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“One time, my family went camping, and we had a porta-potty, and I drew the short straw and had to empty it. Oh my god. That should be at the top of the stench scale,” Cass says, scrunching her nose at the memory.
“That depends on what’s been thrown in the three-week-old garbage,” Granny points out. “If it’s milk that’s gone sour dumped straight in the trash combined with old meat trays and wrappers, mixed with a few dirty diapers, added with used cat litter and—”
“Ugh,” Cass grunts. “Point taken.”
Then, Granny rounds on me. “Did you tell her about us?”
“No.” I duck my head. “I told her everything else, that I wasn’t a home builder—” Orion snorts at that. “That I…she knows the company is a computer repair store and not anything to do with homes.”
“Took her long enough to figure that out,” Orion snaps churlishly.
“Stop!” I groan. I caution myself not to get mad at my brother. This isn’t his fault, and he’s only acting put out because I’ve been an assclown as of late. “It wasn’t her fault that she trusted me. She would never have thought to look it up because why would she?”
“Umm, because who doesn’t check someone out online?”
“She trusted me! She’s not like us. Not everyone is always looking over their shoulder or doing background checks on people, and she certainly isn’t into hacking. Maybe she doesn’t even have all the social media crap. I don’t know. She’s into books. Books, not computers. And she wants to be a writer.”
“That would generally involve a computer.”
“A computer for word processing, not internet searching!” I glare my brother down, matching him, knotted brow for knotted brow. And, since we’re twins, our knotted brows are very similar.
“You’d think she would have gotten bored and just searched it up one day,” he protests just to aggravate me. “But I guess renovating her house kept her busy, and you filled up the rest of her time, sweeping her off her feet instead of being here. With your family. Your family who has loved you and supported you for exactly who you are for the better part of…let’s see. Well, that would be your whole life for me and most of your life for the rest.”
“That’s enough!” I roar, leaping off the couch. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to your or ask your permission to date someone. I’m sorry I just…that I….”
“What is it you want, exactly?” Granny asks softly. She walks over and sets her hand on my shoulder, which for her is a big reach up, but she does it just like she always has.
“I…I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone, and well, I’m not in love with her. I know that takes a good long time, and we haven’t known each other very long. But I’d like to just spend more time with her. I would like there to not be an expiration date on this, and I would like to tell her the truth about me, but I know I can’t without putting her in danger. I’d also like to still be a member of this family. I know I’ve basically fucked everything up big time because I didn’t plan for this, and I just decided to wing it, and it was the shittiest kind of winging it because I didn’t bother with any wingmen….” I glance at Orion, hoping to convey an apology. “I got carried away. I wanted to help her because that house was a dump, but what I really wanted was to ask her out, and then I did, and we went on a date, kind of. I mean, it was a date, and it was the most perfect date, even if it wasn’t like perfect perfect, and I’d really just like to…I’d like to get to know her the way one soul knows another. The kind of knowing that doesn’t need any words because it’s communication so deep that there aren’t any words for it.
“I’m sorry I went off on a tangent and didn’t ask permission. I’m sorry I was gone all the time and was a shit brother, and that, Orion, I didn’t share this with you. I thought I couldn’t, but I know I should have, and I could have talked to you. You would have advised me against doing what I did. And Granny? I should have talked to you. I should have asked you for advice. And Lennox and Cass?” I turn to both of them next, and they watch me, Lennox with a small smile and Cass with huge eyes. “I should have talked to you two because you’re the only ones out of all of us present here who aren’t single as fuck. Cass, you gave up your family to be with Lennox. It’s temporary, but you still gave them up. And Lennox, you…well, you’re my brother too. I shouldn’t have done it alone. Now I don’t know how to dig myself out and salvage this. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to keep lying to her, but I don’t know how to not lie to her, and there’s always the possibility, the very real possibility, that we’ll uproot overnight, leave here, and never come back, and that’s going to be that.”
