Page 95 of Roommate
“Hmm,” he says. “And how would he feel if you did that?”
“Sad,” I say without hesitation. “But maybe relieved.”
“Uh-huh. Maybe before you deprive the greater Colebury area of those sourdough pretzels, you should find out for sure.”
I snort. “I sense a conflict of interest here.”
“It’s minor,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I won’t let it affect my judgment. My counsel is that you should take a breath. You’re afraid to put pressure on your man. But you’re putting the most pressure on yourself tonight. You wouldn’t rush a sourdough, would you?”
I shake my head. “That’s how you ruin things.”
“Step back, take a breath, leave the kitchen, Roderick. But don’t leave town, or you’ll always wonder what might have been.”
Exhaling, I look up to see people streaming into the church. But Father Peters doesn’t rush. He slows his pace on the sidewalk, just in case we’re not finished yet.
“Thank you,” I say in a low voice. “I’ll try. But even if it all works out, I could never get married in your church anyway, right?” I’m pretty conflicted about stepping over that threshold, even to serve dinner.
“Right,” he says brightly. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t come to your wedding. I could cheer you on from the front row. What kind of cake do you think you’d serve? Just hypothetically?”
“You are not what I expected,” I say with a laugh.
“Good. Now let’s wash up and serve some ham and inferior rolls.”
Kieran
“Are you okay?” my cousin May asks me as she deals out another hand of poker. “You’re quiet, even for you.”
“Yeah,” I say. And that’s all I say.
May shakes her head and deals two cards face up. “Then ante up.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I push a couple chips to the center of the table and try to focus on my cards.
I’m not, in fact, okay. I left things completely unsettled between me and Roddy. He should be here with us playing poker. He should have been here for Aunt Ruth’s pie, and for the game of capture-the-flag we played outside in the dark.
At least he got a good supper. It was Audrey’s idea to send him a plate with Father Peters, since the church is right across the green from our house.
It should have been me who brought it to him, though. Not that I was willing to say so out loud.
Roddy is right, of course. We have a problem, and it seems to have no solution. Before now, I never noticed how much pretending I do just to get through the day. There are conversations I don’t enter, because they’d be too revealing. (“Which model is the hottest?”) The way I listen more than I talk—even with my closest family members—is a habit I picked up so long ago that I wouldn’t know how to break it.
And there’s no way for me to suddenly be more like Rod—someone who dares the world to love him just the way he is.
I don’t like my odds. I really don’t.
Meanwhile, I wish he were here. I miss him like crazy. But I am not about to let everyone in this room know that we’re lovers. That’s just not happening. And I don’t know how to make Roddy understand why I can’t.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of him. I’m not afraid to be gay. But my privacy is basically my life’s work. And fitting in with the rest of the Shipley clan has never been easy for me. Setting myself apart on purpose would feel like peeling off my skin.
“You in or not?” Grandpa asks suddenly. “It’s ten to call. Expensive hand, boy. But you still can’t take all day deciding.”
I glance at the cards on the table, and then at the cards in my hand. I push two chips onto the table almost before I notice that I’ve got three of a kind. “Okay. Sorry.”
Everyone frowns at me simultaneously. “Fricking Kieran,” Kyle says with a sigh. “You can’t tell when he’s bluffing, because he always has that same expression.”
“The original poker face,” my cousin Dylan agrees.
They’re right. Because I’m always bluffing.
