Spoiler alert: They made fun of me the entire evening, which did nothing to help me unsee the things I’d seen in Walker’s eyes.
* * *
Sunday brunch with my parents was great, even though my mind was definitely elsewhere, as evidenced by the fact that I’d spilled both eggs and coffee on my lap.
“Oswald, what is going on?” my mother asked, her lyrical Jamaican accent filling the air like perfume. She and my father exchanged a look. “How is the restaurant coming along? Are you having problems?”
The two of them had retired to Canyon Lake, about an hour away in the Texas Hill Country, so we were sitting on their deck, overlooking the heavily treed area around the water. It made me happy to know they’d found their spot of paradise.
Mom and Dad didn’t look like they belonged together, at all. She was short and curvy, with deep dark skin, amber eyes, and long braids cascading past her shoulders. I was proud I’d inherited my elegant style from her. Even on a lazy Sunday morning, she was stunning in a caftan and gold jewelry.
Dad, on the other hand, was the palest white guy ever. He was tall and mostly lanky, though he’d developed a belly after decades of Mom’s delicious cooking. Despite losing most of his hair up top, he remained a handsome, dorkily charming guy who went moony-eyed over his wife whenever she walked into the room.
Their physical differences made people do a double take… that is, until they got to know them.
I didn’t think I’d ever met any two people more perfectly suited for each other. Not only did they balance each other out—they liked to joke that they had complementary anxieties—they also had fun. They teased each other incessantly, and my father had to touch my mother whenever she was in range. Even as we spoke, his large hand was resting on her knee, a smile tilting his lips.
“No, Mom,” I replied. “The restaurant is coming along well—the contractor Major recommended is great.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Knowing my parents as I did, I didn’t bother trying to hide the truth, even though I knew they’d be worse than Tristan and Joel.
“I’ve got a crush on a white boy.”
My mother clucked her tongue, humor glinting in her eyes as she glanced at Dad. “Oh, my poor son. What burdens you take on.”
“Hey, not all white boys. Hashtag,” Dad said, kissing her cheek.
“Dad,” I said on an exaggerated sigh. At least he let my mother pick out his outfits for him. “The hashtag comes before the word. And nobody says that anymore.”
Mom laughed at us, then gestured at me. “Okay, then. Tell me about this white boy.”
I buried my face in my hands, knowing they were about to be impossible. “Do you remember Augustus Walker?”
“I know that name,” Mom said, playing her fingers against the air.
“That’s Cornelius Walker’s grandson,” Dad provided, his lip slightly snarled. “I swear, he and my father are best friends just so that they can hate on each other from close up.”
I was glad I’d decided not to tell them about the incident at the bar because my father wouldn’t hesitate to start a fight with my grandfather.
“How very homoerotic,” Mom noted, still moving her fingers in time with some unheard tune. She stopped, raising a single finger. “Ah. Yes. Hendrix got into trouble in high school, and someone helped him out. That was Augustus, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, the memories from that day swirling.
The baseball team had been on the field, paired up to practice. Walk and I were running short-hop drills when his hawklike eyes—the ones that could pick out a good pitch from a bad one by the way the ball left the pitcher’s hand—narrowed. Sharpened.
I remembered the breath he’d taken as he’d dropped his glove, the way his muscles had tensed before he’d taken off, gunning it across the field despite Coach’s shouts for him to stop. Walker had never ignored Coach, so I’d followed his line of sight, and fear like I’d never felt before hit me square in the gut. Hendrix, terrified, had been surrounded by DeWitt and his crew.
Panic had fueled my feet, and I’d sprinted after Walker. By the time I’d caught up, though, DeWitt and his pals were already backing off. Walker was shorter than every single one of them, but the glint in his eye had stopped everyone—including me—in their tracks.
My mother’s voice brought me back to breakfast. “I was surprised, because until then, the only thing I knew of the Walker family was that they were assholes.”
“They still are,” I said as I recalled last month’s visit to the tire shop. “Walker isn’t like them, though. He’s been hanging out with us for a while now, and?—”
Dad barked out a laugh and exchanged a knowing look with my mother.
“Oswald,” my mother said, gently taking my hands. “Please tell me you’re not the tragic queer man falling for the straight guy.”
