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“You are not gay.” Beaufort’s voice had dropped to a dangerously low level, and Lee sat frozen, waiting for Alex’s next move.
“No, I’m not.” Alex raised his chin, meeting Lee’s eyes as he continued. “As a matter of fact, I’m bisexual.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Alexander.” Beaufort sounded long-suffering, and really, the bloodynerveof him. “I thought playing football was your form of teenage rebellion. Aren’t you getting a little old to play these games?”
“Teenage rebellion?” Alex repeated slowly. He’d been tense before, but now he was positively thrumming with suppressed energy. Lee placed a hand on his thigh in the hope that the contact would be grounding somehow. “Football wasn’t a teenage rebellion, dad. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted for myself—the only time I didn’t just go along with whatever you asked of me. I’ve spent my wholelifetrying to please you when I should know by now that it’s simply not possible.”
Beaufort sighed. “Again with the melodramatics.”
Alex took a shaky breath, his eyes unfocused even as one of his hands settled low on Lee’s back. “Tell me, dad…” Alex’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Can you remember a single moment when you were proud of me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Can you, dad?”
“I fail to see how this is relevant to the conversation we are presently having.”
“Can you?”
Maybe the gravity of the moment finally registered because for the first time, Beaufort sounded cautious when he replied. “Of course I’m proud of you, son.”
Huh. Lee had mistaken him for a better liar.
“Just give me a single moment,” Alex insisted, and Lee wanted to interfere because it seemed like Alex was determined to run straight towards the place where it hurt the most—but that was his right. It wasn’t Lee’s job to protect him, only to be there for what seemed like an inevitable fallout.
My boyfriend.
“There are plenty of moments,” Beaufort stalled.
“Just one will suffice.”
Brief silence, then Beaufort mumbled something about Alex doing well in his A levels. It drew a humourless chuckle from Alex.
“And yet you didn’t make it to my graduation ceremony.”
“I’m a busy man,” Beaufort said.
“Well, so am I.” With that, Alex unceremoniously ended the call, then stared at his phone, shadows in his eyes.
Lee tipped his chin up with a finger. “Hey. Talk to me?”
Alex inhaled and held the air in his lungs for a few seconds before he released it in a whoosh. “Fuck.”
“That’s one way to summarise it, yeah.”
“Did I just—I just hung up on my dad. After coming out to him.” Alex’s eyes widened. “Shit, Lee, I didn’tthink. I should have asked you first, but I was just so…” A sweeping gesture. “He doesn’t know it’s you, though. He’d have no way of knowing. So, you’re safe.”
“That is honestly the last thing on my mind right now.” Lee tipped their foreheads together and tried not to read the incoming darkness as some kind of omen. “God, Alex. Are you okay?”
“I’m…” Alex hesitated. “I am, actually.”
“Really?” Lee didn’t bother toning down the scepticism in his voice, surprised when Alex pressed a smiling kiss against his cheek.
“Yes, really,” Alex said. “I mean, yeah, that sucked—but it’s really nothing new, you know? It’s just the confirmation, in a way, of something I’ve known for a while. Kind of a relief to get it out in the open.”
Lee drew back enough to get a proper look at him, twisting sideways to flick on the lamp on the bedside table. While Alex’s smile was small, nowhere near enough to even hint at his dimples, his eyes were clear and calm in the warm glow of lamplight.
“You really are fine?” Lee asked, just to be sure.
