December
“Iknow you don’t normally travel with the team, but my parents were asking if there was any chance you’d go to the Minnesota game next week. I think they’re sick of hearing me talk about you without meeting you.”
Adrian chokes on his coffee, coughing a few times before he recovers. We’re sitting on the couch, him with his laptop in front of him, while I’ve been watching highlights of last night's NHL games across the league. When he does finally catch his breath, he turns to me with wide eyes. “You want me to go to Minnesota to meet your parents?”
“Well, yeah, if you want to. No pressure. I just thought it would be cool if you could all meet, and my dad has a hard time traveling. Like I said, I’ve talked about you quite a bit since moving in here, so they’d love to meet you.”
He stares at me for another long moment. “Um, let me check my calendar. That’s Thursday’s game, right? Do you fly in from Chicago the night before and leave back to Chicago after the game?”
“Yeah, it’s between two home games, and it’s a short flight, but they like us to avoid doing it all in one day if we can.”
He nods, still looking at things on his computer. “I should be able to make that work. The only meetings I have Thursday can be done over video call. I can do the rest of my work from the hotel as well. I’ll email Samantha about adding me to travel arrangements, but I’ve done it with Beck before for big games, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Really? That isn’t too big of a pain? You want to come?” I check again before I get my hopes up too much. My parentshavebeen asking to meet him, and I know I could just do it over a video call, but the idea of them all together for the last game of my NHL career that my parents will be at… I don’t know, it just feels right. The thought of Adrian in their box makes me feel the warm, fuzzy kind of happy that I’m always chasing. Even if my parents will have no idea how important Adrian has become to me.
Even if Adrian has no idea how important he’s become to me.
I should probably tell him, I know that.
I just don’t know what to say. For weeks now, I’ve been trying to think of how I can put my feelings into words, and I’m still struggling. It’s so much easier to leave my door open at night or when I’m in the shower, to walk through the hall naked and hope he’ll catch me in a situation that might give me some idea if he’s even attracted to me beyond his teasing flirting. Maybe it would even force the conversation.
Approaching my newfound sexual identity questions maturely? Being vulnerable and sharing my feelings about how often I think about what it would be like to physically be with Adrian? That’s so much harder.
I know Adrian is special, that I’m drawn to him, and that I want to be in his presence whenever possible. Making him smilemakes me feel more accomplished than any goal I’ve scored this season. I’m desperate for his approval and praise. But I still don’t know what to call my feelings exactly. A crush sounds so juvenile. But admitting I want to date him sounds like such a huge step when he’s the first man I’ve ever felt this way about, and we haven’t even kissed.
I know I want Adrian to continue to be in my life and not just in it peripherally as a friend. I want him front and center. I want to have some sort of claim over him beyond his title of my roommate.
I just want him to be mine.
Thoughts of sexual identify labels, words like bi, pan, queer, and even demi are all still kind of overwhelming when I’ve lived my entire life assuming they didn’t apply to me. But after more than a month now of fantasizing about what a future with him as my partner might look like—how great a dad he would be, how I couldn’t possibly find a better parent to give my future kids—I think it’s safe to say this isn’t a passing thought or a questioning moment.
The straight label no longer feels like my own. Even if I’m still working on claiming another. Which label I connect to the most changes almost daily. I know Adrian would be a huge help in talking me through all of it, but I don’t see how I could talk about it without making it super obvious that he’s the object of all my fantasies these days.
I keep circling back to my concerns that I’ll fuck it up whenever he does find out. That I’ll say the wrong thing, or he won’t feel the same way, and I’ll ruin our friendship beyond repair. So for now, I’m taking the cowardly route of not saying anything, telling myself that I’m only waiting until after I move out.
It’ll be easier that way, safer. If things do blow up in my face, then he isn’t stuck with me in the next room. I won’tbe forced to awkwardly move out before my house is ready. Maybe I’ll be confident enough then to ask him on a date, to see if he would be willing to explore a romantic relationship with me.
I want to do things right, to treat him the way he deserves to be treated. I don’t want him to think I’m only wanting to experiment with him because it’s convenient while we’re living together.
There are so many reasons for me to continue with the status quo, to wait until I’ve moved out before I risk changing anything between us.
But my house won’t be ready for a couple of months still, and as much as I love having the excuse to continue living with Adrian, the idea of possibly having more with him after I move out is all I can think about these days. I’m tempted to tell him to cancel the contractors he’s already hired so I can move in now and speed things along.
But I won’t. If I’m being completely honest with myself, part of why I liked the house in the first place was because of how happy it made Adrian, how easily he was able to make it feel like a home. The optimistic—probably too cocky—part of me also keeps reminding myself that if Adrian ever does agree to date me, if there’s any chance my daydream of our future family could possibly come to fruition, then Adrian could live there with me someday. I want him to have his dream house, so on the off chance he could ever want to share it, I’ll keep the plans as is. He can choose exactly what he thinks it should look like, and maybe one day—if I’m not being completely delusional, and he actually gives me a chance—it could also be his.
For now, though, I’ll find joy in the fact that he’s just agreed to meet my parents. He’s never talked about his own parents, so I had no idea what to expect when I asked him.
“I know you didn’t go home for Thanksgiving, but do you ever visit any family? I don’t think I’ve heard you mention any.”
He snorts. “Fuck no. I’m from a small town in the middle of nowhere Arkansas. Even if I ever spoke to my parents, which I have zero plans to do, I wouldn’t want to go back to that shitty place.”
“You don’t talk to them?” I gape. I can’t imagine choosing to not talk to my parents. They’re such a big part of my world. Even now with how far apart we are, I don’t go more than a day or two without at least texting my mom.
“Nope. They were very traditional values, unaccepting, churchgoing kind of people. They knew I was different at a young age. I was one of those kids who everyone thought was gay before I even knew what that meant. They tried to get me to play sports to ‘toughen me up,’ and always made comments about how being gay was wrong. They didn’t abuse me or anything, but by the time I was in high school, they basically ignored me as much as they could.”
He shakes his head, a sad smile in place and a faraway look in his eyes. I want to comfort him, to wrap him in my arms and scold his shitty parents, but this is the most open and honest he’s ever been with me. I don’t want to interrupt and risk him stopping.
“The only time they would even talk to me was to make sure I was still doing my chores, a list that grew longer and longer as time went on. There was always food in the house, but I had to be the one to cook it. Probably why I prefer to eat out now. Anyway, they made it clear when I turned eighteen that they were no longer obligated to be in my life. I haven’t been back since.”
