Page 110 of The Prodigal Son

No one sits. Maybe we’re all a little too anxious.

So we stand around and wait for the others to arrive. Luke brings me a beer and I crack it open with relief. It goes down way too fast.

My mom asks me about the tour and how things have been this week, and I try to spare her from the gory details. I don’t want her to worry. It’s been intense, but I can handle it.

When we hear a car door close outside, we all tense. The foyer is out of view from here, so we just wait. I consider hiding, but that would be juvenile. It’s not exactly the occasion to jump out from behind the couch and shoutsurprise. Although it sounds a lot easier and less tense.

I hear a female’s voice outside and then a child’s, so I know it must be Caleb and his family. Inching closer to Jensen, I watch the door with anxiety brewing inside me.

This shouldn’t be too bad. I saw Caleb a couple years ago, and he got me up to speed on his family and the new addition—Dean—who just happens to be myex-boyfriend.

So, yeah, I don’t know why I’m worried. This shouldn’t be awkward at all.

The door opens and I hear a little girl arguing with someone in the entryway.

“You cheated!” she shrieks.

“Don’t be a sore loser just because I won.” I recognize Dean’s voice like a ghost from my past. I haven’t seen him since I was fifteen years old. He was the first boy I kissed. The first dick I touched. The first person who let me say out loud that I was gay.

Then, one day, he just…disappeared. He stopped hanging out with me and stopped calling. Until poof—he showed up at my brother’s house twelve years later and started fucking my brother and his wife.

I’m sure there was more to the story than that, but that’s all I caught.

“Daddy, tell Dean he’s cheating!”

“Please stop yelling, Peanut,” my brother replies.

“You can’t let her winonethumb wrestle?” Briar mumbles as the family walks into the house.

When they turn the corner and find us all awkwardly hovering around the dining room table, they freeze.

“What the hell—” Caleb mutters before his eyes collide with mine.

“Hey,” I stammer as I wave at him.

“Who’s that?” Abby says loudly, and I smile down at her. Immediately, I see my brother in her face. Brown hair, big eyes, freckles.

“That’s your uncle Isaac,” Caleb stutters before eating up the distance between us. “That’s my brother.”

He’s smiling as he pulls me into a tight hug. Patting my back harshly, he lets out a laugh. “It’s good to have you back.”

To my relief, seeing Caleb again is far more chill than I’m sure seeing Adam will be. He pulls away from our hug and smiles brightly at me. “This is amazing. I can’t believe you’re really here.”

“I’m here,” I say, doing an awkward shoulder shrug. When I feel Jensen at my side, I turn toward him. “And this is my boyfriend, Jensen.”Damn, that feels nice to say.

The two of them do their little handshake greeting. Then Caleb calls over his daughter, and I kneel to greet her as well. To my surprise, she throws her arms around my neck and squeezes me tightly, as if I’m not a complete stranger to her.

When I stand up with tears in my eyes, I make eye contact with Dean for the first time. We might as well be strangers at this point. I’m sure neither of us are the same people we were as teenagers.

“And you remember Dean…” Caleb says as he walks over and puts his arm around the man’s back.

I thought I could prepare myself for what it would be like to actually see my brother with another man, but it still shocks me to my core. There’s this unspoken conversation Caleb and I haven’t had yet. The one where we face the harsh truth about him being queer this whole time and never telling me. Letting me take the brunt of our father’s wrath when he could have spoken up, too.

And maybe he never knew. I guess that’s a possibility—that until he met Dean and let himself finally admit those feelings, they were so repressed he was blind to his own sexuality.

That will be a fun conversation to have, but not tonight.

Dean has a stoic, cold expression on his face as he faces me. He always was such a serious guy that I know for sure we never would have worked out even if we had made it past fifteen together.

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