Page 32 of Good Friends
“I’mnot telling herthat.”
“She knows I’m gay. Just because most everyone else in our family wants to ignore that fact doesn’t change it.”
“Thenyouhave that conversation with her. I told her you’re back in the States. She’s upset you didn’t come visit her.”
“I’m not going all the way to Vermont to visit a woman who told me I should go to church and pray for forgiveness when I came out, Mom. Just like her suggestion you go pray for Dad to stop being a narcissistic asshole wasn’t going to change him, either.”
“She’s yourgrandmother.”
“She’s also sitting on a pile of cash she more than made clear to me she was never leaving me a cent of since I’m gay. She wants to see me so badly, she can fly her wrinkled damn ass down here to Florida. She paid for all her other grandkids’ college educations, and I had to work two jobs along with landing a scholarship to go to tech school. She can go fuck herself.”
“Watch your language.”
He fought the urge to slam his fridge shut. “If this is the only reason you called, Mom, I’m hanging up.”
“Steve’s getting married in three weeks.”
That was his younger step-brother by her latest husband, John. “Is that an invite? I thought John told me fags weren’t welcome in his house?”
“Gavin!”
“Hey, Mom, newsflash—I am one, so I can use the word. How’s that pre-nup treating you, anyway?”
She hung up on him.
He chuckled and set his phone on the counter. That was a record, even for him. When he hit thirty-one, he finally realized his family, while not slit-his-throat violent, were never going to embrace him for who he was.
That’s when he hit his fuck-it point and decided to lob incoming fire at them head-on instead of playing nice. That had happened in no small coincidence about the same time he’d met Dane and Porter.
The result of that change in approach with his family resulted in a much quieter and simpler life forhim.
John was his mom’s fourth husband. His dad had been her first. When he’d made the mistake of going to a distant cousin’s wedding three years ago, for one of the few relatives he actually liked and got along with, that’d been the first time he’d met John.
The man had made it perfectly clear Gavin wasn’t welcomed in his home if he was gay.
Gavin had grinned, told him it was good thing he was staying in a hotel then, and walked off, leaving the guy with his jaw dropped and his mother red-faced and mortified with embarrassment over how Gavin had spoken to John.
That’d been the last in-person contact Gavin had with any of his family. He’d been spending most holidays with Porter or other friends, anyway.
That had been the worst part of being in Costa Rica, all the holidays he celebrated alone because he couldn’t bring himself to accept invites to his coworkers’ celebrations.
Especially Christmas. Instead, he’d spent two hours that evening on a video Skype call with Porter, talking and even video sexting before finally saying good night.
Then he’d cried himself to sleep.
He blinked back tears now as he stood there, his appetite vanished.
Dammit, I fucking miss him.
Whenwould it stop hurting so bad?
Chapter Ten
Something about the move triggered dreams—nightmares—in a way Porter hadn’t had them in a while.
Or maybe it was because of his last conversation with Gavin.
He didn’t know. His first day at his new job was great, but he was still…struggling in private.
