I scowl. “You’re the one that pointed to it.”
“You didn’t have to look. What else would I be carrying on my lap named Blackbeard?”
“I don’t know. A puppy? Jesus, Gannett, you’re a goddamn buffoon, you know that? Who the fucknamestheir dick?”
He rolls his eyes. “Dude’s always had a mind of his own. When I could no longer ignore that he’s practically his own separate entity, I dignified him with a name. I’ve got black hair, he’s got a black beard.”
Jeezus Harold-Joseph Christ. The last thing I need is to start chubbing up here, while still on the clock, thinking about what Gannett Waters’ dick looks like nestled in a thatch of black curls. While my own cock doesn’t discern which gender it rises to the attention for when I watch porn—the lastoff-screenpecker I need to envision right now is his. Again, I mean. I do enough of it as it is, unfortunately.
Evan would fuckin’ think I was back to my old shit, for sure, if it ever got out that I’ve had thoughts of Gannett, of all people, in my spank bank for years now. He’d assume that I’m, once again, fucking with him. Can’t say as I could blame him either. We still have wounds between us—ones I caused—and something like this would just throw salt on them. Given my smokescreen homophobic attacks on Evan back in high school, it’d be pretty damn hypocritical of me to admit I myself am bisexual.
I’ve known it since, well, ever. That’s why I’ve kept that part of myself a secret to everyone. If a closet had a trap door that led to a secret passageway to an even deeper, darker closet, that’s where my sexuality resides.
Not that it matters, because the only hands I’ve resigned myself to ever trust on myself again are my own. For good reason. The only others that have ever been there have hurt me, one way or another. They’ve gouged scars into me. Some physical, some mental—yet they left their mark all the same.Never again.
Gannett’s drunken scoff dredges me out of the past. “Wow. Now that’s a grimace if I’ve ever seen one. Cool to see you’re just as bigoted as ever. The mere mention of my pubes has you gawking at my crotch and looking like you're about to be violently ill. It’s just a dick, man. You and I both have one. Admitting that we both have appendages doesn’t make you gay.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “I’mnotbigoted, Gannett.”
“You sure? Because that’s not what I heard—”
“What youheardwas bullshit,” I cut him off, leveling him with a glare.
What he heard was my attempt at self-preservation, no matter the cost.
I knew Evan was gay. I knew it back when I met him at summer camp as teens, back before we went into high school together. Hell, he even admitted to me, back then, that he didn’t feel like he was attracted to girls. That was before I ruined everything. Our friendship, the mutual crush I had on him, that all went down the shitter in an instant—with just one touch.
I hadn’t meant to react to him the way I did, when all he did was simply try to hold my hand, but I already had the scars there and the action scared the shit out of me. Years later, when he was about to take away my only ticket out of Marlin’s house, I used that knowledge to deal him a series of death blows that I counted on knocking him off the baseball diamond… and out of the running for the scholarship we were both gunning for.
I hung his sexuality over his head. I used outing him like a weapon to destroy him, by blackmailing him. It eventually worked. I won the scholarship, got out of that house, and I never saw my piss-poor excuse of a sperm donor again after going to college… not until it was time to spit on his casket anyway.
The toll my malfeasance took on me, however, shattered me in the wake of what I’d done. In some ways, it hurt almost as much as the abuse I’d endured throughout my entire childhood. It was just one of the many things added to the list of what has since turned me into the leadened-hearted asshole I’ve become today.
“Listen,” I add, “I don’toweyou an explanation. What happened is between me and Evan, though I’m sure you’ve only heard only his and Brooks’ side of things—”
“Neither of them have told me shit,” he interrupts. “They didn’thaveto. You know the busybodies love to gossip around Ternbay, man. I thought I said some ignorant shit regarding homosexuality in the past, but that’s just because I’m fuckin’ stupid. You—youusedthat to torture my brother through high school. I had no idea he lived with such self-loathing, all because he was marked by the insults and threats you hurled at him.”
Gannett’s been a regular here at Portside Pub long enough for me to know that when he starts hurling insults like this, it’s time to cut him off—not that some deep-seeded, fucked-up part of me doesn’t get off on a good fight, for some ungodly reason. Probably because I’ve felt dead inside for so long that even bringing up every part of my past that haunts me, somehow reminds me I’m still alive. Him digging into those still raw wounds reminds me I have history I still hold myself accountable for—one I’ll never be able to atone for.
So, as much as I’d love to simultaneously punch that obnoxiously hot baby face of his while jerking off all over it, I remember I’ve still got a business to run. “You’re cut off,” I hiss at him.
“What? Last call isn’t ‘til quarter of one. It’s not even fuckin’ midnight,” he balks, yanking his shot glass back.
“Doesn’t matter. Your time is up. I should have stopped topping you off hours ago,” I grunt, spinning to close out his tab on the touchscreen. I really should have, and that’s no lie. I hate that part of my job involves serving the very thing that made the man whose thumb I grew up under into a monster.
“That’s fuckin’ bullshit, dude,” he growls. “How the fuck am I supposed to even leave? You’re holding my goddamn keys hostage.”
“Taryn!” I holler out towards the kitchen because I don’t trust myself to get in a vehicle with Gannett right now. Not with how keyed up I’m getting, reflecting back on Marlin’s drunken rages.
“Yeah, Dad?” he asks, poking his head out from behind the swinging door.
“You want to cut out early tonight?” It’s probably a good idea for Taryn to leave now anyway, before he potentially catches his mother’s impending walk of shame.
He shrugs. “I mean, sure. I could surprise Morgan by showing up a little early.”
Good. He deserves a night off with his girlfriend after the time he’s put in here lately. My son works his ass off. Looking at him now, you’d never know that he started off as a snarky fifteen-year-old busboy, who was only working for me to avoid getting into more trouble in high school. He no longer treats working here as punishment, and that change occurred right around the time he started dating Morgan. I think she helped him find his purpose.
“Take this fucker home, and I’ll let you have the rest of the night off,” I tell Taryn, hiking a thumb in Gannett’s direction.
