Page 51 of Strictly Curious
“So we tell them?” My voice sounded rough and scratchy to my ears. It sounded as broken as I felt leading up to this moment.
“Yeah, we tell them. We tell them and hope for the best. But I want you to know Ty, Mom didn’t sound upset on the phone. I’m hopeful that it’ll be okay.” He pulled my face closer and placed another gentle kiss against my forehead.
“I should probably tell them about college too then? Just rip off one giant bandaid?”
Garrett looked thoughtful. His nose wrinkled as he mulled over that suggestion. “If you don’t think it would be too much at once. But it might be best to lay it all out on the table.”
As we lay there, curled around each other, trying to gather our thoughts, it was time to clean myself up before our parents arrived. I probably looked like a wreck. Leaving the safety of the blanket and his arms was scary. I didn’t want to part with him. He had always made me feel safe, and now when I was so vulnerable, I was naked without him in our little cocoon. I shivered as the cool air of the air-conditioned room hit my skin.
Garrett walked with me to the bathroom and stood with me as I scrubbed my face at the sink. In the mirror I discovered the bruise on my shoulder from where he had bitten me when we’d made out after we’d had sex. It had been hot at the time, but the realization that our parents knew what we were doing now made me more anxious to find a shirt. Would they realize I had hammed up my ankle injury so we could come back here to have time to ourselves?
The front door opening and closing and Dad and Mom’s raised voices made me jump. They were home earlier than expected and my wide and panicked eyes met Garrett’s in the mirror. We thought we had at least another ten minutes to prepare for this.
“Tyler! Garrett! Get your asses down here!” Dad called up the stairs. While Garrett had said his mom hadn’t sounded upset, Dad certainly did.
I ducked out of the bathroom and rushed to grab a shirt from my room. I quickly threw it over my head and met Garrett at the top of the stairs. He stood frozen, having a staring contest with my Dad and, shit, this looked really fucking bad.
Garrett’s mom looked sad, and she pulled on Dad’s arm like she was trying to get him to calm down and see reason. Maybe he wasn’t upset about what I thought he was upset about, or maybe he was. It was nice that she seemed so understanding.
“Boys, get down here. We need to discuss this,” Dad demanded again, holding up his phone that clearly displayed the shot from the parking lot. And yeah, he sounded angry. Very, very angry.
Spurred into action, Garrett grabbed my hand. His warm palm wrapping around my fingers made me feel slightly less panicked, but my heart pounded against my rib cage at an unhealthy rate. It was like walking to our death as we descended closer to my father’s scowling face.
“Gary, please. I’m sure they’ll tell us what happened,” Tabitha pleaded. She pulled on his arm again and some of the anger eased from his face.
Dad said nothing as he turned and marched into the living room and sat on one couch. He said nothing, but we all knew we were expected to follow. Gah, here I was, going in for the most awkward conversation I could ever have with my parents. Who had to tell their parents that they were in love with their stepbrother?
Garrett’s mom sat next to Dad, keeping a hold of his hand, which was a smart move to keep him calm so he didn’t go too off the rails. My dad didn’t have too much of a temper, but when he got mad, he got really mad.
He didn’t look at me and Garrett right away, and instead he turned to his wife. It was a strange move, but the question he asked made even less sense. “And how long have you known this was going on?”
My eyes widened when his face turned red, and she stumbled over a response. “I—I didn’t know for sure. I had my suspicions for a couple of years. I didn’t have a way to confirm anything was going on, and I didn’t want to outright ask them.”
Holy shit, she’d known? But she’d thought this had been happening for years and not the one week that it had actually been happening? Holy shit. People really had thought Garrett and I had something going on for longer.
“It hasn’t been going on for years.” Garrett’s voice made me jump, and dammit, I really needed to stop being so jumpy, but this was all becoming so freaking strange.
Dad turned to face him, his irritation was evident. “So when did you corrupt my son?”
Whoa. There was no need for that. “Really? You think he convinced me to do this?”
When everyone’s gazes turned to me I regretted speaking up and wanted to sink into the couch. It wasn’t fair for fingers to be pointed at Garrett, because he hadn’t had to convince me of anything. I was the one that had actively pursued him. He’d been the one to try to talk me out of this.
“Tyler didn’t even know I was bisexual until almost two weeks ago.”
All that attention that had been on me, shifted to Garrett. He squirmed in his seat and I knew what that intense stare felt like. Like Dad and Mom were staring into your very soul. They looked at us like we were strangers.
“How did he not know?” Mom finally spoke up after what felt like an eternity of silence. My eyes widened in shock, and dammit, how was I the only person in the dark about this? Garrett, however, seemed to be just as confused. His brow furrowed as he looked between his mom and my dad.
“You knew?” he questioned. His tone was guarded, like he felt like he needed to tread carefully.
His mom sighed, shaking her head. “Oh, honey. I’m not as blind as you think I am. All it took was realizing what type of friends you had. Sure, you can have queer friends and not be queer yourself. That’s perfectly fine, but that Toby was constantly all over you. There was no way that was just platonic friendship.”
It was Dad’s turn to look confused as he looked around the circle of his family. Maybe I should feel a little relieved the topic of discussion here was that Garrett was apparently shitty at hiding his bisexuality from everyone except for me and not the fact that he’d been fucking around with me for the last week. There was still that tension in the air and I didn’t know how I felt about it. It was like this was all still on the verge of collapse. Dad had already accused Garrett of corrupting me.
“I caught Garrett in the shower with Toby. I’ve never considered being with a guy. Not once. I don’t know. Garrett felt safe. I wanted to explore it…”
And damn, all that attention was back on me. And the look of hurt that crossed Garrett’s features showed that I’d said the wrong thing. He wasn’t just a safe experiment option. He was everything to me, and had been everything to me. Ever since we were kids.
