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I looked around the assembled faces and saw several nods of agreement and not a single flicker of discomfort. For a hot second, I started to wonder if maybe I’d misjudged Licking Thicket in my memories—
“I knew it the day Charli took us to play putt-putt the summer after eighth grade,” Fletcher cut in. “You wore that pink golf shirt, remember?” He snickered, and Charli laughed lightly.
Or maybe this town was even worse than I’d recalled. I closed my eyes for a brief moment and reminded myself that I was playing nice. “You can’t actually determine someone’s sexuality by their clothing, Fletcher.”
“Well, of course not.” Charli wrinkled her nose. “Fletcher means you spent the first six holes staring at the Jackson boy who was doing the landscaping. When he turned around and caught you, your face turned the same color as your shirt, and you whacked your ball so hard it landed in the bed of Amos’s pickup… all the way out in the parking lot. Kind of a dead giveaway if you ask me.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, feeling my face heat. “Oh. Right. I’d, ah… forgotten that,” I admitted. Or possibly I’d blocked it out along with most of my embarrassing Thicket memories.
Jaden, Jory, and the others laughed out loud.
Savannah shot Charli a glare and patted my shoulder again. “Thanks for trusting us with that all the same, Junior,” she said pointedly. “Coming out ain’t easy. We can’t all be Brooks Johnson, announcing it on stage at the Lickin’.”
“Wait,” I said, leaning forward. “Brooks Johnson came out?”
“Mmhmm. Dunn Johnson too,” Milt agreed. “Apparently, they’re all some kinda gay over there.”
“Not their sister.” Savannah shrugged. “Though Hailey Thompsen was hoping for a while.”
Jaden met my eyes. “Anyway, Amos already told the organizers you were gay, Junior. It’s in the bio they’ll read out while you walk the runway.”
“Walk the… Wait, they wrote me a bio?” I asked, voice sliding a little too high in pitch. I could only imagine what any bio of me would include. “What if I don’t want to do this?”
My mother swanned into the room at that exact moment and pinned me with a look. “If you don’t want to do the auction, that’s your choice, Charlton. It would be the nice thing to do, of course, but if you’re not comfortable, then that’s that.” She smiled brightly. “You know what is comfortable, though? A shiatsu massage and a silk peel facial, especially when paired with a eucalyptus steam shower experience. Heavenly.”
I gritted my teeth. “Never mind. I’m doing it.”
“You sure?” she asked solicitously.
“Oh, positive. It’s every boy’s dream to be paraded in front of a bunch of Thicketeers like livestock while someone reminds the town of the most mortifying moments of my life in surround sound.” I didn’t add that this was the sort of dream that one usually woke up from sweating and nauseous. “And then, if I’m very lucky, I’ll get to spend a few hours mucking stalls or something? Couldn’t be more excited. Really. So glad to be spending the holiday at home.”
“Thought so,” my mother singsonged before fucking back off to the parlor… or wherever it was she’d come from.
Jory made his way over to the fridge, where he cracked open a beer and took a deep swig. “Don’t worry about that either, Junior. Uncle Amos also told the organizers that any date you go on needs to happen ASAP… on account of you never stick around for long.”
Whether intentional or not, Jory’s words had scored a direct hit. For the first time since I’d arrived, silence fell around the kitchen. My family members looked uncomfortable, and none of them could meet my eyes.
I’d made avoiding trips to the Thicket a perverse kind of sport over the years, and I didn’t regret that… mostly. Even when I was a kid, it had been clear there wasn’t anything for me in this town—no career opportunities, no romantic prospects, no way to escape being Junior-Nutter-whose-Dad-ran-off… No future.
But sitting here in this ancient kitchen, surrounded by these fuckers who managed to be incredibly annoying and incredibly, weirdly kind at the same time, I was starting to remember that there were things I’d liked—loved, even—about the Thicket, before I’d started to hate it.
And mostly what I’d loved were the people. My family.
“I’m here now,” I reminded Jory and everyone else. “So catch me up on what I’ve missed, for God’s sake. Who were voted Mr. and Ms. Licking Thicket this year? Do y’all still have the parade?”
“Oh, Jesus, now that is a story,” Savannah said, hopping up onto the counter beside me. “You remember Lurleen Jackson drives that big-ass Buick? Well…”
Everyone started talking at once, tripping over themselves to speak, and as I relaxed just enough to let the conversation wash over me, I found myself smiling.
