“You were never scared of anything.”
“Yeah?”His smile went crooked again.“Then why didn’t I tell you I wanted you to claim me in front of the whole fucking school?”
I shook my head, heart in my throat.He hadn’t said it in those words, but I’d known it since the wedding.Since he made the offhand joke about wishing I’d asked him to prom, and I realized it wasn’t a joke at all.“I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“Taran.”He leaned both elbows on the table and rubbed his temples.“Stop.Please.”
I nodded and took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind.Time to reset.
Again, I tried to see it from his point of view, tried to imagine his life back then and all its moving parts.His dad being all mercurial, going through phases and wishing he had a football star for a son.His brother equally unreliable, selling shitty weed and fake shrooms out of his bedroom and making sure all our teachers had a preconceived idea about Diego before he even set foot in the school.His friends—well, I didn’t know any of them that well, but he used to tell me funny stories, and they all seemed pretty supportive and cool.
His mother was kind of a missing piece.She lived somewhere downstate, that much I knew, but she’d left years before I met Diego.He never seemed resentful of her, just didn’t talk about her that much.I had the vague feeling they’d been on good terms, even.But she’d left, was the bottom line.She’d left and either hadn’t invited or hadn’t been allowed to take her kids with her.And Diego had been left with his shitty dad and brother to pretty much raise himself.
That had to leave a mark, right?I had to wonder.“It must’ve hurt when I left.You must’ve thought I never looked back.”
“Does anyone like being left?”He sighed again.
“Some less than others.”
“Yeah.”At first he frowned, catching my gaze and holding it.Then his eyes widened, as if he’d suddenly realized what I meant, and his cheeks pinked up.“Oh.Oh, fuck.Okay, maybe you didn’t know for sure you were queer until you were sixteen, but I didn’t know I had abandonment issues until two seconds ago.So who’s the real dumbass here?”
I went around the counter, stepped up behind him, and put my arms around his waist.
He leaned back into me, covering my hands on his belly with his own.“Someday I’m gonna forgive the kid I was for being so fucking scared.You should forgive yours for being so fucking clueless.”
I kissed his ear.“And cowardly.”
“You and me both.”Yet another sigh, and he tilted his face so he could see me out of the corner of his eye.“What would’ve happened, if I’d told you?What if—” He pulled away, swiveling the stool around to face me.“You remember the field at the park?You brought that blanket and drove out into the grass on that really clear night?”
I took his hands in mine.A sense of relief coiled in my belly, relief that we were finally talking about this.“Early attempts at being romantic.”
“It was incredibly fucking romantic.”He snorted.“And you fell asleep on my chest, and I almost…”
When he didn’t pick the thread back up, I admitted, “I didn’t fall asleep.”
He frowned.“Yeah, you did.I have a really clear memory of just holding you like that.”
That made me chuckle.“Yeah, because I pretended to be asleep so you’d hold me.”
Diego’s eyes widened.“Shut up.”
I shrugged, grinning like an idiot.“I didn’t know how to ask for it.I didn’t even know I wanted it until we ended up on that blanket.”
He closed his eyes.“I hate you so much.”And yet, it sounded like a compliment.
I laughed again and leaned down to kiss him.He kissed me back, then swatted my ass as I went back around the counter.
I went back to making our eggs, feeling a lot better about the conversation.“So, what if you’d said something that night?”
“Right,” Diego said.“What if I said I didn’t want to sneak around anymore?”
“I don’t know.I can’t know, not really.I want to say I would’ve taken a week or two to freak the fuck out, but then I would’ve just… made it happen.”I wanted to be the guy he thought I was, the guy he wished I was, back then.I wasn’t sure about the past, but I knew I had it in me now.“But that’s with hindsight.With the full knowledge of how bad I was gonna miss you over the next few years, and how full of shit I was when I was telling myself you were better off without me.”
“Did you really?”
“I was positive you were going to go be famous on Broadway, and the last thing you needed was an idiot like me holding you back.”
“And I was positive you were happy to get rid of everything in that shitty town—including me—and start your fabulous new college football life.”
