”
I hesitated, but when his palm curled around my shoulder to pull me in, I went. I couldn’t not go.
The second my arms wound around his back, he whispered like he was indeed confessing a secret. “I’m bi.”
I jolted and would have slipped away if he hadn’t grabbed me tighter. Patting his back, I lifted my head to look into his unwavering gaze. “What?”
He half smiled. “It can’t be that big of a surprise.”
“I thought you were straight.”
He squinted, and my heart turned upside down. “Did you really?”
I ducked my head, slightly embarrassed. “I hoped you weren’t. But hope isn’t exactly evidence.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest, and I had the intense urge to push my ear against it to listen.
“But that’s not the secret.”
