And it’s helped the Knights get on a winning streak for one of the first times in a long time, so I’ll keep doing it.
“You sure you don’t want dinner, Graham?” Dad calls from the kitchen.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’m making your favorite stir-fry.”
Damn. It does smell good. “I guess I could eat.”
Both of them are in the kitchen, getting dinner ready, the two of them working together like a well-oiled machine.
It brings another pang to my heart. Is this what I could have had with Noah if I weren’t too scared to be out? That singular thought has been plaguing me.
But how in the world can I do that when I’m not even out to the two people who are the most important people in my world?
“You’ve been quiet.” Dad hands me a plate before I walk over to the dining room table.
“Just tired. You know this late in the season that everything hurts.”
Dad laughs. “I still can’t bend my knees without them hurting.”
“Your knees are just fine,” Mom tells him as she sits down next to me.
The two of them bicker back and forth over the kind of shape my dad is in as I shovel dinner into my mouth.
Fuck. I really did need a good home-cooked meal. That’s the one thing I’m terrible at—cooking for myself. With needing to fine-tune my nutrition during the season, I use the team’s nutritionist to help me plan everything out.
So getting to have my favorite meal at home is a brief reprieve from the shit going on in my own head.
“Are you okay?” Mom asks, clearing the dirty dishes and setting them in the sink. Her warm brown eyes—the same as mine—are staring me down.
It’s the look that always had me spilling my guts when I was in high school. Maybe it’s why she is such a good coach. She doesn’t let anyone hold on to any shit that’s in their heads.
Back then, I hated it. Now though? Maybe this is the time I should be talking to them about everything that’s turning me inside out.
“Uhh, can I talk to you and Dad?”
I wipe my hands on my sweats and stand, walking around the table. The two of them share a panicked look. “Oh God, is everything okay? Are you hurt? Being traded? What is it?”
Mom pulls out one of the stools at the counter and drops down into it. Dad is standing right next to her with an equally fearful look on his face.
“It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it, Graham?” Dad asks. “You know you can tell us anything.”
“I think I’m gay,” I blurt out.
Well, I guess ripping off the Band-Aid is the way to do it.
“Gay?” Mom asks from her seat, slightly stunned.
“Well, bi.”
“How did you come to this realization?” Dad asks, dropping down onto his forearms, leaning closer to me. He’s the same height as Mom like this.
And glancing between the two of them now, my nerves are close to spilling out of me. I’m a spitting image of my dad. But I have the same eyes as my mom.
“Well, I had?—”
