I’d let Asante pull me in and now we were hanging in the balance. I knew that Rook wasn’t looking forward to getting married, but at least he’d have a clean slate to start off with. There was a good chance I wouldn’t be faithful to my wife. I knew that. I also knew that at some point I would have to open the floor up for that conversation with King. I would have to let him know that I was in love… with a man. I’d have to make sure he made that clear to any wife he planned on me having.
I knew how shit worked and I knew that there were women who would marry me anyway so they could have the Barron name and family support behind them and still do whatever they wanted while I did what I wanted. I’d do my husbandly duties. I’d protect, provide and respect. I’d bite the bullet and eventually have children. I just needed time. I needed time to figure my shit out and I was running out of it quickly.
I’d always known that I’d have to get married to a woman but I’d fallen into Asante so quickly I hadn’t been able to stop it. Shit. I hadn’t wanted to.
“You talk to King about it?” Rook asked and my head snapped to the side so I could look at him.
“About what?”
“Asante.”
I swallowed and exhaled.
Of course, Rook knew how serious things were between Asante and me. He was one of the few people who did. Shit. He’d been the one to encourage me to even give the whole dating thing a try so I guess he was the reason I was even in this situation for real.
“What is there to say?” I asked carefully.
“Shit. I don’t know,” Rook admitted. “Maybe he can make some moves on your behalf.”
I scoffed. “Man, he and Knight abide by tradition like that shit is religion.”
“Yeah, but they love you and you know that.”
I paused. They loved me. I knew that. That didn’t mean they’d put my relationship with Asante over anything. Shit. They were both in their own arranged marriages. They’d done what they needed for the family and it was my turn. Even if we didn’t talk about my sexuality, they knew what it was. We didn’t have to talk about it for me to know that they saw my upcoming marriage as my duty to the family.
That was the thing about my older brothers. They were alike that way. They believed being a member of our family came with undeniable sacrifices. I understood that. King had been thrown into his duty the second he’d married Xavia and hadn’t complained about it once. Knight had married Novalie without a complaint or second thought and had walked into his marriage prepared to do and sacrifice whatever he needed to make their marriage successful… and somehow that shit had worked out for the both of them.
King was in year four of his marriage and he and Xavia damn near shared a brain.
Knight was almost at year three with his wives and had not one, but two babies on the way. The women’s cycles had syncedand Knight apparently had inhuman sperm with undeniable aim because they were both five months pregnant now.
I liked to think that a part of the reason my brothers thought shit would work out for me was because of how it worked out for them but honestly, I knew my brothers. They each focused heavily on honor and the belief that not following the laws of our forefathers would lead to the demise of the lives we lived. There had to be honor among thieves or the underworld of Crescent Falls and Millers Pointe would collapse within itself. The same way one grain of rice could tip the scale was the same way one small infraction could lead to other people thinking shit was sweet. Eventually it would turn to all out anarchy. There were reasons we did what we did and I reminded myself of that often.
It was interesting to me that Rook thought either of our brothers would go against tradition for anything let alone because I was gay, the worst kept secret of our family when they didn’t even acknowledge the fact.
I tilted my head to the side as I regarded him.
“That doesn’t mean King is going to put his neck on the chopping block for me to be with a man and honestly, if I bring it up to him and he tells me something crazy, shit between us may never be the same,” I admitted.
Rook’s eyebrows knitted together but my face stayed the same. I wasn’t joking. I respected King as the head of our family and I always would but ultimately there were certain levels of disrespect that people couldn’t come from. We could go from brothers that weren’t all that close to coworkers with matching last names. Quick.
“You think he’d do that?” Rook asked seriously.
“I don’t know, but I’m not a hundred percent sure he wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, well I’d go to bat for you.”
I smirked at that. Rook and I were two halves of the same fucking soul and he never let me forget it. It was us against anybody walking this Earth and it would always be that way.
“I know.” I exhaled. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“Man, you’re my brother, my twin brother. I know I don’t have to do anything but I’ve got you. My loyalty to you is above my loyalty to our last name. It always will be.”
“I know.” I nodded and we sat in silence for a few seconds that felt much longer. “Sometimes I wish shit was different.”
“Like you wish you weren’t born into this life or like you wish the rules around it were different or what?” He asked.
“Like I wasn’t bisexual,” I confessed and shrugged.
