I offer a disgruntled frown. “How is that relevant? You guys are a couple, it’s completely different. You probably have sex in the shower.”
Drew shrugs. “Yeah, true. But still…what if he walked in there and you were, like, jerking off or something?”
“What of it?” I shrug. “We’ve seen each other jerk off like a million times. I mean, if I had to leave the room every time Skyler wanted to touch his dick I’d probably never see him.” A slight hum of amusement moved through me at that thought despite my current mood and I can’t help my lips from twitching.
A loud puff of air passes Drew’s lips, his eyebrows creeping up toward his hairline as he gives a wry shake of his head. “Wow. I knew there was something that had stopped all this from blowing up before now, but I didn’t realize exactly how…entrenched it was. I mean, ifnormalfor you guys is sleeping in the same bed and jerking off together and touching each other’s dicks…” He shrugs. “It’s no wonder you’ve both been completely oblivious to your feelings all this time.”
“We don’t touch each other’s dicks,” I correct. “Well, I mean…there have been a couple times but it was purely platonic.”
Drew rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah, I platonically touch my friends’’ cocks all the time.”
I cross my arms over my chest and issue Drew with a narrow-eyed look. “You know what? You should be so lucky to have a person who’d wash your junk when you’re too sick to stand up properly in the shower. Or a person who’ll drop everything to come find you in a restroom in a bar in Hoboken because you got a too-small condom stuck on your cock.” I swallow hard as it occurs to me that right now, I’m not entirely sure Skylerwoulddo that. He won’t even text me back—would he even read the SOS to know I was in trouble? “I don’t need you to judge me right now, Drew. I just need to fix things with Skyler.”
Drew sighs, offering me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry.” He moves away from the front of the Lamborghini and starts unfastening the stock engine from the hoist. “Look, I really didn’t mean to sound like I was judging you, man. It’s just…I’ve seen this coming for areallylong time. And to be honest, until recently, I actually thought Skyler was aware of it and just really, really good at putting on a show. But then I realized that wasn’t the case. Trust me, I know exactly how easy it is to deny what’s right in front of you. To suppress those instincts and desires and urges to the point where the only way for them to surface is to be knocked over the head with it.” He pauses his work for a moment, glancing up at me. “Right now, Skyler’s going through a similar thing to what I did when I finally started to acknowledge my attraction to men.” He shifts his gaze to mine for a moment, no doubt anticipating my thoughts. “Yeah, I realize he’s been out forever. But this is something just as huge. Just as monumental. And for Skyler, maybe even more so. I didn’t know him when he first came out, but from what I know of his character, it wouldn’t shock me if he was the kind to just roll with it?”
I shrug. “He accepted it easily enough.”
Drew offers a soft smile and returns his attention to the hoist, while my mind wanders back all those years to Skyler’s butterfly-like transformation from the shy, awkward kid to…well, Skyler. I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face as the memories flood my brain. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, obviously; we grew up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, and while it might not have been as bad as some other parts of the country, queer kids—queer people in general, really—were very much a minority species. But bad attitudes never bothered Skyler the way they infuriated me.
I’ve never asked him about it, because I don’t need an explanation. And, frankly, I don’t even know if he’s aware of his own past behavior. But I think one of the reasons—perhaps the main reason—he embraced his orientation so easily is because, for the first time, he could go to school and be something other than one of the trailer trash kids. He still got bullied and insulted, but at least people knew his name.
And, over time, he seemed to grow a kind of impervious shell around himself. A beautiful, luminous one that was impossible for people to look away from. By the time we finished high school he was one of the most popular kids in the class.
“Actually, he thrived after he came out,” I tell Drew. “I think, maybe, acknowledging his sexuality made him feel more…seen.” I shrug. “I don’t know. I suck at psychology.”
“Yeah, that’s what Skyler needs,” Drew says wryly. “Help beingseen.”
I hit him with an unimpressed look. “You have absolutely no idea.”
A curious expression crosses Drew’s face, but he doesn’t ask any more questions about Skyler’s past. It’s not as though it’s a secret or anything, I guess it’s just not something that really comes up all that often. Our friends know Skyler and I first met when we were kids. I’m not sure if Skyler’s ever mentioned that we met when my mom and I moved into the neighboring trailer. Or that the first time we ever cuddled was only about eight hours later, when Skyler sneaked out of his window and through mine to get away from his parents’ yelling. Fortunately, my mom was cool and never said anything. She just set my alarm an hour early every morning to make sure Skyler had time to sneak back home and packed me an extra sandwich for school every dayjust in case.
Drew finishes unfastening the mounts and straightens up, hitting me with a penetrating look. “Jax…how do you actually feel about Skyler’s revelation yesterday?”
“What do you mean how do I feel?” I ask incredulously. “I feel horrible.” And heart-broken and lost and like I’m going to die if I ever have to experience Skyler flinching away from my touch again.
Drew’s mouth parts slightly, his eyes widening. “You feel horrible about Skyler being in love with you?”
I stare at him in confusion. “What? No, of course I don’t.” I rub a frustrated hand over my face. “I don’t care that he has feelings for me. I don’t care that he’s attracted to me. Idon’t carethat he wants to have sex with me. Icarethat he flinched away from me when I went to touch him, and that he doesn’t want to cuddle, and that he stayed out all night and didn’t tell me where he was, and that he won’t return my texts now. I care that he wants space from me—we don’t do space, Drew. That’s not us. That’s other people.”
Drew lets out a slow breath. “Jackson…have you considered the likelihood that you have feelings for him, too? Not just feelings, actually. Love.”
I toss my head back, letting out a pained groan. “Fuck, Drew. Do you even know how much I wish I was attracted to him? I want to be able to give him that but it’s not how it works.”
Drew nods. “I get that. But it wasn’t what I was asking. From where I’m standing—and I’ve been standing here, watching and waiting for a long fucking time—it’s only his sexual attraction that you can’t return. Not his love.”
I shake my head. “I don’t really understand…”
Drew sighs. “Look…you know Sully and Deacon’s sister Blair?” He waits for me to nod and then continues, “Well she and I hit it off pretty much straight away, and we’ve become pretty good friends over the past few months, and, well, it’s definitely been an education,” he says with a wry smile. “She’s pretty outspoken when it comes to correcting misconceptions about the different kinds of attraction. She’s ace, and she hates when people assume that means she’s a nun with no love life.”
“Ah, yeah, I think Deacon’s mentioned her outspokenness,” I say diplomatically. He has actually complained about her oversharing, but whatever. “What’s your point?”
“That there are different types of attraction, and that romantic attraction and sexual attraction are completely different,” he says. “I mean, people aren’t always romantically attracted to the people they have sex with, right? So why is it automatically assumed that everyone will want to have sex with the person they’re in love with?”
I shrug. “I think it’s something to do with biology and evolution and procreation or something.”
“That’s why libido and arousal exist—just like with every animal who procreates that way. But you don’t need either sexualorromantic attraction to actually have sex.” He hits me with a pointed look. “I’m pretty sure we both know that.”
My brows draw together in utter bewilderment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
