Page 104 of Roommate
“Excuse me,” I whisper, standing, although nobody is paying me any mind. “I’m just going to…”
Then I gallop after Kieran.
* * *
Luckily, Kieran isn’t hard to find. He’s right outside the sliding door of the hospital. “Do you have a cigarette?” he asks me when I arrive at his side.
“No way. Let’s not poison our lungs over this,” I say, startled.
“Fine.” He tucks his chin against his chest.
I move to stand next to him, so we’re both holding up the wall together. And, very surreptitiously, I reach a pinky finger out and hook it over his. “Are you okay?”
“Not really.”
“That was your real secret, right? The thing that made everything else hard.”
“Yeah.” His finger hooks around mine.
I look up at the wintry sky, but I’m really seeing all those faces in the waiting room, staring at Kieran as he drops this bomb—that somehow he’s not his father’s biological son. He didn’t say why, but if it’s such a big secret, the reason must be something shameful.
“I should have just gone with Kyle, right?” he says. “Maybe the hospital wouldn’t have said anything. My whole life I’ve dreaded this.” He looks up at me with red eyes, and it’s as if I can see right through him.
He’d said his family had secrets, but I hadn’t really understood. “You’ve been sitting on this a long time, then? That couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell,” he croaks. “I was just supposed to pretend I don’t know the things I know. So my parents could save face.”
“That’s exhausting.”
“Sure, but…” He swallows. “The reward was staying in the group, you know? My cousins aren’t even my cousins, for fuck’s sake.”
Oh. “Of course they are,” I say fiercely. And then I step into Kieran’s personal space and hug him. And he wraps his arms around me and puts his chin on my shoulder.
It feels so good and so necessary that I feel like crying. It’s just hitting me why Kieran is so obsessed with his secrecy. He’s been clinging to it all his life.
“I’m sorry,” Kieran says. “All this drama. We were just supposed to be grocery shopping.”
“With you, it’s never just grocery shopping,” I whisper. “I’d go anywhere with you. And I’d do anything for you.” If only he’d let me. I take a big breath, and then I do the difficult thing and step back from this man I love, so that he can maintain the facade that we’re just buddies.
He’s too emotional right now to protect himself. So I will do that for him.
“Besides,” I say, giving his shoulders a quick squeeze before I step back to my spot against the wall. “The Shipleys are never boring.”
He gives me a crooked, grateful smile. Then he reaches his hand out and grabs mine. All five fingers this time. “Roddy, I don’t want to be alone.”
“None of us do. And you aren’t, you know.” I’ve seen the Shipley wolf pack in action. I’d bet cash money that a month from now they’re watching sportsball together just like always.
“No,” he argues. “I mean that I need you. If you move out, it will kill me. I want us to be together.”
“Honey.” My heart thumps in my chest. “I am a hundred percent available for this discussion. But we need to get through this outrageous day before you make any more life-changing pronouncements.” If Kieran ever decides to tell his family about us, I want him to do it with a clear head, so he doesn’t regret it later. And nobody should come out to his family while his father lies bleeding on an operating table. “One family crisis at a time, please.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I do,” I say calmly. “But you shouldn’t march into that waiting room in front of your terrified extended family and yell, ‘Guess what, Shipley clan! This ass is so gay!’”
Kieran gives me a sideways glance. “If that’s what you needed, I’d do it,” he says in that serious voice of his. “I’d even toss around some glitter around if you dared me.”
I turn to look into his gorgeous eyes, and we stare at each other for half a second before bursting out in loud, inappropriate laughter—the kind that happens when you’re having a top-ten stressful day, and the tension just needs somewhere to go. Kieran’s face creases into hilarity, and I actually see tears in his eyes as he leans against the brick wall and laughs.
