Page 71 of Jacked
“I’m trying to tell you that I’m bisexual and you’re showing me pictures of you and your ex-girl—” I bite off the word as my eyes finally land on the screen. The picture isn’t of my brother with some blond bombshell like I’m expecting… well, actually itis, but the bombshell in question is a guy. “That’s Alex?”
I take the phone to look closer, not because I need confirmation that Alex is a dude, but because I’ve never seen that smile on my brother’s face before. The two of them are dressed up in suits and Logan’s arm is around Alex’s shoulders. They’re leaning in close and Alex is focused on the camera, but Logan can’t take his eyes off the man. He looks completely smitten with hearts in his eyes and a dopey smile on his face. I’ve seen that same dopey smile in the mirror for weeks now, but never on my brother.
“That’s Alex,” he says. “We met at work. He was the first guy I dated. I’ve been fighting it for so damn long, not wanting to cause a rift with you or dad, afraid to face any of it. Being so far away made it feel safer to finally give in, to finally be myself. He didn’t want to be a secret though, and I couldn’t work up the courage to say it.” Logan swallows hard again and meets my eyes. “I’m gay.”
My chair scrapes noisily against the wood floor and in an instant, I’m pulling Logan to his feet and wrapping him in the tightest hug I can muster.
“I’m so fucking sorry you thought you couldn’t tell me.” My throat aches and my eyes burn with tears that threaten to spill over. Fuck it, it’s not unmanly to cry. I let that shit out, I let the tears fall right onto the shoulder of his t-shirt and I hug him even tighter.
He trembles and sniffles, finally letting go too and hugging me back just as fiercely. I’m vaguely aware of our waitress approaching the table finally and Slater asking her to come back in a few minutes. I laugh against Logan’s shoulder and mutter a few more apologies.
“Dad really did a fucking number on us, didn’t he?” He chokes out a watery laugh.
“He did. I don’t want to hate him though. Is that fucked up? I feel like he could change, if we told him together that he’s been wrong about a lot of shit and that we’re not going to buy into it anymore. I think he would listen.”
“Maybe,” Logan says, and we finally break our hug.
Slater holds out a wad of napkins to both of us without saying a word, but I can see the pride and a few stray tears on his face.
“Will you guys be mad if I write this in a book?” Cas asks, and I laugh.
“Go for it. It’s a happy ending, at least.”
I sit back down and reach for Slater’s hand again, my heart swelling and a weight lifting off my chest.
“Happy-ish,” Logan says with a sigh, taking his phone back and putting it into his pocket again.
“Is there any chance to fix things with Alex? He wanted you to come out and you just did.”
He shakes his head. “I get why he didn’t want to be a secret, and I should have come out sooner, but he didn’t support me the way I needed either. I was fucking wrecked when he ended it, and this whole past week I’ve been lying awake at night, but I wasn’t thinking about him. I was thinking about how to work up the guts to come out to you. That’s why I got on the plane. It’s why I didn’t text you to tell you I was coming. I was afraid if I did, I would chicken out.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, because I don’t know what else to say. I wish I could go back in time and find a way to protect bothof us from the toxic bullshit, but I can’t. Things can be different now though.
I look over at Slater, my heart overflowing with gratitude and affection and…love. I’m fucking in love with him. Everything Logan said was missing with Alex, he’s right to want those things in a relationship. He deserves patience and understanding and support. He deserves someone to stand in his corner and lovingly call out his bullshit while cheering him on in the next breath.
Everyone deserves a Slater.
He lets out a startled laugh against my lips as I lean in to kiss him, pouring all the things I’m not quite ready to say into it. I run my tongue over the shape of the smile on his lips, savoring it, memorizing it, hoarding it away just for me.
“Thank you,” I murmur, nuzzling my nose against his.
“For what?”
“For being you. For making me a better version of myself. For everything.”
Slater chuckles. “Any time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SLATER
After three days of chaos,having five guys all crammed into our two-bedroom apartment, it’s a creepy kind of quiet having the place to myself again. Cas and Nolan caught an Uber to the airport a few hours ago, and I’ve managed to kill the time since then cleaning the place up, washing my bedsheets—because ew—and running to the grocery store to restock the essentials we ran through over the weekend. But I’m out of shit to do now, which means I’m left half paying attention to ESPN and constantly checking my phone for any updates from AJ.
Logan’s flight is in an hour, so they have to be done talking to their dad. Unless shit went really badly or something came up that made him reschedule to a different flight home. I check my phone again, bouncing my knee and actually opening the text thread between me and AJ just in case I somehow missed a notification.
Nothing.
The last message in the thread is from last night. We were all just hanging out at the apartment, playing card games andenjoying the last night of their visits when my phone buzzed in my pocket. My dick gets hard when I reread the message, just like it did last night.
