“If this is about Dad?—”
“It kind of is. I need to see you. Can you come by my place this afternoon? Ford’s with me.”
He sighed, and I knew I had him. Ford and Micah were closer than anyone except maybe Hugo, but Hugo had been so busy with leaving his career and starting a charity organization he and Boden were running.
“Is it just Ford?”
“Yeah. Dad won’t be there. Ford’s taking Dad back to his apartment.”
Micah was quiet for a long beat. “You want Caleb to come over too?”
“Let’s talk first,” I told him.
“Fine. I’ll be there in an hour.”
That was enough time for me to get all the paperwork put in the little bump-dot-coded files I’d set up on my kitchen table. “He’s gonna meet me,” I told Ford as I climbed in the car. I waited for him to get in and turn the engine on.
“I miss my bestie,” Ford said quietly. “And you.”
“I’m right here,” I reminded him. “I’ve seen you, like, literally every day for two months.”
“Yeah, but you’re not really here, Jo. You haven’t been for a while.”
I swallowed heavily as he pulled into traffic. He wasn’t wrong. I was shutting down anytime things felt overwhelming. I left space for sleep, hockey, and Alexio. Biting my lip, I leaned my head against the window. “I need to tell you something.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“I’m bisexual.”
He coughed.
“Killian told you, didn’t he?”
“In his defense, he lasted a while. But yeah, he did. Tucker and Boden both owe me a hundred bucks, by the way.”
“You should have bet more. I think it was pretty obvious, even if I was in denial forever,” I said with a small grin. The rest of my secret danced on the tip of my tongue, but I was afraid to say it. I was afraid to bring Alexio’s name into it and ruin what we had, especially considering I didn’t know what we were to each other.
“Is it Vanya?”
I frowned. “Is what Vanya?”
“Your bi awakening.”
I almost choked on my own tongue. “Oh, dude. No. I mean, he’s hot, but no. I think my bi awakening was probably Alan Rickman in that weird-as-fuck movie about the Romanov family where he was Rasputin.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked me.
I laughed, but I couldn’t help it. “What can I say. I like them…” Gruff? Different? Unique? Slightly terrifying on a good day?
“I don’t want to hear any more.”
“Says the guy who gets his rocks off to ghosts and named his leg after a dead child in a horror movie.”
“She can hear you!” Ford said. “You’ll offend her.”
“Sorry, Carol-Ann,” I murmured quietly. Things were starting to feel a bit more normal. Not entirely, but it was something.
We fell into a comfortable silence until he pulled up in front of my building, and I gathered my cane and my bag before twisting around. “Is my dad awake?” He hadn’t said anything since he got in the car, and all I could hear from him in that moment was quiet, even breathing.
