Page 89 of In Plain Sight

“I didn’t really date after my first girlfriend and I broke up. More just messed around with girls when it was convenient.” I pulled in a deep breath. I’d never told anyone this, and my chest tightened with emotion.

“I spent so much time focusing on hockey and hanging out with my friends that my grades started to slip. I was assigned a tutor so I didn’t get kicked off the team. My tutor, Danny, was this shy, quiet kid who didn’t have a lot of friends. We were complete opposites, but there was something about him that drew me in. One day, when we were studying together in my room, he kissed me.

“It took me by surprise because I had no idea he was into me that way, but that kiss was…perfect.” My cheeks flushed. “That’s when I knew for sure that I like both, even if it took me a while to fully accept it.”

I snuck a glance at Zander. He was studying me curiously, like he knew there was more to the story but was contemplating if he should ask or not.

“And you never told anyone?” he asked instead.

I shook my head.

“Would your family be okay with it?”

I huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. I know they would.”

“But you still haven’t told them?”

“No,” I said softly. “I tried so many times, but I just couldn’t. Then my dad died, and I couldn’t dump that on my mom or sister while we were grieving and struggling. But the longer I kept it a secret, the more I felt like I was lying to them. I was so scared of hurting them, of potentially losing them because of my lie, that I kept it to myself. Now it feels like too much time has passed, and every time I try to say something, the words just won’t come out.”

“That’s a really difficult position to be in,” he said sympathetically.

“It’s not fun.” I fiddled with the cap on my bottle. “And you’re not out because of your mom?” I asked with all the subtlety of a pie to the face.

“Not just because of her, but yeah.” He drained the rest of his water in a few long gulps.

My eyes were drawn to his throat and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed. My dick, which had gone soft as soon as I started talking about my lack of coming out, went half-hard again.

“Not just because of her?” I asked cautiously. He’d already shared so much with me, but I wanted to know him better, to understand him the way he inherently seemed to understand me.

“Do you have an extended family?” he asked, his dark eyes boring into mine. “Aunts, uncles, maybe grandparents and cousins who have their own families?”

I nodded. I didn’t have a huge family, but enough that our holiday gatherings were always a little chaotic.

“I don’t.” He flipped the empty bottle in his hands. “My mother is my only living relative.”

“She is?”

He nodded and stopped flipping the bottle. “She’s also an only child, and my grandparents died in an accident three months after my dad left. That’s why I don’t really blame her for the drinking and all the other crap we went through when I was little. She lost everything in the span of a few months and was left with a baby she never really wanted and no support system when she was nineteen, and she used alcohol to deal with her grief. When that didn’t work, she tried to fill the void with male attention. Now she uses religion.”

I had no idea what to say to that, and it hurt my heart that he’d had to deal with so much in his life.

“If I lose her, I lose my entire support system. I might not be an active member of the church anymore, but if there was an emergency and I needed help, I could still call any of my mother’s friends or even my old friends that I don’t talk to anymore, and they’d help me. If they find out I’m gay, I won’t have that safety net. That terrifies me, so I’ve kept the truth to myself.”

“Sounds like we’re both stuck between a rock and a hard place,” I said.

“Yeah.” He put his bottle on the floor at his feet. “Are you okay with all this?” He waved between us. “We did that dump our traumas on each other thing again and still haven’t talked about the big reveal.”

I huffed out a laugh. “We really need to work on our small talk skills.”

“We do.” He smiled, some of his earlier shyness gone. “But are you okay?”

I smiled at his concern. He was the one who’d just been blindsided with all this, but he was worried about me. That made me feel way too good.

“Yeah.” I rolled my water bottle in my hands absently. “I’m still a bit in shock, but I’m not freaking out anymore.”

“That’s good.” He smiled.

“What about you? Areyoufreaking out?”

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