Page 74 of Uriah's Orbit
She looked down, and folded her hands. “No, of course not.”
“I will be happy to handle all of this for you, Mrs. Gadfeller, Mr. Lowell,” she said. “It should be a simple case, with few home visits and a few back and forths. Mr Lowell, your assessment of this document was pretty on target, classifying it as a…was itschiesteryyou said?, firm. I’ll have a response for this by tomorrow, as well as the divorce documents as requested. Just be careful, and keep an eye on the kids.”
Aubrey and I nodded and stood, shaking Charla’s hand. We headed out of the office, and as we were about to walk out into the street, Aubrey stopped me.
“Call the car.”
I balked. “What?”
“Just get in the habit. Call the car around. I’m just as worried about you as I am about my children. Call the car around and have it take us back to the apartment. And don’t argue with your big sister. You put a tail on me.”
Sighing, I pulled out my phone and called my usual car company. She was right though, if I had put a tail on her, I had to be careful.
It was a short ride, thankfully, and most of the guys were coming over after dinner to hang and talk about what we wanted our tour to be, to accomplish. We were having fun being actual artists and not just manufactured sound. Putting values on things made us happier than we’d been in a while.
Aubrey let the kids play with the game consoles as the rest of us set up snacks and drinks and notepads in the kitchen. To none of our shock, as we sat down to start chatting about the tour, Nelson walked into the apartment and sat down with us.
“Where’s Jace?” Taylor asked
“Working,” Nelson said. “I wish he’d quit that shit job.”
“You wanna be his sugar daddy?” Grant teased.
Nelson leaned back in the chair with his beer and gave him the middle finger. “Maybe.”
Aubrey gestured with her beer. “I gotta say something here, Austin. Something happened this afternoon and I don’t even think you realized it. When we were in Charla’s office, were you were aware that we were discussing your sexuality and you didn’t flinch?”
Twisting my lip, I gave her a crooked look. “What?”
“Today. When we were trying to figure out what to do about Gerry’s lawsuit, it was just…out there…that you were gay. You didn’t try to deny it, or hide it.”
“We…” I paused. “I don’t remember that.”
“Because it was normal. Because you weren’t freaking out that someone was going to find out. It was part of what we were talking about when his actual reasons were under discussion. You brushed it off.” Aubrey leaned forward. “Why are you hiding, little brother? What is keeping you in the closet? I’ve seen you and Uriah together—you’re good!”
I shook my head. “No, I can’t…”
“Why! Why can’t you come out? It’s killing you. You’re going to rot in there.”
“She’s right, man,” Luis said. “None of us care. We all know. So what’s to hide?”
“Haven’t you all been watching? Paying attention? So many people still hate gays. There are so many people who don’t want a thing to do with the LGBTQ-plus community.”
“Yeah? And?” Taylor asked.
“It’s going to push away our fans, our management, our record label,” I said. “It could permanently screw all of our careers. I don’t want to mess this up for you all.”
Luis laughed. “We are perfectly capable of screwing ourselves,mucho gracias.”
Nelson held up his beer. “Fuck ‘um.”
I turned and looked at him. “What?”
He shrugged. “Seriously. Fuck them. If they aren’t going to listen to you because you like guys, who cares? They are missing out. You think my box office suffers because I like dudes? No.”
“But you’re not out,” I reasoned.
“Aren’t I?” He took a drink of his beer.
