Page 88 of In Plain Sight

“No one else knows?”

I started to shake my head but stopped. “Well, one person does, but other than you and him, no. No one else.”

Zander arched his eyebrow questioningly but thankfully didn’t ask me to elaborate.

“You didn’t figure it out until you were older?” I asked tentatively.

He shook his head. “Not until after I was married.”

“How does that work?” I asked before I could stop myself. “You don’t have to tell me, but you said you were married for a few years?”

“Three years.” He nodded.

“And you weren’t…intimate with her in all that time?”

He chewed on his lower lip.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine.” He shot me a small smile. “It’s just not exactly fun telling someone that I spent three years trying to force myself to enjoy sex with my wife.” He sighed and leaned back against the couch. “Being with women doesn’t gross me out or anything. It just doesn’t really do anything for me. I can perform when I’m into it, and I can usually…finish, but it’s a struggle. That made Ivy self-conscious, which put even more pressure on me, and…yeah. The more I tried, the less it worked, and the worse we both felt.”

I didn’t know what to say. It sounded like a horrible situation, and I was amazed that they’d managed to stay so close after going through that.

“It took me a long time to fully come to terms with not just my sexuality, but also my…preferences,” he continued softly.

“Because of your upbringing?”

He nodded.

“You didn’t feel attraction to men before you got married?” I asked before I could stop myself.

He shrugged. “I’m sure I did, but I started dating Ivy when we were fifteen, so I most likely ignored it or didn’t see it for what it was. I didn’t start noticing men until after we split up. Then Ireallystarted noticing them.”

He met my gaze, and the question in them was clear.

“I figured out that I’m not straight pretty early,” I said slowly. “My first crush was on a guy.” I shot him a quick look. “I didn’t understand it at the time, but I could sense that there was something different about me.”

“Different?” he questioned, giving me space to keep talking if I wanted.

A part of me wanted to shut the conversation down and leave it at that, but a bigger part needed to talk about it. I’d been holding this in for years, and the weight of my secret was crushing.

“When I finally figured out that what I felt for himwasa crush, I kind of panicked. I didn’t really know what gay was back then, just that it was a word everyone threw around when they wanted to insult someone or talk shit about something.

“How old were you?”

“Twelve. All my friends were talking about girls and everything I learned about sex only talked about straight relationships, so I felt like a freak, like there was something wrong with me because I didn’t feel what everyone said I was supposed to feel. Then I went to middle school, and my next crush was on a girl.” I blew out a breath and took a sip of water to try and soothe my arid throat. “But I didn’t stop noticing guys or getting crushes on them.

“The next year I got my first girlfriend and had my first kiss, and I kind of convinced myself that my attraction to guys wasjust me being a hormonal teenager and I was actually straight because it was safer that way.”

“Safer?”

“Hockey isn’t exactly an inclusive sport. Most guys who play aren’t homophobic assholes, but they throw around the slurs enough that it put the fear of god into me, especially when I started playing at the elite level, so I did everything I could to suppress my attraction to guys and play the part of the straight jock.”

“You don’t have to tell me more if it’s too hard,” Zander said, breaking me free from the memories that were threatening to come crashing down on me.

“I need to, if that makes sense?”

He nodded.

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