Page 35 of Kellan & Emmett
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Silence stretched. Then he shifted, eyes fixed on me.
“Why’d you really come back, Kellan? It wasn’t just for the reunion.”
My throat worked. I could’ve lied—said it was nostalgia, or that I missed barbecue and southern heat. Easy answers. The kind people nod at and move on. But his eyes didn’t let me off that easy. They never had.
“I don’t know,” I said, which wasn’t true. I did know. I just hated the shape of it.
I dragged a hand over the back of my neck, stalling. “California wasn’t… it wasn’t home. Not anymore.”
The words felt jagged on my tongue. I kept my gaze fixed on nothing ahead. “And at first, when I saw the reunion notice in January, I wasn’t sure if I should come. But as it came closer to the reunion, it felt like…” I huffed a bitter laugh. “Like maybe I should stop running, even if just for a week.”
I didn’t say the rest—that there was nothing left out west to run back to. That my father vanished the second my knee gave out, that my mother’s grave was the only place that ever felt steady, and even that was long gone. That the real reason was sitting right beside me, too close, too quiet.
I shifted forward on my elbows, forcing air into lungs that felt too tight. “Truth is, I didn’t think I’d stay this long. Didn’t plan to.” My voice dipped lower. “And I’m still not sure I should have.”
For a second he didn’t answer. Just sat there beside me, thumb worrying at the seam of his jeans. I thought maybe he’d let it drop, leave me stewing in the half-truths I’d managed to choke out.
Then his voice came, low and steady. “You should have.”
I turned, startled.
His jaw flexed like the words cost him something. “You didn’t come back just because California dried up. You came back because this place—because we—still mean something. Whether you’ll say it out loud or not.”
My pulse thudded, heavy in my ears. I opened my mouth, closed it again. I couldn’t admit that, not without dragging out every buried thing I’d spent years locking down.
He finally looked at me, and for once there wasn’t any heat in it, no guarded edge. Just tired honesty. “I had a crush on you, Kellan. Hell, I was half in love with you.” His throat worked, but he kept going, steadier now, like once the words started they couldn’t stop. “And yeah, I’m gay. I wasn’t some innocent bystander that night—you didn’t force me into anything. I wanted that kiss. Wanted it years before that night.”
The ground might as well have opened under me. Every story I’d told myself—that I’d crossed a line, that he hadn’t wanted it, that I’d ruined us—crumbled in a blink.
He said the wordgaylike it didn’t scorch the tongue. Like it didn’t carry the weight of my father’s belt or his voice in my head. I’d never said that word out loud about myself. Couldn’t imagine how it would sound if I tried.
My mouth went dry. My pulse spiked so high it hurt.
Because the truth was, I’d known something was different long before that night. I’d known it the first time Emmett laughed at one of my dumbest jokes, and I thought, God, I want to hear that sound forever. I’d known it in every dream I shoved down, every flicker of wanting I buried until my chest ached with the weight of it.
And hearing him now, saying out loud what I’d never dared let myself believe—
But shame reared its ugly head. My father’s voice in my ear, sharp and merciless:Boys don’t look at boys that way. You want respect? You want the NFL? You keep your head down and your eyes straight ahead. Any slip, any softness, and they’ll fucking eat you alive.
I could almost feel it—the heavy clamp of his hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard enough to bruise, holding me in place while he drilled the words in. Even now, twenty years later, my muscles locked under the phantom grip.
“I thought I forced it on you,” I finally said, voice rough. “I thought I ruined everything.”
The silence after that was brutal, my chest aching with everything I didn’t dare add:Because I wanted it too. Because I still want it.
Emmett shifted, the faintest trace of nerves in the way his fingers tapped against his arm. Then, quieter than before, he asked, “Are you… seeing anyone?”
I forced a shrug, though my throat burned around the truth. “I’m divorced.” The word tasted foreign, bitter, even after all these years. “It’s been… a long while now. We don’t talk.”
I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Because if I did, he’d see the rest — the shame, the wreckage. Once upon a time, he would’ve been the first to know, the one I called at midnight just to unload. Now I was saying it like a stranger, clipped and flat, and it scraped something raw inside me.
The silence stretched, but Emmett didn’t fill it with pity, or the sympatheticI’m sorry. Just quiet. That almost undid me more than anything else.
I cleared my throat, made myself glance at him. “What about you?”
His mouth pulled wry at the corner. “I’m single. Dated plenty, was in a couple of long-term relationships, but nothing that stuck.” He hesitated, then went on, steadier: “I came out in college.”
