Page 31 of Xavier

Coming face to face with the reality of something like that was different than hearing it and never having to witness it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he asked me to get him on a plane tonight and let him go back home to the safety of heteronormativity. That was more comfortable, even if I had my suspicions about him yesterday.

He made a small humming sound before pivoting on his heel and heading down the hallway behind him. I followed after him, my stomach tight with knots. He shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded up bundle of papers, un-creasing them with his hand a few times.

“Up ahead is the tech wing. It’s supposed to be state of the art.” He was talking while his head was buried in the papers—maps, I realized when I got close enough.

“Dex...”

He continued to talk like he hadn’t even heard me. “I’m not that well-versed in technology. But I’d like to learn a thing or two. They even have a robotics team.”

“Dexter.”

He stopped short, turning to look at me. “What?”

I sighed. “Talk to me.”

Please.

The answering frown was the least of what I was expecting. “I’m kind of hurt you didn’t tell me.”

“Hurt?” I repeated.

“Yeah, I—” His gaze darted away from mine, focusing on the hallway we’d stopped right in front of. “I know mom doesn’t really care to know... or you didn’t want to tell her. I understand that. But...”

My heart softened. “I didn’t think you wanted to know, either.”

Thankfully, he looked at me again. “I’m not like her, dad.”

That hit me hard. I hadn’t meant to treat him the same way I did his mom—at arm’s length. I wanted our bond to be so much different and here I was, doing what I did to Kate without even trying to meet him halfway and see if he was at all interested.

“Yeah, I go to church. Or, well, I did,” he flinched but went on. “But that doesn’t mean I hate gay people. I told you I didn’t care about it when you told me.”

“I know,” I said softly. “But hearing about it and seeing it are two different things. I didn’t want to freak you out.”

Dexter rolled his eyes at me. “You really think you kissing someone is going to freak me out? Trust me, you’re not as bad as mom and Dan.”

Okay, we’ll unpack that later.

“I’m sorry, Dex.”

“Were you seriously never going to tell me?” The hurt in his eyes was killing me.

“I was... waiting for the right time.” A total lie. Even as I said it, I knew that it was.

Keeping things from my son, even out of paternal instinct, was what got us here in the first place. We’d had a rift between us because I’d kept my distance from him after everything with his mother, believing that I was protecting him while hurting us both in the process.

How was any of that fair?

Yet, I was still doing it.

“Okay, so when was the right time going to be? When we got back on the plane? You know you guys are, like,reallyobvious, right?”

That made me wince. “Sorry...”

He rolled his eyes again. “I’m not trying to be an asshole. I... okay, I know that this is hard to talk to me about. I get that. But aren’t we supposed to be trying the honesty thing?”

“Yeah, of course we are.”

“So then talk to me? A year is kind of a big deal, dad.”

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