“Disappointment and faggotry?”I smiled apologetically, but I couldn’t fucking help it.
He barked out a laugh.
“Sorry.My mouth.”
“I love your mouth,” he said quietly, gaze dropping to it briefly, then back up to my eyes.
I flushed, but apparently he didn’t realize what he’d just said and how…closethat was.
He just shook his head and said, “That’s why I noticed you.That night on the sidelines.I don’t remember a lot of things, but that’s like a movie in my mind.”
“The homecoming game?”
“Sophomore year.”
“Was it?”
“Yeah,” he said, as if he thought of this all the time.“Because junior year, you didn’t go to the game.But you went to the dance with Darcy, and you wore a green carnation.”
I smiled.“How the fuck do you remember that?”
“You’re pretty unforgettable.”His smile reached his eyes now, crinkling them behind the thick-rimmed glasses.“You sassed Connall McPherson right to his face on that sideline, like two minutes after we won the game.And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.I laughed so fucking hard.”
“That’s what attracted you to my dorky little twink ass?”I gotta admit, I’d always wondered but never been brave enough to ask.Yeah, Taran spent junior chemistry flirting his face off with me, doing all my work, getting me that A I didn’t deserve.But that could’ve just been a popular, hot kid wanting more people to fall in love with him, soaking it up.We didn’t hook up until the summer after that, and it had seemed more a convenience thing at first.He was horny and queer, I was horny and gay, we liked each other well enough, let’s hook up?
Looking back, I should’ve known there was more to it on his end.There was on mine, for goddamn sure.But hindsight, twenty-twenty; etc.
“Yep,” he said.“Why; what attracted you to me?”
“Your ass in football pants,” I deadpanned.
“Yeah, I still do squats to keep it up.”
“It shows.”I leaned over and kissed him.Then, into his lips, I admitted, “I thought you were freakishly kind and annoyingly smart.And you laughed at my jokes.”
“Yeah, I did.”
I kissed him again, this time with intent.And I knew for fucking sure that he was my boyfriend, even if I couldn’t tell him that yet.
Chapter 10: TARAN
Itdidn’tfeelrightto ask Diego to lunch with Mom while he was still thinking through the boyfriend idea.Admittedly, it hurt at first when he said he wasn’t ready.But then we had the baseball and LotR marathon weekend, which was perfect.I mean, a little too much dissection of my brain from him, but otherwise ideal.
For one thing, I didn’t realize how those movies would hit, after three years without them.Without Dad.It was good to remember him explaining why Frodo had compassion for Gollum, when I was just like, “Why doesn’t he get rid of him; he’s creepy?”It was cool to remember him telling me it was okay to cry with the hobbits when Gandalf died, and that grief wasn’t something to be ashamed of.I especially liked the memories about when, after I finally read the books, we sat and talked for hours about what the movies left out and what they put in and why and how we’d have done it.
That was the Ben Kovacs the football dads didn’t know: over-educated, well-read, emotionally sturdy.On the sidelines, he might judge the coach and swear and brag, just like the rest of the parents, but he knew when to rein it in.He’d reined in some of the other dads a few times, in fact.He had a good job, a good family, living the dream; people respected him.
I felt a lot of confusion about that.All those good, sensible, responsible, even compassionate things about him.The seemingly random vitriol toward gay people didn’t make fucking sense.Had he known a gay person who was a complete prick in college?Had he lost a girlfriend to a lesbian at some point?Or was he really just regurgitating the same generic disgust and fear he’d grown up hearing?
So that I’d grow up hearing it.At first, not understanding, but then slowly realizing it was me he was talking about.That I not only wanted to kiss boys, but that I didn’t understand why it was so bad to kiss them in public, just like he kissed Mom.
Diego had been through the same shit.But he never had a choice to stay quiet, not really; he didn’t know how to be anyone but himself unless he was on stage.And I’d loved him for it.If I was being real, I loved him for it now.All romance, all sex, everything else aside, now that I knew him even better, I loved him even more.
I was pretty good at giving up control.At accepting that other people were gonna do what they were gonna do and I needed to take care of my own shit and nothing else.I didn’t just let things happen to me, like I had as a kid.Not anymore.But I tried to accept things when it became clear they weren’t up to me.
It wasn’t up to me if and when Diego agreed to the label I liked—or if he ever did, for that matter.But it was up to me to treat him like he deserved, never take him for granted, and even take care of him when he’d let me.That, I could do.And I was good at it, according to him.
It was more than enough.I’d never stop wanting more, but that didn’t mean I was unhappy.I was living the fucking dream.
