Page 17 of Leave

“It’s only the wrong side of the road if we drive on the right,” I said. “It’s really not hard to learn to drive on the left. It was actually a little harder coming back to this side.

“Ugh, that’s the worst,” Nolan grumbled. “Every time.”

“So it’s not just me?”

“Nope. Not just you.” We shared a fist bump, and then I slid a little closer to him. This was closer than we ever sat at homeunless I had his dick in my hand, and I liked it more than I probably should, but whatever.

I also liked it a little too much when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

To sell it. He was just doing it to sell to my parents that we were really a couple.

And that was why I liked it too.

At least that was what I told myself.

Chapter 8

Nolan

I didn’t think Riley’s plan was working.

As he’d predicted, his parents—Steve and Mary—weren’thostiletoward either of us, or toward us presenting as a couple.

Their discomfort, though, was painfully obvious. None of the little affectionate gestures we made went unnoticed, and though his parents clearly tried to be subtle about it, they failed. The way they’d zero in on our joined hands or notice me touching the small of Riley’s back, and then they’d look away, but not fast enough to mask the disgust.

One of my buddies in basic hadliterallybeen thrown out for being gay, and he had the scar on his forehead and the mended broken arm to show for it. Another’s parents had disowned him at fifteen, and he’d been homeless for a while, then made it into foster care before aging out of the system and enlisting in the Marine Corps out of desperation. So I was well aware of the horrible ways parents could react to a kid coming out.

What Riley was facing wasn’t violent or the kind of thing that could upend his life, but it was cruel in its own way. It was love with strings attached. Love at arm’s length—we love you, butwe’re not letting you all the way into the fold until you change what you are.

It made my damn skin crawl.

And if I was this uncomfortable, Riley had to be miserable, though he was mostly maintaining a solid poker face, even as the fuckery went on.

“You’re both such good-looking men with good careers,” Mary said as we all visited in the living room. “I realize there aren’t a lot of women—American women at least—where you live, but surely there are a few.”

“Or someone on the internet,” Steve suggested. “Bill Gardner’s nephew—you remember him, don’t you? He met a lovely girl online while he was going to college in Europe.”

Riley’s smile was thin and fake. “There are plenty of women on Okinawa. But…” He glanced at me and smiled with a little more feeling. Squeezing my hand on his leg, he added, “Neither of us is interested in women.”

Mary pursed her lips. Steve didn’t quite scowl, but he definitely looked uncomfortable.

“I’ve heard some gay men are actually bisexual,” Mary declared after a moment. “Have you tried that?”

Riley laughed. Not very enthusiastically, and maybe a little caustically, and he shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Mom.”

“Are you sure? Have you ever even considered it?”

“Have you?” He looked pointedly at his mother. “Have you considered if you might prefer women over—”

“Riley,” his dad snapped. “Don’t be inappropriate.”

“It’s not inappropriate. Or if it is, then it’s just as inappropriate to ask me the exact same thing.”

“It’snotthe same,” Steve said in a condescending,“Dad’s right, so shut up”voice. “Don’t be rude to your mother.”

Riley pressed his lips together and pushed a breath out through his nose. He was clearly trying to rein in his temper, and I didn’t blame him. We were two men in our thirties, and they were talking to us like we were clueless kids who wanted to drop out of school or something.

I rubbed my thumb along the back of Riley’s, hoping to offer some reassurance. He glanced down at our hands, then at me, and a faint smile cracked through. I returned it.

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