He walks over to the fridge and pulls out a beer and holds it up. “One for the road?”
I nod. “If you’re having one, yeah. Okay.”
“I’m having a glass of red,” Chase replies and plucks up a bottle from the corner of the counter. “Opened it last night but didn’t finish it and I hate leaving an open bottle too long.”
“Okay. I’ll try a glass of that then.”
Chase cocks one of his eyebrows as the corner of his mouth quirks too. “You don’t seem like a wine guy.”
“Well, so far I haven’t been,” I confess and walk over to the kitchen. “When I was in high school, my boyfriend stole a bottle from his mom’s collection and it tasted like someone crushed gooseberries into vinegar. I had a pounding headache for two days after we drank it. But I’m always open to trying something twice.”
“You haven’t tried wine since high school?”
I nod. “It was truly not a good hangover. And once I discovered beer and cider, I didn’t see the point in trying it again.”
“You work at a wine bar,” Chase reminds me, and he looks incredibly bewildered and maybe a little amused as I shrug. “And you had a boyfriend in high school?”
“Yeah. I came out when I was seventeen after I kissed my first guy, who went on to be my first boyfriend. That lasted half of senior year and my first year in college,” I reply and watch his hands as they uncork the wine and grab the stems of two glasses hanging upside down under one of his kitchen cabinets. He has great hands. It’s a weird thing to notice but I always notice hands. His fingers are long and wide, but he moves them — over the microphone stand or the bottle of wine or the stem of the wine glass — with a grace and elegance you wouldn’t expect. His nails are clean and short. His skin, smooth with only a barely noticeable dusting of fine light hair on his knuckles. Lighter than the chestnut hair on his head that I’m so obsessed with.
Chase pours the first glass of wine and slides it toward me, his hand on the base. I take it by the stem, and as he moves his hand away, his fingers brush my knuckles and I feel a jolt so intense I actually look down to see if there was an actual spark. “I didn’t know I was into guys until I was almost done with college.”
“You didn’t know?” I repeat his words and he smiles sheepishly.
“I didn’t let myself confirm that I liked guys,” he rephrases and finishes pouring his own glass of wine. “Swirl it around a second, let it get some air.”
I swirl the wine. He does too, those very blue eyes concentrating hard on the liquid as it circles the wine glass. “Why did you wait so long?”
It’s not my business, but I ask anyway. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s also the reason he’s still in the closet. Chase stops swirling his wine, so I stop, and then he leans across the island between us and gently taps his glass to mine in a cheers. “Because I was doing fine with women. I didn’t think I needed to complicate my life further.”
I sip the wine. He does too, but his eyes are firmly glued to me, waiting for my reaction to his answer and the wine, I’m guessing. “It’s nice,” I reply. “Not at all gooseberries and vinegar.”
Chase lets out a small chuff of laughter at that. He grabs the bottle and walks around the island, toward the living room. “Come on, let’s sit down.”
I follow. He takes one end of the couch and I take the other. He leans forward and puts the bottle on the coffee table and then grabs a remote. I wonder for a second if he’s going to turn on the television, but instead the fireplace roars to life. His eyes find mine again. “I have never thought of my sexuality as a complication.”
“You’re extremely lucky.”
“Yeah,” I agree and take another sip of wine. “My parents didn’t even blink when I told them I liked Trevor inthatway. I think one guy in my entire life has tried to make me feel bad about it. That’s it.”
“Who?”
“Trevor.”
Chase’s eyes widen. “The boyfriend?”
“He wasn’t out and didn’t intend to be,” I explain, trying to sound like it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t anymore. But boy, it used to matter. I can still feel the sting if I think about it too much. “I thought he was just scared and needed time, so I gave him plenty. Too much. I finally ended it when he didn’t show up to support me when my parents died because he was worried people would get the wrong idea.”
“You mean the right idea,” Chase mutters and sighs. “That’s brutal. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” I shake my head and push away the memory. “Anyway, I am who I am and I like me. I know my sexuality isn’t something I should feel bad about.”
“I know that too, by the way,” Chase replies, and I can hear the tinge of defensiveness in his tone. He pauses and sips his wine. His eyes move to the flames dancing in the gas fireplace. “I don’t feel bad about the fact I’m into men.”
“Then why are you in the closet?” Again, none of my fucking business, but I’m dying to know. Chase is like something I know I shouldn’t want but I do anyway. If he explains it to me, maybe I’ll want him less.
“I’m not totally in the closet. I’ve told my parents I’m bi,” Chase explains. “Grant and Joe know that too.”
“But are you bi or gay?”
