Page 67 of Curious
“Okay,” I say.
Charlie tilts his head at me.
“What?” I ask, feeling defensive. I cross my arms over my chest.
“You seem a little off. If you don’t want to do it, we don’t have to. Just, your videos with me get a lot of views, and a lot of views is fun.”
“No, we can do it. I’m good with it.”
Now it’s Charlie’s turn to cross his arms. “Yeaaah,” he says slowly. “Okay.” He narrows his eyes.
He’ll win, and we both know it, so I might as well tell him. If my gay brother isn’t the safest person besides my husband to come out to, I’m not sure who is.
“I think I’m bisexual,” I blurt.
Charlie stares. He frowns. Then his face eases into a slow smile. “No.Way. Wait,” he says, starting to get excited. “You and Shelby?”
“Yeah, I like my husband for real. We’re dating now. Go figure.”
Charlie stands up and comes over to me, takes the beer from my hand and sets it down, tugs me up off the couch, and engulfs me in a hug.
He doesn’t say anything else, and somehow, that says more than anything. A lump forms in my throat. I hadn’t realized that by holding this in, by holding part of me back from him, I’d been missing out on some massive support.
When we break apart, I glance over at Shelby, and he’s wiping his eyes.
I sit back down next to Shelby and pull him into my lap. “I guess I can quit pretending with you,” I tell Charlie. I kiss Shelby on the neck, and he squirms against me.
Charlie grins. “I’m seriously happy for you two. That’s awesome.”
I wrap my arms around Shelby tighter, and Charlie goes to open another beer, then thinks twice about it and hands it to me.
“I’ll let you two be. By the way, Mom told me she wants you to come over for a barbecue. I’ve been putting her off, thinking that you were just married for the insurance, but I guess I’ll tell her you’re good to go.”
I don’t want to explain anything to anyone, but if I know my mom, she’s chomping at the bit to have a party. “If she keeps it small, that would be fine,” I say, “if Shelby is okay with it.”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Shelby says.
Charlie claps each of us on the shoulder. “Congratulations, guys. And I get it, Cam. Why you needed a bit to sort it out. If you ever want to talk, I’ll listen.”
My asshole of a brother is being so much less of an ass than usual. But I’ve always known that was a front. He’s just misunderstood.
Charlie closes the door behind him, and Shelby exclaims, “I can’t believe you came out!”
I kiss his eyelids. “It’s funny, right? I mean, I married you, but everyone close to me knew that it was a ruse. Except, turns out, it isn’t anymore.” I swallow hard. “I want to prove to you that I’m not like the other guys you’ve dated.”
“You definitely aren’t.”
* * *
My parents have us over for a celebratory barbecue the following weekend. Charlie and Reyna cook. Reyna’s brought her best friend from college, Max, who is out visiting. He’s small, like Shelby, and I can see Charlie eyeing him. But then Max starts talking about some firefighters in Vermont, and Charlie backs away.
Mom pulls out the photo albums, which have too many shots of me and Leah in them. I don’t want to hide my past from Shelby, but I also don’t want him thinking that I miss her. I don’t. When he makes it through them, commenting on how nicely my mom laid out her scrapbooks, he gets up and starts looking at all the family photographs on the walls. “Yeah, they liked to take pictures of the three of us,” I say, laughing at one where we’re surrounded by pumpkins. “God, that’s embarrassing.”
I want to be careful, though. I imagine his mom didn’t put up photos like this. He certainly didn’t have the same kind of upbringing we did.
But he doesn’t seem to mind. “I love these!” Shelby says. He points to one where I’m playing with a set of Lincoln Logs. “You liked them, too?”
I nod. “No surprise that I ended up a contractor. I always liked building things. Creating something from nothing, you know?”
