Page 8 of Faithful

Did Gin tell someone?

Or was I not careful and left my phone unlocked by accident?

Or maybe TMZ found out.

But why didn’t I get a Google alert?

My mind is the definition of a war zone as I continue to glare at my coworkers.

“Don’t worry,” Val adds. “I didn’t bet on you being gay. I bet on you being too picky.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I finally manage to choke out.

“My god, Dylan.” Winona giggles from across the reception area. “You should see the look on your face.”

This is when Gin steps out from her office.

“Leave the kid alone, you two.” She shakes her head.

“There’s a fucking pool!” I shout, turning to look at her for support.

“If there’s one”–she arches her brow, her gaze bouncing between Val and Winona–“they’re going to make sure it no longer exists. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yeah,” the girls reply in unison.

“I don’t care what you do outside these walls,” Gin goes on. “But within these walls, we’re going to respect each other’s privacy.”

Then she disappears behind her door, which doesn’t make me feel any better for some reason. I spin around and come face-to-face with Winona, who’s now perched on the edge of my desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d freak out.”

“Is it a problem?” I ask. “If you work with someone who’s gay?”

“God, no!”

“You just light up like a Christmas tree when you get texts from this person, whoever she or he is. That’s all.” Val shrugs.

Telling them that I’m seeing a girl would be the safe thing to do, but I don’t because it feels almost as if I’m betraying Kai. He wrote a fucking song about everything that he and I did that night of my birthday on the rooftop of the abandoned building on the outskirts of Seattle. He took a memory and turned it into something timeless and I can’t bring myself to shit on that by pretending it doesn’t exist.

So I tell my coworkers nothing except for, “My private life is off-limits.”

* * *

The scene at the office that almost gave me a heart attack is just the beginning of the shit show that my life becomes in the next few days.

Gavin flies back to Seattle right before I move out. He arrives late at night, which is very unlike him. He typically takes a red-eye so he doesn’t waste precious daylight hours being stuck at the airport and then in the air. For all his flaws, my father knows a thing or two about productivity.

I’m woken up by a muted voice coming from downstairs. Kai and I were texting each other earlier and I fell asleep after sending him a series of gifs expressing my reaction to the latest episode rewatch ofBeavis and Butt-Head.

Apparently, Kai has never seen it.

He also has never watchedThe SimpsonsorFamily Guy.

But he does watch a lot of obscure Chinese anime on YouTube.

And all that talk about the proper pronunciation of his favorite characters’ names leads to a dream of Kai in a long silk robe, armed with a sword, when Gavin’s bark travels up the stairs and cuts my weird dream short.

The voice that responds clearly belongs to my mother. I can’t make out the words, but I can tell she’s distressed. There’s a shuffle of feet against the floor, approaching.

Without bothering to turn on the lights or check the time, I dash into the hallway in my underwear. My father, still in his suit, is standing in front of Ava’s room, both hands in the air.

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