Page 72 of Best Served Cold

He’d also used those meetings to talk incessantly about women and all the reasons I should be attracted to them. He even showed me porn and wasn’t satisfied until I got hard and he deemed me as ‘cured’ of my perversions.

The craziest part of the entire thing was that nothing had happened between Javi and me, we’d only been caught lying on the same bed and that was against the rules.

It didn’t matter that we’d been fully clothed and not even touching as he told me about the comic books he read. We’d been caught doing something that looked gay, so we were labeled as such and treated like we’d been discovered balls deep in each other.

That was the last time we’d spoken. I suspected Javi had gone through the same kind of “counseling” I did. Only, his parents actually gave a shit about him and transferred to another church when camp was over.

My parents stopped paying for my art classes and forbade me from bringing any sort of art supplies into the house. My entire focus was to get good grades, go to business school, and eventually take over the store when Dad was ready to retire.

In that time I was also supposed to court whatever girl my parents set me up with, marry her, and pop out as many kids as possible before I turned thirty.

My entire life had been planned from the moment my parents saw a penis in the ultrasound, and they never let me forget what a disappointment I was for becoming my own person.

I’d felt something for Javi, but I hadn’t realized it was attraction until Pastor Dan explained gay sex to me in graphic detail. I’d never even thought about how two men could be together, but his descriptions answered any questions I might have had.

His hope had obviously been to gross me out or scare me, especially when he started going on about how STIs were God’s way of punishing those who had sex outside of marriage, and how gay men were predators who purposely corrupted young, Christian boys and infected them with not only their perverse lifestyles, but also their diseases.

Fourteen-year-old me believed him because I’d been brainwashed to always believe what the church said without questioning it, and I’d spent the last twelve years telling myself it was nothing more than adolescent curiosity.

To this day I didn’t know if Javi was gay or bi, or if he’d even been into me that way. And since no guy had ever sparked that kind of interest in me since, I labeled myself as straight.

But I wasn’t straight.

I’d never been straight.

My sexuality was definitely more skewed toward women, but not exclusively women.

The fact it was Zane who made me so acutely aware of this irritated me to high fucking hell.

But it was fact, nonetheless.

Though Javi and Zane were the only guys I’d been knowingly attracted to, the concept of two men together had intrigued me, even if I hadn’t allowed myself to explore that interest.

It had been easy enough to do since I didn’t date and had no interest in a relationship, and I’d never had issues finding a female partner when the mood struck.

I enjoyed women, I liked being with them, and I’d fooled myself into believing that overshadowed any thoughts or interest I might have in men.

But it didn’t, and being with Zane, finally getting to experience what it was like to be with a man, solidified the truth in my mind.

I was attracted to Zane. I enjoyed hooking up with him.

And it wasn’t just a power thing. Getting him off was obviously a kink of mine, but now that the veil had been lifted, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my interest in him wasn’t just because I liked winning and seeing him submit to me.

I was into men, and for some unknown reason my brain had decided it liked Zane.

Fuck. My. Goddamn. Life.

13

ZANE

“Hopefully next weekend will be better,” River said.

“Hopefully,” Noah agreed and lifted his cup to his lips.

I flicked my gaze to my brother, then looked back at Noah.

Did River see what I did?

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