Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
“That I… Rory, I’m the last person who would ever…” His laugh was raw and choked with repressed emotion. “I can’t believe I’m doing this over the phone,” he muttered to himself.
“Doing what over the phone?”
“Confessing my sins.”
“Whoa now.” Rory held up a hand he couldn’t see. “That’s crazy talk. You’re a saint. Especially compared to yours truly.”
“That’s just it. I’m not. I found a way to cope and I told myself it was to protect my brothers. But by towing the line I made you a bigger target.”
“Younger you’re not making any sense.”
“I’m gay, Rory.”
He’d never actually felt his jaw drop before. “You’re what?”
“Gay. And before you ask, no it’s not new. I’m not a late-bloomer. I have been this way for as long as I can remember. It’s not a phase, and I haven’t been celibate because I hate myself for being a sinner. All I’ve been is discreetly visiting a bar one state over when the need arises.”
Rory was glad there was a chair on the balcony, because his knees refused to hold him up. “Give me a minute. I really wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“You weren’t? The guy who thinks every man is potentially gay?”
“You’re kind of helping my argument there, Chief,” Rory said, still reeling.
“I know. I think Seamus suspects but I haven’t talked to anyone in the family about it until now. I needed it to be you.”
“Why?”
“I used to wish I could be more like you all the time, Rory,” he said sincerely. “Proud and fearless, you owned yourself. Not just your sexuality—your life. We were football players because we were told we had to be. You were a gymnast. When the rest of us leaned on each other, because for a long time I think we didn’t know how to trust anyone who wasn’t named Finn? You said ‘fuck it’ and found your own tribe, these men who have been your best friends for all of your adult life.”
His voice broke. “You were openly gay when we all knew how Sol felt about it. I knew he could be hard, Rory, but I didn’t think things were that bad.”
“I know,” he whispered. “No one knew. I still haven’t told David and Rig.”
“You will. I regret not being brave enough to tell Sol about me. I was trying to give him what he wanted so he’d stop being such a miserable bastard, and I didn’t see what was right in front of me.”
The door slid open and David joined him, kneeling beside the chair and slipping his arms around him. Rory clung with the hand that wasn’t clutching the phone like a lifeline to his ear. “Come to dinner tonight, Younger. We can talk. If you want.”
Solomon took a moment to pull himself together. “I do. I’ll be there. And Rory?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Me too,” he choked before hanging up and burying his face in David’s neck.
“I take it Solomon is coming for dinner?”
Rory nodded, opening his mouth to suck on his throat because he couldn’t get enough of David’s taste.
“Mmm, that’s nice.” David’s hands slid under his shirt. “Rig sent Essie away with most of our breakfast. So we have some privacy.”
Rory nibbled at his jawline. “I’m sorry we didn’t have more of a chance to visit. Especially now that I know she and my uncle are puppy besties.”
“They are? Well, don’t worry about the visit. You’ll have a lifetime to make it up to her,” David chuckled, his fingers sliding beneath Rory’s shorts suggestively. “And she’ll collect, so enjoy the reprieve.”
Rory paused at that, then started to lick David’s earlobe. “Is she upset about the recording?”
David hadn’t participated in their last two Rehash and Review shows—where they went over the latest episode of a favorite show for people who had literally just watched it with them. But it was really popular.
He had stayed up late to edit everything from his laptop instead, though. So Rory tried to quell his guilt. “She understands. She’d feel the same way if Janice needed her.”
Rory burrowed closer and forced himself to breathe normally. David had been saying things like that since he’d picked him up from the hospital. Inferring. Implying. Strongly hinting at Rory’s relationship unicorn. Love. Unconditional acceptance.
Rig had been doing the same thing. It was almost a conspiracy. Like they’d made a decision about their relationship and they were no longer planning to consult Rory about it. They were together whether he liked it or not.
He kept expecting to wake up between them in a Las Vegas chapel, wondering how the hell he got there as Elvis pronounced them all officially “stuck like glue.”
He kind of liked it.
Rory thought again about Younger’s phone call. Always gay, he’d said. He’d hidden it well. People had been going gay left and right in this family, and there he’d stood, the silent sentinel locked in the closet for almost forty years.