Page 54 of We Are Just Us

“Good.” Rory’s hand came up, thumb brushing along Kieran’s jaw. “Then we’re on the same page.”

Kieran leaned into the touch despite himself. “What page is that?”

“The one where we figure this out as we go,” Rory said. “Without overthinking it.”

“I’m excellent at overthinking.”

“I’ve noticed.” Rory kissed Kieran’s cheek.

They sat down at the table, coffee between them, and the conversation eased into safer territory.

“So,” Rory said. “Your turn. Where are you at with all this?”

Kieran wrapped his hands around his mug. “I’m out. Have been for about two years.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t think it surprised anyone. I spent my entire childhood watching reruns of I Love Lucy and I Dream of Jeannie. My mom once caught me practicing Barbara Eden’s blink in the bathroom mirror.”

Rory cracked his knuckles as he listened.

“So yeah. Not exactly a plot twist.” Kieran’s expression shifted, the lightness draining out of it slowly, like water finding the cracks. “But my mom never knew. Not officially.”

Rory didn’t push.

“She was sick for a long time,” Kieran said. “And I never found the right moment. And then she died. And the moment was gone.”

Rory nodded in silence. Not the kind of quiet that was waiting for more. The kind that was making room for what had already been said. “That’s heavy.”

“Yeah.” Kieran looked at his coffee. “It was.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” Rory said. “Not now. Not ever, if you don’t want to.”

Kieran nodded, throat tight, grateful in a way he couldn’t articulate. Because everyone else…Emory, his therapist, the grief counselor he’d seen twice, had wanted the story. The full story. The timeline and the details and the feelings organized into something narratable. And Kieran had given it to them, over and over, until the telling itself had become a performance.

Rory wasn’t asking for the story. He was okay sitting with the fact of it.

“I don’t know if she would’ve been okay with it. Me being gay. I think she would’ve loved me either way. But okay is different from love, right? And I’ll never know which one I would’ve gotten.” He swallowed. “Sometimes I think the reason I never told her is because I was afraid I’d be another disappointment on her bingo card. Not a rejection. Just a quiet, permanent letdown she’d have to carry on top of everything else.”

Rory set his mug down. He didn’t say anything. He stood, crossed the small kitchen, and pulled Kieran into him, solid and sure, one hand at the back of his head, the other pressed flat between his shoulder blades.

Kieran stiffened for half a second, instinct, surprise, the part of him that still flinched when someone got close to the raw places. Then he exhaled. Let his forehead drop against Rory’s shoulder. Let his hands find the back of Rory’s borrowed shirt, and held on.

A heavy stillness settled over the room, holding them in place until the coffee went cold. It lasted long enough that Hank finally wandered over and plopped on the floor, looking up with the patient confusion of a dog who didn’t understand what was happening but wanted to be included.

Rory didn’t say it was okay. Didn’t fill the silence with reassurance that might not be true.

He just stayed.

When they finally pulled apart, Rory’s hand lingered on Kieran’s back, thumb brushing the skin there, small and steady.

“For the record,” Rory said, no teasing in it. “I don’t think you’re a disappointment.”

Kieran looked away. “You barely know me.”

“You keep saying that.” Rory held his gaze. “Like you think knowing you is something people survive instead of something they get to do.”

Kieran didn’t have an answer for that.

The conversation drifted after that, lighter, easier. They talked about Rory’s job, about the dogs, about Aubrey and her ongoing campaign to collect every rock in Southern California.

Later, after Rory left, after he’d kissed Kieran goodbye at the door, Kieran stood alone in the kitchen, pressing two fingers to his mouth as if the kiss had left evidence.