Page 20 of At The End Of The Day

Afraid she was about to start taking all the blame again, I hurried to move the conversation along. “You wanna hear what I think?”

“Of course, always.”

I tingled everywhere, my heart swelling to capacity. Even when we were kids, she had never been too busy to make time for me. It was one of the reasons I’d fallen head over heels so damn quick into our friendship.

“Okay, so you gotta keep an open mind, got it?”

She giggled, absently picking at my hangnails created from constantly strumming my guitar. Normally I was pretty good at keeping up my manicure, but since being here, I’d slacked off a bit.

“Just tell me, silly.”

Lifting my head to whisper against her ear, I said, “I think he’s gay.”

She gasped and shoved away to flip over, facing me. The only light coming from the television, shadows were cast across her face, but she was certainly gawking. “Shut up.”

I snickered, scratching the side of my head. “I’m serious.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, I lived with my uncle for about two years. I was surrounded by all his gay friends, some of which were not open outside their circle. There was this one guy, in particular. He…” I started to get a little anxious at this part of my story but dismissed it when I recalled that afternoon in the garage of the abandoned house. Violetta would not judge me.

“Baby?” she cupped my cheek, her thumb stroking side to side.

“Okay, remember when you asked me if I’d ever been with a man?”

A slow, shallow gasp pulled through her lips. “Ty-Ty, have—”

“No, no. Honest. I’ve never lied to you, Letta. You know that. I wouldn’t start over something trivial like that.”

“Oh,” she stated, sounding almost disappointed. “Then what?”

“Well,” I said, dragging the word out. “He was new to owning his feelings and he misjudged something I said during one of John’s parties and he hit on me.”

She wiggled closer, the television’s light showing her face enough to see a mischief smile. “Oh, really? What happened?”

“He kissed me.”

“Mm. Interesting. And?”

“And, that’s it.”

“Did you kiss him back?”

My shoulder rolled, one side of my face scrunching. “I mean, yeah. I was curious to see if I liked it.”

“Did you?”

I heaved a sigh, my knuckles caressing her cheek. “He wasn’t you.”

Her smile fell and she pouted. Taking my hand, she pressed a kiss to the palm before hugging it to her chest.

“Anyway, after I politely told him I was not interested, he started low key freaking out. I calmed him down and we started talking. Some of the things Vinny does reminds me of Alex.”

“Like what?”

“Like…Well, ain’t no one closer to him than you.”

“Right.”