“What did it say?”
“It saidCarter’s mother is going to do her level best to drive you insane this week. Think there’s anything to that?”
Carter looked down at his coffee, turning the cup in his hands. “She hasn’t said anything yet. Like,at all. About you.”
With anyone else, I might’ve taken that as a good sign. With Carter’s mom, like with cats and toddlers, silence meant trouble. I didn’t have to know her as well as Carter did to know what he was worried about.
She was a tinderbox, and I was a lit fuse.
Thing was, I didn’t mind fireworks on my end. I could handle anything, brush it off. No one could touch me anymore.
But Carter was different. Carter was the human equivalent of a turtle that’d been flipped onto its back by the side of the road. Vulnerable and not in a position to protect himself.
“I can slip away quietly,” I offered. It was the last thing I wanted, especially since I was so sure Carter was peering out of the gap between the closet doors right now, testing the waters of coming out tohimself, and I didn’t want him to fall back into Narnia.
He was right on the edge of something important, and abandoning him didn’t seem like it’d help.
But if it was too much stress for him to handle, I didn’t want to make things worse by staying. If I left now, he could explain it away as me being an asshole and just travelling this far with him so I could head on to a tattoo convention or something.
It wasn’t as if any of them wouldcheck.
“I don’t want you to go,” Carter said, so soft it was barely more than a breath. “You’re the only sane person here,” he added, louder.
I laughed at that. “The guy covered in tattoos is the only sane one?”
“Damien might qualify as sane,” Carter allowed. “I don’t know him all that well. Mom likes him, but I’m not sure he likes her.”
“He does actually seem okay. He’s not… like, I wouldn’t intentionally hang out with him, but he does seem like an okay guy. And he loves your sister.”
“He does,” Carter agreed. “Inexplicably.”
I laughed again, draining the last of my coffee. “Don’t be mean to your sister,” I said. “She’s only got the one older brother. You’ve gotta take care of her.”
“I’m the only person who’s allowed to be mean to my sister,” Carter said. “Sibling privilege.”
I went to say something else—nothing important, just whatever would keep the conversation flowing—when Carter’s phone vibrated loudly on the nightstand.
I cleaned up the box while he was handling whatever it was, the warm glow of justbeingwith him sinking into the depths of my soul.Damnhe felt good.
If I wasn’t leaving, I wanted him to walk away from this wedding knowing a little more about himself. Carter deserved to be happy, and comfortable in his own skin, andfree. Free like he’d had a hint of the first night, when he’d just let everyone believe, without bothering to explain himself, that he was dating a man.
Because it wasn’t his family he had to come out to. Not really.
It washimself.
What he needed was a bisexual fairy godmother to make out with him and give him a couple of great orgasms so he got over his nerves about being different.
I was happy to volunteer for the job.
11
Carter
“There you are,”Mom said as Aiden and I finally found the spot we were supposed to be meeting the rest of the family.
Which, as it turned out, wasthe middle of nowhere.
“I was about to call,” she added, wrinkling her nose disapprovingly.
