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Ryder winces, arms crossed defensively like even the mention of our older brother sets him on edge. What in the hell?
“That.” I turn in my seat, narrowing my eyes at him. “Mom and Dad pull the same shit. What the hell happened that’s made Rue the black sheep of the family?”
When Ryder sighs, he looks every bit his twenty-five years of age with his sandy brown hair mussed and dangling near the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. When I was younger, Rue and I used to joke that the universe switched their souls when they were born because Ryder was always more serious, more bossy and responsible while Rue just wanted to sit in his pile of neighborhood stray dogs for the rest of his life.
“It’s a bit of a long story, bud.”
I cross my arms to match his posture. “Well I’m here and I’m listening.”
He shakes his head in the most big brother way, but even his little indulgent smile is strained. “Mom and Dad blame Rue for something they think he did almost ten years ago.”
“They think he did?”
Ryder runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Rue was always real sweet. Hated sayin’ ‘no’ to anyone.”
“I remember my own brother, Ry.”
He nods. “I’m just pointin’ out that it wasn’t his fault. That he might have been older but he’s always been the pushover of the family. Mom and Dad blame him, but… but it was my fault. They won’t talk to or about Rue because of me.”
Ryder tips his head back, staring up at the truck’s torn upholstery.
“You know how the park was. You know how our whole town was. Don’t ask questions. Don’t stand out. If you wanna be different, do it behind closed doors. So when I got curious about boys as a teenager… I kept that shit inside. I tried not to look at boys at school like I wanted to shove ‘em against the lockers and kiss ‘em—and there were quite a few I’d thought about it. But the curiosity got bigger. And puberty is a bitch.”
Ryder smirks, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s staring out the windshield like he’s not even present.
“I remember being fifteen and horny, layin’ in bed one morning thinkin’ ‘I wanna kiss a boy’. But who the hell was I gonna kiss, you know? Try that at school and I’d get a fist to the face and a bloody nose. And it was the dorkiest thing. You were out with that friend of yours because you always were. Mom and Dad had taken the twins to the park. I rolled over—remember smoothing my face into the pillow so hard I could barely breathe—and I just sobbed.”
He breaks off with a choked laugh and folds an arm over his eyes. “And then what did I do like any emotionally immature teenage boy? I laid there and jerked off because I figured that release would turn the waterworks off. Never said I was the smart brother.”
I smack his arm, because that’s something the three of us have always done. If we degrade or talk down about ourselves, we get a warning smack before going full WWE on each other’s asses. It was usually Rue who was on the receiving end.
“Turns out the house wasn’t as empty as I thought. And the next thing I knew, Rue was standing beside my bed with an armful of clothes, and I’m sitting there covered in snot and cum trying not to be mortified. But at that moment all I thought was, ‘I need my big brother’. And ya know? Rue didn’t hesitate to drop the whole ass stack of clothes on the floor and pull me into the warmest, messiest hug on the planet. And that right there? That’s when everything started to go wrong. Because everyone and everything in the world felt like a battle—everything but Rue.
He’s the first person I ever told that I was gay. Not bi. Gay. I had no interest in women, but every day I wondered what things could be like with a man. He sat with me through every breakdown. Comforted me. My feelings were so far repressed they found whatever outlet they could and ran with it. Unfortunately? That outlet was Rue.”
Ryder tips his head back to stare at the ceiling, picking at a thread on his jeans like he needs something to do with his hands.
“We spent a lot of time together over the course of a few months, and I… one day we were hiding out in the little bunker fort—you know that shed Dad always said he’d fix up for home projects but never did—I don’t even remember what we were doing. A stupid game, I think. Never Have I Ever, maybe? Rue admitted to fooling around with a guy before. Admitted it hadn’t gone well. And I thought, ‘I bet it’d be better with me’. And god, Atlas, I kissed him. Our brother. I was fifteen and confused and… and Rue was sweet. Attentive. Attractive. And I kissed him.”
I crinkle my nose at the thought of Ryder and Rue doing anything resembling swapping spit, but the pain on his face wipes away any thoughts that could come from it. Whatever happened, it hurt him. It still hurts him. I know that look. I’ve seen it in both of the Novak brothers.
“Here’s the thing,” he says after a moment of silence and a quivered breath. “He kissed me back. I told him I just wanted one safe experience. One time where I didn’t have to be afraid of what I wanted. And he gave that to me. It was in that stupid shed, kissing Rue, that I realized my feelings for Rue were more than brotherly—and I know, trust me, when Mom and Dad found out, I heard the whole spiel about how wrong it was. But it didn’t feel wrong then. It felt like the only right thing that had ever happened in my life.”
“Wait… is this whole mess because you and Rue made out? I mean, gross, sure, but you were teenagers. Teenagers do stupid shit. And no offense, but why is Rue getting the shit end of the stick?”
He plays with the band on his stupid backwards baseball cap, huffing out a slow breath.
“Because that’s not where things stopped. One kiss in the shed grew into more. Became me sneaking into Rue’s bed after everyone had gone to sleep. We’d touch and explore, and I’m sure you don’t want the details, but it turned into sex. I lost my virginity to Rue.”
I’ve never seen Ryder be anything but put together. Right now, I can see his throat working to push the words out. His muscles tense like they’re prepared for a fight.
“It wasn’t just once,” he says, refusing to look at me. “I didn’t date in high school because Rue and I decided to be together. It wasn’t just physical. It was… I love Rue. He’s my big brother. But he also became so much more than that. And I’m not going to explain or defend our decisions, understand? The point is, Rue and I were in a relationship.”
“For how long?”
Ryder finally glances over, and his expression softens the slightest bit. “A little over two years. My eighteenth birthday was coming up. Rue had used the excuse that he wanted to help take care of you for why he hadn’t left. We didn’t have any plans, but I wanted to make some. I wanted this thing with Rue. And I didn’t want to hide, but…”
He flicks his cap off and shakes out his hair. “Talking about it made Rue uncomfortable. We argued. And we had a rule about fooling around: never in the open. We had so many hiding places around the house and yard we got up to shit. But I was feeling like a brat. I was angry at him. And Rue just gives in so goddamn easily. I… shit I should probably PG-13 it for you. We had sex on the couch. Because I begged him. And he hated us fighting so he gave in. I heard someone in the house. I knew someone was up. But I was angry and horny and hurting. And so I pretended that I didn’t. And then there was Mom. Turning on the light and looking horrified to find two of her sons getting it on with each other.”
