Page 61 of Marcus in Retrograde
“Dad’s dying.”
There was a heartbeat of silence. Chase folded his arms. “So?”
“He wants to talk to you.”
“I have a phone.”
“Come on, Chase! He wants to see you one last time before he goes. He’s dying. He’s got less than six months to live. Can’t you give him this?”
“Give him what? The chance to yell at me? To threaten me with conversion therapy? To tell me in person that I’m not his son, and I deserve every bad thing that ever happened to me?”
Rider took a drink from the bottle. “I don’t want you to come back. I don’t. But this is all Dad has talked about. You won’t answer your phone, you won’t return messages, and I had absolutely no choice but to come here and see you. I don’t care. You’re dead to me, choosing to be gay. But Dad…I care about him. I want to see him happy. And making him happy right now means talking to you. In person.”
Chase took a drink of his beer. “How long do I have to think about this?”
“He’s dying!”
“Six months you said?”
“Jesus, Chase.”
He leaned up from me. “Get this straight, right now,Brother. You heaved me out the front door after that shit of a mayor’s son came and told you I tried to make a move on him. I never, ever, never did. You never asked my side of the story. You and Dad just wanted the fag out of the house. You didn’t evenknowI was gay until Jarrit showed up bitching that I had tagged his ass. And this is the reason why I never came out to you.” Taking a deep breath, he leaned back against me. “So yes. I get time to think about whether I want to grant my father his dying wish because he couldn’t even give me my dignity as a human.”
Rider sipped the beer again, thinking. “Do you think you’ll need a long time?”
“Are you for real?” he asked.
“I was coming to get you and go right back home,” Rider said. “I have no interest in being here longer than I have to.”
“Afraid you might catch the gays?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“You people are disgusting.”
I bit my tongue. There was nothing good going to come out of my mouth.
“I need time to think. And I would never go back in the same car as you, Rider. Not in a million years.” Chase rubbed his hand up and down his arm. “You can stay here overnight because I know you can’t afford a hotel in the city—and won’t try to find one, or you can turn around and leave right now. Either way, I won’t be riding with you.”
“If I stay here, where are you sleeping?”
He cocked his head. “At my boyfriend’s. Across the hall.”
“You share a bed?”
“Seriously? Do you share one with your wife?”
“Yeah, but like…we’re not gay.”
I blinked a few times. “I’m not even sure what the hell that means.”
“It’s not natural.”
I was pretty sure I sprained my eyes rolling them. “You can crash here. Or you can leave. But one thing is for sure. Stop making idiotic homophobic comments like that. We’re gay, it doesn’t spread like ebola. You’re not going to suddenly want to hump every male you see.”
“You shared…Chase’sbed?”
I merely lifted an eyebrow.
“Ew.”
