For a while, we work silently. The only sounds are the rustling of paper, the distant hum of the ventilation system, and Gerard’s continued musical performance.
“Is he always like this?” I ask quietly.
Oliver doesn’t look up from his sorting. “Gerard? Yeah. He’s basically a golden retriever in human form. Boundless energy, zero self-preservation instincts, and an inexplicable ability to make everyone love him despite their bestefforts.”
I nod, filing that information away. The hockey team’s dynamics are still foreign to me, a complex web of relationships I’m only beginning to understand. Jackson has tried explaining it multiple times, usually with elaborate hand gestures and sports metaphors that sail over my head, but experiencing it firsthand is different. These people genuinely care about each other. It radiates from every interaction, every insult, every exasperated sigh. They’re a family in the truest sense.
And it’s everything I’ve never had.
My own family fractured long before Mom died. Dad was always more comfortable with orders than conversations, more fluent in military protocol than emotional support. Marvin was building walls of social status to hide behind. And me? I retreated into the stars.
When Mom got sick, I thought maybe it would bring us all together. That shared grief would forge a bond. Instead, it drove us further apart. Dad became even more rigid, as if he could control the cancer through sheer force of discipline. Marvin kept finding excuses to stay at friends’ houses, to be anywhere but the place where our mother was slowly disappearing. It was up to me to be the one sitting at her bedside, mapping constellations on the ceiling, and naming new stars after her favorite things—the Vanilla Nebula, the Cinnamon Cluster. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday she was still here. Other times it feels like another lifetime entirely.
“You okay?” Oliver’s voice pulls me back to the present. I realize I’ve been staring at the same page for several minutes, not seeing it at all.
“Fine,” I say automatically. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
The question is gentle and curious, without being pushy. Classic Oliver. Even as a kid, he had the ability to create space for honesty without demanding it.
“My mom,” I admit, surprising myself. “She would have found this hilarious. Getting in trouble for skinny-dipping.Sentenced to sorting dusty archives. She had this theory that the best stories came from the worst decisions.”
Oliver sets aside a folder labeledGreek Life Correspondence 1987and gives me his full attention. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” The words ache in my throat.
Gerard’s singing echoes through the basement again, and I hear Nathan let out a sound that might be a growl.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Oliver asks me.
My stomach clenches. When Oliver Jacoby asks me something personal, my body can’t decide whether to freeze or flee. “Depends on how personal.”
“Fair enough.” The lamplight carves shadows beneath his cheekbones and turns his irises into pools of emerald. “When did you figure out you were gay?”
The question lands the way a stone does in still water, the ripples spreading outward through my carefully constructed calm.
“I think I always knew,” I admit, my voice steadier than I feel. “Even before I had words for it. I remember thinking Tommy Hendrickson had the nicest smile in our class. I didn’t understand why that felt different from how other boys talked about girls, but I knew it was something I should keep to myself.”
Oliver nods slowly. “Military family. I imagine that complicated things.”
“You could say that.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Dad’s idea of masculinity came straight out of the 1950s. Marvin learned to perform it flawlessly—sports, girls, bravado. I couldn’t, though. Every time I tried, it felt like wearing a costume that didn’t fit.”
“Did you ever come out to them?”
“To Dad? God, no.” The thought alone makes me want to run into traffic. “Marvin figured it out on his own, I think. He’s never said anything directly, but there have been comments over the years. Nothing I could call him out on without admitting he was right.”
The memories surface unbidden—Marvin asking why I never had girlfriends, the suffocating feeling of beingseen and unseen simultaneously. I learned early to make myself small, to disappear into books and telescopes and the vast, impersonal comfort of the cosmos.
“What about you?” I ask, desperate to shift the spotlight. “When did you know?”
Oliver’s expression shifts into something wry. “Oh, I knew early too. But as I got older, I was a lot less subtle about it.”
“What do you mean?”
He runs a hand through his hair, dislodging a small cloud of dust. “So, junior year of high school. I’d been fooling around with this guy on my hockey team for a few months. Nothing serious—just teenage hormones and convenient proximity. We thought we were being careful.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
