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Roe laughed and shook his head. “You don’t have to worry. And I don’t know where you got that from—I’m not dating. I’m looking.”
Oh. He’d downloaded one of those dating apps, so…I just figured.
“She’s right, though,” he said. “I am hot as fuck.”
I snorted.
Objectively, I guessed he was right. Even I could say I was drawn to his infectious smiles, but that was where I drew the line. I let the men and women who often flirted with him do the talking for the rest.
“Can I tell you something without you freaking out?”
I lifted my gaze to the rearview again and raised my brows. I wasn’t the freaking-out type of person.
He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled unsurely. “I think I might be bi.”
What?
As in, he was attracted to both men and women? But he played his straight card at the club just like I did. Had he hooked up with someone there? I shifted in my seat as an unfunny feeling settled in my chest. It felt a little tight. Like it was some worry I couldn’t identify properly. No—not Roe. He was straight! He flirted for tips. He fucked women. He’d definitely gotten luckier than me in LA. Every now and then, he’d go home with someone and wake me up with breakfast and a new idea the morning after. I knew he didn’t like to stick around the woman’s place for long; he always came home early. But still. He spent the night away sometimes. Or he used to. It’d been a while.
I’d only met one woman after Nikki, and it’d been over in two dates.
I cleared my throat, realizing Roe needed me to say something.
“Have you met someone?” I asked carefully.
I reckoned I couldn’t blame him for his apprehension. I’d reacted weirdly back when the job offer at the gay club had been on the table. But I’d come around a lot. I could throw flirty smirks men’s way too. Gay men didn’t automatically make me uncomfortable anymore, and Mom’s voice wasn’t as loud in my head.
I’d struggled with guilt, at least some, but I knew my mother was in the wrong here. I’d known that for years. I could still hear her hushed lullaby-like chant as she drew her fingers through my hair as a kid. And I hated that part. I hated having those words in my head at all. I didn’t even remember all of them—just this nauseating, heavy sensation. And something like… We keep quiet, we keep quiet, my darling, we keep quiet. She’d wanted me to forget something I’d seen. Then church had followed. She’d dragged me with her until I’d been old enough to stand up for myself.
Fuck, I didn’t wanna think about that. I genuinely feared I’d suppressed something I didn’t want to know. Fragments of memories threatened to resurface sometimes, and for some reason, I saw my grandparents on Ma’s side. Maybe they’d visited. I didn’t know. Screw it. Away with those glimpses.
“…just thoughts. I’m not ready to explore or anything,” Roe was saying. “But you’re okay with it?”
Fucking hell, why would he ask me that? Okay, shit, I knew why. But goddammit. “Jesus Christ, of course I am, Roe. You’re my best friend. You—you know how I grew up, but you also know I rejected all that shit, right?”
He hadn’t actually met my parents in person, but he’d been around once or twice for a Skype call.
“Yeah, no, I know. I guess I overanalyzed—I mean, with how you were before.”
I understood him. “I was a dumb fuck who didn’t know better,” I replied firmly. “And to be honest, I didn’t know how conservative my folks were until I’d been out here a while.” I used to just call them traditional, and in a sense, it was true. My old man was fairly liberal when it came to politics, and my ma loved to get involved with helping people in need. But their church was definitely a source of something I was no fan of.
Now, every time I flew back to visit, I could feel it. There was a reason I preferred not to go there for holidays that tended to involve the church. No to Easter, Christmas… Last time, I’d brought Colin out for Fourth of July. Nikki had gone home to visit her parents in Spokane anyway, and my mom had nagged about wanting Colin to see where his daddy had grown up. As if Bear could fucking remember that now. Ma would have to be satisfied with Skype calls until Colin was older. She was more than welcome to visit in the meantime, but I wasn’t flying with him again anytime soon. Poor boy had cried his eyes out when the pressure in his ears had become too much.
Roe was visibly relieved, and I could kick myself for being the reason he’d worried.
