“Do you think he and Tommy are together?” Adam whispered.
“I think we raised you better than to believe in rumors,” his mom said. The doorbell rang. His dad got up and headed to answer it. Adam feared it might be Ru, or worse, Nate. A minute later, it was Bas who walked into the kitchen with his dad.
“Bas?”
He sat down at the counter and waved Adam’s parents away. They left the room, his mom turning off the oven as she went. She patted Adam’s hand and gave him a sympathetic look. His heart lurched into his throat.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nate’s already spreading the word. I thought you should know,” Bas said quietly.
Adam glared at the countertop refusing to meet his eyes, not for shame at what he was, but because he’d been revealed to be a coward. “I’m sorry I never stood up for you.”
Bas took his hand. “Honey, you always stand up for me. Ever since that day you found me in the bathroom with my pants around my ankles, bleeding from a major head wound. I would never have been able to return to Northern if it weren’t for you. I could walk through the halls and even sit with you at lunch and no one would bother me. Sure, people aren’t always nice, but that’s not your fault.”
Adam looked at him and sighed. They’d grown up together. Known each other all through junior high on up but had never really been close. Adam really never let anyone close because he always felt different. Was that part of being gay? Never feeling like he had a place? “The whole school will know by tomorrow morning.”
“Probably. I’m sorry.”
“What about Ru?”
Bas looked confused. “Who’s Ru?”
“My boyfriend. Didn’t Nate saying anything about that?”
“No. But boy, you better spill. You have a boyfriend? Was this the hot guy you met in the library?”
Adam frowned at Bas. “Did you know?”
“That you’re gay?” He shrugged. “I suspected, especially after your careful change of the pronouns, but we queer folks don’t out each other. There’s a lot more queers on campus than what you think, that’s for sure.”
“None of it mattered until I met Ru. I was going to finish high school and then move to some state where no one cares.” Was there even such a place? He put his hands in his hair and tugged, something Ru usually did when he was frustrated. Adam couldn’t help how jealous he felt, of Kris, of Tommy, of anyone who had Ru. How would it be possible to share Ru with the whole world? The guy was famous; that meant people everywhere wanted a piece of him. “I don’t know what to do.”
“About what? Nate? That genie is out of the bottle, sweetie. Pretty much no putting it back in at this point.”
“About Ru. He hid things from me.”
“Well, I hate to break in with news of the real world, sunshine, but we all hide things from people, especially the people we want most to impress. We fear that if we show it all, let it all hang out, that they won’t want us. So unless he’s hiding a major drug habit or a half-devoured Siamese twin he wears on his shoulder, I think you’ll get over it.” Bas sat back in the chair and took a cookie. “Be grateful you have parents who are okay with you being you. And a boyfriend who’s not afraid to hold your hand in public.”
“I thought your parents were okay,” Adam said, trying to think back to the times in junior high when he’d seen Bas’s folks.
Bas shook his head. “Nope. I live with my grandma. Mom and Dad had a huge fight after I came out. Dad wanted to send me to one of those places that reprogram gays. Mom wanted nothing to do with me. They divorced, but neither of them wanted me. Grandma took me in.”
Adam grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault. Not mine either. It’s hard sometimes to believe that it’s not my fault. But it really isn’t. If they’d loved each other, or even me, they’d have worked it out. Grandma is great. She has no problem with me being me. Even has some pretty nice comebacks when someone says something crappy around us in public.”
“Ru’s family split like that. His dad walked out of his life when he was eleven. He’s been alone a long time.”
Bas squeezed Adam’s hand. “Well, he’s not alone anymore, is he?”
Adam shook his head.
“So tell me about this boyfriend of yours. Is he hot?”
“He’s a rock star,” Adam said. The words leaving him felt a lot like they should have been whispered.
“Of course. First loves are always like rock stars.”
“No. I mean, really. He’s a rock star. Like famous and all that.”
“For real?”
Adam pulled out his phone and surfed to the pictures he’d taken of Ru sleeping. “I guess he doesn’t look like this when he goes out and sings and stuff, but here he is, Ryunoski Nakimura.”
“Wait, like the former Vocal Growth band member, Ryunoski Nakimura?” Bas grabbed the phone and stared at the picture. “Damn, boy, you don’t do anything halfway, do you? Okay, details. I need details. How did all this happen, and why haven’t you said anything sooner?”
Adam stared at him for a minute, but then laid it all out, from their first meeting in the library, to the past few months of endless evenings and weekends together. He was happy for once to be able to speak to someone his own age about his relationship troubles who wasn’t likely to judge him for being into another guy.
