Or at least, everything he’d known about himself up until right now.
Scott knew people changed. He knew that sexuality was fluid, in principle. He just didn’t thinkhiswas fluid.
Not until right this minute, anyway.
All of this was leaving him with a lot more questions than answers, and he really needed to have more answers than questions. It suddenly seemed urgent to understand, as though his chance to figure all of this out was slipping through his fingers.
It could wait a few hours, he told himself. Just long enough to sleep on the thought, just long enough to approach it with a clear head.
Then, he probably needed to come up with a way to approach Charlie.
Just the thought of that was enough to make his stomach clench with nerves.
But no amount of fear changed the fact that something was going on, and it’d only come back to bite him in the ass if he didn’t deal with it.
Chapter Fifteen
“Not that I don’t like hanging out with you, but you didn’t invite me back here just to make me a cup of tea,” Jude said as he sipped his tea, sitting back in his chair.
Charlie sighed. He’d practically pounced on Jude the moment he came into the library, which hadn’t been subtle at all.
“I have a question. Maybe a series of questions.” Charlie sat down opposite Jude at the tiny staff room table.
“In the sense that you’re looking for advice, or is this a surprise exam?” Jude raised an eyebrow.
“Advice.” Charlie licked his lips. He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to ask, but he knew that, if anyone would have a useful answer for him, it would be Jude.
“Okay. I’ll try not to ruin your life.” Jude shrugged.
There was no way Jude would intentionally give bad advice, so Charlie trusted that he could believe whatever Jude said was meant well. Whether or not it would apply to his situation was a different question.
“I don’t know how to phrase this and I’m not going to insult you with hypotheticals, so… you know Scott?”
“Uh oh,” Jude said immediately, his eyes widening. Charlie sighed. Everyone else could see the trouble he was going to get himself into with Scott from a mile off.
He’d been able to see it, too. He’d just chosen to ignore it.
“Yeah. He’s… confused. I mean. Can I tell you the whole story?”
“I’m listening.” Jude sipped his tea.
After a moment of trying to gather his thoughts, Charlie gave up and decided to just tell the story, as it had happened.
“Okay, well… we had dinner together once when Scott was working on an assignment, and then the first week I brought Scott to the bar and went home with him, I kissed him and he said he was straight, so I pretty much ran away as fast as I could. But then on Saturday, he kissedmeand then ran away, and then on Sunday he came over and mom met him and he brought his dog.”
Charlie paused to take a breath, a huge gulp of air that made his throat burn. “And he said he was confused and I said we could forget all about it but I don’t wanna forget all about it.”
Jude blinked at him for a moment, then calmly set his tea down. “Okay. So the problem here is that Scott is maybe a little bi and just now figuring it out.”
Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. Jude understood. “Yeah, and… it was very easy for me to tell Owen that, but it’s not easy to tell Scott because it feels like I’m doing it for my own gain. I hate myself for this. Whatisit with me and straight guys?”
“I mean, I could ask the same question.” Jude smiled wryly. “Hope Springs has been voted America’s most gay-friendly small town how many years running? And yet I spent half my life chasing after straight guys.”
“Well… it did eventually work out for you,” Charlie said.
“Owen was not straight. Owen wasneverstraight,” Jude responded. “You know that.”
“I do know that.” Charlie nodded. Owen had believed he was straight, sure, but he’d always been in love with Jude. He’d just never quite connected the dots the way he needed to.
