Page 31 of What You Own
Irritation prickled across my scalp. “Of course with you, dumbass. You think I waited three years for you to be my first, only to turn around and give my ass to the next hot guy who wants me?”
Ryan’s eyes went wide. His right hand skated up my flank to my shoulder, then circled to touch my cheek. Featherlight. “You waited?”
It sounded so cheesy when he said it like that, and suddenly we were too close. I climbed off him and sat far enough that he couldn’t touch me without stretching. My sore ass didn’t like the new position, but I didn’t flinch or fidget. “I didn’t wait in a conscious way, like some dumb heroine pining over a lost lover, but you’ve always had part of my heart, Rye. Those first few months of senior year, I felt things change between us. It was really slow, but I knew my feelings for you were more than just friendship.”
I didn’t dare look at Ryan’s face. I’d get distracted, maybe not finish saying all of this, and he’d told me so much truth these last few days. He deserved some of my truth in return. “When you got outed over Thanksgiving break, I should have stuck by you. But I was scared. I was scared of losing my dad if I went against his wishes. I was scared of my feelings for you and what they might mean, and if they meant what I thought, then I knew I really would lose my dad. He’s all the family I have, since my mom died.
“But being away from you was too damned hard, Rye, and that’s why I went to see you at the cast party. If what I felt then is anything like what I feel now, when I’m with you, then that first kiss must have been amazing. I wish there could have been a hundred more after that….” I couldn’t finish the thought. The what-if was too damned painful.
“I wish we could have been able to talk after the bashing,” Ryan said. His voice was hoarse, choked with emotion, and I still couldn’t look at him. “A few minutes could have saved us both three years of being alone.”
“My father threw you under the bus so he didn’t have to entertain the idea that his son was gay.” I swallowed against my now-roiling stomach. I’d never said that word out loud in such a context—not in relation to myself. “Even after, when I never brought a steady girlfriend home, he didn’t question it. Freshman year of college I tried dating girls, even made out with a few, but it never felt right, and I didn’t want to lead anyone on, so nothing was ever serious. Dad congratulated me on being dedicated to my studies, and I ate up what little praise I got from him because he rarely gives any. I knew I’d never be the Langley he wanted me to be.
“So I came up with the plan. I decided that I could last four years, get my degree, then get out on my own. Once I didn’t depend on his money, I could figure out how to be myself. The first thing I was going to do when I got free was to find you and apologize for what I did. I swear I was, Ryan. You just came back into my life a lot sooner than I expected.”
Ryan made a rough noise, and I looked. He was staring at me with utter confusion. “So where does that leave us?” he asked. “You still have a year of college left.”
“I don’t know.” Naked in bed with him, I didn’t want to make empty promises. All I had to offer was the truth. “I’ve been living my life according to that plan, taking it one day at a time for so long that I have a hard time thinking past today. The future always seemed so….”
“Empty?”
“Yeah.”
Ryan got it. Of course he got it, because he’d been in a different kind of survival mode these last few years, dealing with his own memories of what happened between us. He leaned closer and snagged my hand. “My parents think me seeing you is a bad idea. Ellie doesn’t like it, either. I’m pretty sure my therapist is gonna shit kittens.”
Ouch. “What do you think?”
He shifted closer. “I think I’ve loved you since I was fifteen years old, hoss, and I don’t give a damn if they like it. I wanna keep seein’ you. Right here? Right now? I feel like I can breathe again.”
Something inside me shifted, curled in tight, and blossomed at the same time. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I had a pretty good idea. “I feel like that too.”
“But I can’t be your dirty secret, either.”
My heart ached with the enormity of those words. I’d barely admitted to myself that I was gay. I had no way to wrap my mind around coming out and telling anyone else. This thing between Ryan and me had always been ours, a private thing no one else was allowed to know about. But that wasn’t real love, was it? Real love was something you were proud of, something you shouted to the rooftops.
Ryan moved again, this time sitting next to me. He folded me into his arms, and I relaxed against his chest, warm and safe. “I’m not demanding you out yourself to your daddy tonight,” Ryan said. “Not even next week, unless you wanna. But I’m all in here, babe, always have been. And somethin’ tells me when your daddy sees us on that stage singin’ together, he’s gonna know.”
I felt suddenly sick because I hadn’t consciously considered the fact that my father would be attending the benefit performance I’d agreed to sing in. He’d go for the publicity and elbow rubbing, and he’d see my name in the program book. And Ryan was right—we wouldn’t be able to keep our feelings to ourselves up on that stage. Even though our song choice wasn’t a love song, it was a duet about pain and loss and learning to live with those things. He’d see.
Everyone would see.
And you’ll lose one of them. You can’t have them both, and you know it.
“Give me until the benefit?” I asked, an embarrassing tremor in my voice.
“Okay.”
He didn’t ask why I needed all those weeks, and I adored him for that. Ryan was generous to a fault sometimes, and he was being generous with me right now. Giving me time to settle into something still very new, even though the feelings had been simmering for years. Neither one of us wanted to fuck this up.
Ryan
AFTERCLEANINGup, we spent hours talking. Talking like we hadn’t done since high school, about stuff that mattered and a lot of stuff that didn’t. Just being with Adam like this made me happier than a possum in a corncrib and I glutted myself on him. Not sex. Being with him. Yammering on about anything and everything, making jokes and snacking on the leftover Chinese takeout in the fridge. He still picked the baby corn out of his chow mein, and I swapped him those for my snap peas.
We couldn’t make up for three years in six hours, but it was a damned good start.
Ellie was gonna be home by eight, and I had to go in to work at nine, so I wasn’t real shocked at the heavy feeling setting in around seven. The little cocoon we’d wrapped up in was gonna break open soon and drop us out into the real world. A world where Adam hadn’t come out to anybody and where he’d lose all financial support from his daddy if he did. A world where we’d both been hurt real bad by things other people did.
Nothing out there seemed quite so bad when I had Adam close. Going to work knowing I wasn’t coming home to him… yeah, that was gonna suck.
