Page 60 of Mark my Words

The only consistent person in my life I could say that I loved was my grandmother. She was affectionate without being clingy, supportive without an agenda, and respected my boundaries. Sort of like someone else... No.

I was not going to think about Sam. Our relationship had been about fulfilling an attraction, not love. I often doubted I was even capable of feeling love toward someone romantically. Maybe Gregory was right. I was a fraud.

“Do you have plans this weekend, or are you too busy to visit me?”

A few weeks ago, I would have told her I’d have to get back to her, but since I’d flushed my only source of alternative weekend plans down the toilet, my schedule was wide open.

“I’ve got time. I can take a bus to the ferry and be there sometime on Friday.”

“Work keeping you busy these days?” she asked, but I knew she was fishing. Despite her dislike of my mother and her nonexistent parenting skills, she still socialized with them. My mother also had a big mouth. A trait my brother often mimicked.

“It’s a little hectic. I’m up for a promotion.”

“I’d heard that. Something about you refusing to take a position in the city?”

“Let me guess,” I sighed. “My asshole brother told Mommy dearest all about it.”

“Something like that,” she confirmed. “Your mother tried to convince him to step in, but he told her he was staying out of it.”

I knew Nana would never pressure me, but I wanted her opinion on my decision to stay away. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

“Do you?” Of course, she’d throw it back on me while telling me the truth. She also liked to force me to face my own decisions like an adult without her opinion swaying the outcome.

“I don’t know, Nana.” Part of me wanted to start crying again. This shouldn’t be a difficult decision. I was distancing myself from a toxic family situation. But I felt like I was being stubborn and choosing the hard path because it meant I didn’t have to deal with my feelings. It was also a convenient excuse to push Sam away from me before things got too difficult for me to deal with.

We weren’t supposed to be together for more than one night, but then that night turned into a weekend, which turned into it happening again—and again—and now here we were, three months later, and we’d settled into this relationship that seemed so easy, but it wasn’t real. None of this was real.

“Is there something else going on? You seem a little down. Does it concern that nice gay boy you work with?”

I couldn’t hold in the laugh at the fact Nana even knew about Sam. Greg must have told my mother every detail of his last visit. He couldn’t help himself despite his claims of staying out of it.

“He’s not gay, Nana.”

“Hmm...” she hummed, and I knew she would ask. “How do you know he’s not, you know?”

Well, Nana, because I’ve been sleeping with him multiple times a week, sometimes even multiple times a night, for months now, and Sam Langley is most definitely not batting for the other team. However, his bat-handling skills were quite impressive. His home run percentages were flawless. Although he played lacrosse and not baseball, so a better analogy would be that his stick-handling skills were legendary, and he scored goals all over my five-hole.

“He’s just not.”

“Your brother thought you might have been involved with him. He said you seemed different around this young man. But then he started talking about how he’d found out he was more interested in men when he took you two to dinner.”

“It was a misunderstanding, Nana. Greg was an asshole, and Sam called him out on it. We just didn’t correct him.”

“We, huh?” Of course, she’d pick up on that.

“He’s a friend.” Well. That probably wasn’t true now, but I’d done that to myself. I also felt like Sam would never have tried to be my friend if we hadn’t been attracted to each other.

“Mmhmm. Sure he is, honey.”

“He doesn’t like me romantically.” Not anymore.

“Are you a mind reader now?”

“Do you want me to visit you or not, you nosy old crone?” I sighed, desperately wanting to change the subject.

“I’ll send the car service to get you,” she insisted.

“Nana, it won’t kill me to take the ferry.”

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