Page 60 of Slay the Gay Away, Daddy

The time I’ve spent with Darren—both pre-and-post-conversion—has fundamentally changed me as a person. For years, I’ve claimed to have overcome a barrier that never existed. It’s taken me almost forty years to feel comfortable in my own skin, and while I’m still not completely there, by the way Darren stares at me, I know I’m on the right track.

Our hands are essentially welded together as we pull into the church parking lot. It’s empty, save for one lonely little pickup truck near the entrance. We park beside it, and when I look into the window, Gray Collins is holding his crying husband, consoling him by kissing his forehead repeatedly. His husband, Kent, has one hand around Gray’s back, and the other, for reasons I don’t really understand, is resting on top of his head, his finger gently stroking Gray’s bald spot. Repeatedly.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?’ Darren asks me, and I give him a nod even though it isn’t true. I’m not ready for this at all, but it has to be done. Amends must be made. I step out of my truck and walk around, opening Darren’s door. He’s looking a little nervous, and I really don’t like how scared he seems, so I do what I need to do to comfort my boy. I lift him into my arms. He wraps his legs around my waist, just like he used to. Things were different then. Feelings were different, for me at least. I still have the same instinctual need to keep him safe, but there’s something darker, just beneath the surface. An unyielding heat that bubbles and blisters my resistance until it crackled, scorching away most of my shame, leaving room for new life to grow.

With Dare in my arms, I knock on Gray’s window, startling the pair. Gray looks over his shoulder and nods. As I take a step back, giving him room, Gray opens the door and steps downfrom his truck. Kent climbs down and walks around the truck, taking his place beside his husband.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Gray asks, and I point at the last window toward the end of the church.

“My office. We’ve got service in thirty minutes, but I wanted to sit down with you both and explain what happened.”

A few minutes later, we’re in my office, Kent and Gray on the sofa, me sitting on the edge of my desk facing them as Darren sits on my lap, his face buried in the crook of my neck, hiding away. Reality hit a few days after his father died, and he’s been getting lost in his head pretty often. That’s okay. He’s just a little lost right now, but I’ll always find him. I’ve always wanted to lead him to the light, and now I realize I’m all the light he needs.

“On the phone, you said he was trying to do an exorcism,” Gray says, his voice calm. Measured. He doesn’t seem angry, but he doesn’t seem very happy, either. I can’t say I blame him. Two days after everything happened, news broke of the missing pastor from West Clark. Pastor Collins’ wife, Sasha, was plastered across the screen of every local news show from here to Dallas, begging for information about his whereabouts. In one of the segments I caught, the pastor’s mother held a photograph of her two sons. In it, standing at Trevor Collins’ side was the man from the bar. Gray. Darren begged me not to contact him, but I couldn’t bear the thought of him spending the rest of his life not knowing if his brother was dead or alive.

“Miles and me,” Darren says, his voice small. “I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember. He’s always had my heart, and he finally realized I had his too. Then they tried to take it away. Your brother and my dad tried to pray it out of me. Dad started choking me and then your brother, he—” Darren slams his eyes shut. I know what he’s trying to say—that the late pastor stood by praying instead of rendering aid—but the words won’t come. He still struggles with it. Last night he woke me up with his cries,and I had to hold him through it until he fell asleep in my arms. I didn’t mind, because I love providing comfort to my sweet boy, but seeing him so distressed makes me feel inadequate as a partner, because I don’t know how to help him. All I can do is hold him and hope he gets better.

“Did he hurt you?” Kent asks, and Gray reaches beside him and takes his hand. “Because he hurt me too, a long time ago.”

Darren sniffles. “Dad was trying to kill me, and he just stood there and let it happen.”

“I found them with him,” I add. “Darren’s father still had his hands around his neck. Pastor Collins was standing there lost in prayer. After I . . .” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “After I handled Darren’s father, your brother and I had words. I threatened him. He ran off, but he fell down the stairs on the way out. He hit his head on the wall when he landed.” I don’t tell him Sister Matthews pushed the man to his death, because what purpose would that serve?

“Gosh,” Gray whispers, closing his eyes.

After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, Kent speaks up. “He was a monster.” To my surprise, the pastor’s brother doesn’t argue with his husband. He nods with him. “When we were younger, he caught us in bed together. He beat me up pretty badly, and then he and his friends dragged me out to a lake, poured gasoline all over me, and struck a bunch of matches to scare me. I still can’t pump my own gas without having a panic attack. It’s been over twenty years, and sometimes I feel like I’m still back on that shore, waiting for them to kill me.” He looks up at Gray with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I know he’s your brother, but I’m glad he’s dead. I’m happy he’ll never hurt anyone again.”

Gray swallows thickly. “I know. It probably makes me a terrible Christian, but I feel . . . not really glad, but relieved, Iguess. He was a horrible, hateful person.” He looks up at Miles. “What happened to his body?”

I share a look with Dare. I know I can’t tell them Darren works at a hitman agency and the bodies were incinerated, the ashes dyed and used as sand in a rainbow-colored hourglass now resting on Meadows’ desk, because, for starters, who the heck is even going to believe a tale so tall? It sounds like something out of a really trashy movie.

“He’s been disposed of,” Dare says. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t take any risks.”

“Okay,” Gray says, nodding. “I’m okay with that.”

“You are?” Dare asks.

“I am.” He slides closer to his husband and squeezes his hand. “My brother took twenty years from us. He threatened me all my life, just so I would stay in the closet. The day I came out, I was dead to him.” His expression is one I can’t quite read. It’s like he’s either going to laugh or break into a guttural sob. “I’m not really worried about his remains.”

“What will we tell your father?” Kent asks him. “Your mom is beside herself. She’s already dealing with the fact that your mom and my dad . . .”

Gray shakes his head quickly. “No. No, Kent. We don’t talk about it. You promised.”

He rolls his eyes and turns to me. “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s still coping with the fact that we’re stepbrothers now.” He glares at his husband-slash-stepbrother. “You swore to love, honor, and cherish me, but how is denying me my most simple of sexual wants either loving, honoring, or cherishing?”

“Dang-it, Kent. Cut it out. You know that makes me nervous.”

“And you know I want to refer to you as my stepbrother during sexy times, yet here we are, Grayson. Here we are, with the bluest fucking balls in the world.”

Gray’s eyes bulge. “We are atchurch,” he hisses, and the hiss goes on for ages, filled with venom and sass. He flings his arm out, aiming a finger right at me, making me gasp, because what the heck did I do, aside from let his brother die? “That is a man of God!” Oh. Okay.

“And I am a myriad of emotions, none of them being sexually fulfilled.”

“I don’t sexually fulfill you anymore?”

Kent’s eyes widen when he sees Gray’s worried expression, and he wraps him up in his arms, holding him close. “I’m sorry, I was just harassing you because I’ve got a massive steplovers kink, apparently. Of course you fulfill me.” He gives Gray a kiss.

God. Is this what Darren and I will be like? Me, the stuffy, rational one. Darren, the eternally unhinged twink, even at forty. I try to picture Dare in his forties, but it’s hard to see. We’ll still be together, God willing, but I’ll be pushing fifty or sixty. Ah, hell. I’ll be a senior citizen, and he’ll be in the prime of his life. It worries me, because what if I’m holding him back? My problem with the age gap has always been the fact that we’ve known each other so long. I’ve never stopped to think about potentially becoming a hindrance. An anchor, dragging him down to the seafloor when he ought to be swimming the surface, wild and free.

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