“What is?”
“Colton and Morgan seeing each other, and you and me, you know…” he trails off, blinking up at me expectantly.
See, nowthisis why you don’t get involved with clients' parents. Water. Gets. Muddied. I feel like I know too much, and I just want to tell him, but I can’t…
Gah! This is going to be nerve-racking, keeping both of their secrets for them, when I know they just need to both be honest and open withone another. It’s a guessing game, at this point, which one of them will spill before the other. I just hope it happens here at camp, so I can mediate their reactions to one another’s truths.
“You and I are just practicing, Evan,” I explain. “This isn’t the start of something between us. As someone who is already comfortable with their sexuality, I’m just getting you more comfortable with yours, that’s all.”
Regret about the harsh reality I just laid in front of him, and the blunt way I delivered it, instantly sets in. That’s not what I want at all. I want this to be the start of something real. But, as usual, what I want and what has to be are two different things.
For the briefest millisecond, I see his expression go tortuous, before he reigns it right back in. “Practice. Right,” he assures me, his tone now as ice-cold as the water in the stream this morning. “I guess I can go to Pride with you, then. For some much neededpracticecoming out in public.”
Chapter Sixteen
I’m not quite sure why it bothers me so much that Brooks keeps reiterating that this is all just practice, but it does. I should be thankful that he’s patiently taking on my burdens and helping me work through them, and I am thankful, but why do I get the feeling that he keeps repeating what the boundaries are forhisbenefit, rather than mine? Especially when those boundaries keep getting moved back, allowing for a little more leniency.
First, I was supposed to be reckless with him for just one night. Then, he promised me that I would have the whole rest of the summer. He told me that this wasn’t the start of anything, and now here I am at Alder Notch Pride with him. Which, again, should be just for practice coming out now knowing that I am gay, but feeling more like a ‘meet the parents’ kind ofdate, instead.
Specifically, since we’re currently at Brome’s Diner, and I’ve just learned that Brome is an acronym: Brooks, Ryann, Olivia, Morgan, and Elizabeth—or Lizzy.
Brooks’ Ma, the Lizzy in that namesake, practically jumped out of her skin when she realized that the lonely, out-of-town widower that kept frequenting her establishment nightly, over the past two weeks, was working at her son’s camp. I about jumped out of my own skin when I realized that the very same woman who had gotten me talking to her, spilling things to an empathetic stranger and helping out while she closed up the diner every night, was none other than one of Brooks’ mothers. My conversations with this lady, who I had assumed would be an anonymous pair of ears and an excellent advice giver, listened to me ramble on for hours about how much I found myself lusting after someone I shouldn’t be.
I just thought it was because she herself is a lesbian, so she could understand a good ‘finding yourself’ predicament.
“Listen, I know all about falling for someone everyone says you shouldn’t. My wife, for example, she was my sister’s best friend. I was pretty sure I was straight before I met her, but she quickly corrected me,”she admitted.“I had no idea there was still a ‘bro-code’ when there were no bros involved,”she added sarcastically.
As she sat us at the table, she gave methe lookwhen Brooks introduced me to her as his employee and newfriend. She immediately called bullshit on me with just her eyes. I never specifically told her I was obsessed with my boss, so I’m not sure how mothers justknowthat stuff. My own calls it ‘mother’s intuition.’
Brooks proceeded to give his Ma and I both a look himself, albeit his was a quizzical one, when she came and dropped off our plates, without even taking an order from either of us. She just winked at him and headed back into the kitchen.
“Now—me, I get. She knows what I order here every time. How did she know whatyouwanted?” Brooks asks.
I shrug. “I must look like a bacon burger and a Diet Moxie kind of guy.”
He rolls his eyes. “And I must look like someone who has fallen off a turnip truck. Is this where you wentevery nightthose two weeks you were gone, avoiding me? I noticed that you, not once, ate at the camp.”
I crunch down a fry. “I like the food here.”
“He’s good at washing dishes too…” Lizzy notes, walking by with a tray full of drinks for a couple booths down. When she walks back by with the empty tray, she adds, “I might steal him from you, Brooks, if Rodney keeps missing his shifts.”
“He’s mine, Ma! I’m keeping him!” Brooks calls back, as she walks away.
And fuck, if I didn’t wish that were true—only, not in theemployeesense. Another thing he keeps reiterating that grates on my nerves. It’s like he’s trying to convince himself of that, too. I don’t know jack shit about dating and relationships. That point has been hammered home by Miranda, but I’m quite certain what I am feeling for Brooks goes beyond just wanting to experiment sexually with him.
Maybe, justmaybe, I can get him to stop with this ‘just for the summer’ bullshit, and see himself as someone worth putting in the effort to catch. Maybe I want to be that guy, because, deep down, I know I’m not a hook-up guy.
Maybe you want to snip the very last thread you have tying you to your son, moron. He’s finally trying to work on things with you, and you’ll destroy all that, just because you think maybe you have feelings for his girlfriend’s father. How stupid are you, Waters?
“Did that sip of Moxie personally offend you?” Brooks asks, shutting up the voice in my head. “Because, honestly, I don’t see how you can drink that.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” I rebut.
He nonchalantly picks at a bit of lettuce from between his teeth. “No, it’s for people with poor taste.”
“I don’t have poor taste…”
He gives me a withering look. Then, he leans in and whispers, “You sure do. Exhibit A: You blew me last night.”
