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“What is the meaning of this?” Dad demanded.
Michael sat straighter if that was possible. He was so stiff I was beginning to wonder if a ventriloquist had an arm up my brother’s ass, parroting Dad’s words at me at all times. “Is this what they’re teaching you at Northwood?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Michael. It’s from Table Manners 101.”
“You stop this nonsense,” Mom said in a threatening tone.
Oh, but it felt good. A little rebellion when all else was lost. It made something flutter deep inside of me. Could my life get any worse? Even if I returned to Northwood in two days, would I ever find a shred of happiness again? I doubted it. I might as well take every chance at a chuckle I got.
“No, no,” Dad said, mediating all of a sudden, his hand raised to request silence at the table. Of course, a man would expect all others to fall quiet when he had something to say. But those opinions weren’t part of my mother’s lessons on gender. “Let’s give Sebastian an opportunity to explain himself.”
I glanced at Eryn. Her grin was wiped away by the seriousness of Dad’s tone. Her face seemed hard, her teeth gritted, and her gaze focused on something on the other side of the room.
“Obviously, something is bothering you,” Dad said flatly. “You wouldn’t otherwise throw temper tantrums.”
I snorted. “This is hardly a tantrum.”
“Don’t play with my words, boy,” he growled. “Apologize to your mother.”
“What for?”
“That woman has spent hours preparing this dinner and you can’t be bothered to eat it,” Michael cut in.
“Oh, shut up, Michael,” I said.
My older brother threw his hands in the air. “He’s a lost cause, I’m telling you. They’ve completely brainwashed him. What are you thinking about, Sebastian? Your queer teammates?”
Mom choked on a sob.
“Michael has a point,” Dad said. “Your mind seems distracted. The longer you are exposed to that filth, the less of you we recognize. Now, listen here, Sebastian. Your brother wants what’s good for you. He has a right to be concerned. We all do.”
“You’re all obsessed,” I said. I’d made the worst possible mistake I could have the other day. I walked out on the wrong person.
Fuck. I wasn’t supposed to let those thoughts intrude on me. You were setting him free. You don’t want to draw him into this shit. But the more I told that to myself, the less I could believe it. The selfishness in me was skyrocketing. I wanted him. Even if I was weighing him down, I only wanted to hug him and hear him promise that everything would be alright. He had the power to make things right. He had that easy swagger that lifted all the burdens like they were feathers. He could blow them all away by doing little more than batting his eyelashes.
I loved him.
And that was why I had to send him away.
You wouldn’t drag someone you loved to sink with you, would you?
“All of you,” I looked between the three people who’d made my life bitter for years. Eryn knew I wasn’t talking to her. As the words tumbled out of my mouth, it felt as though my lung capacity increased. For the first time in ages, I inhaled completely and without an elephant sitting on my chest. “All you ever think about is gay sex, huh?”
Eryn swallowed a chuckle and received an angry look from Michael. His cheeks were growing pink while Mom fanned herself with a napkin. Dad’s fists closed tightly.
“Seriously, can you stop?” I asked. “Just for an hour, can you stop thinking about anal sex?”
“Sebastian, I’m warning you,” Dad tried.
“No, no. I have to say this.” It felt like holding a match over a pool of gasoline. How brightly can I make this fire burn? How hot would it get? “Day after day, you and Michael keep bringing it up. All you ever talk about is young men having sex with each other. Dad, are you gay?”
The chair flew and tumbled behind him as he shot to his feet.
In all honesty, fear injected itself into my bloodstream. Even so, the sensation was too thrilling and liberating to stop now. I was staring at the fire I’d lit. It was beautiful. “It’s okay, Dad. This is the twenty-first century. Nobody’s gonna judge you. I mean, you’re really interested in who my friends sleep with.”
“Go to your room,” Dad squeezed through quivering jaws.
“And you,” I told Michael, his eyes blazing. “Do you really expect me to believe you went to an Ivy League college, joined a fraternity, and never stroked together with the gang?” Even I was horrified at the words coming from my mouth.
