Page 11 of Once Upon An Ever After
Bran’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline, “Uh… okay?”
“I’m not.” Dawson reiterated.
“Okay. Yeah. I know that you consider yourself straight.” Bran shrugged, “So?”
Dawson closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands to his face, “God, why does everyone say it like that? Like, I’m wrong? Like they know better than I do?”
“Dawson?” Bran said his name softly, coaxing him into looking up again, “What happened?”
“I kissed Beau.”
If Bran’s eyebrows could have managed it they would have risen another two inches, “You… kissed Beau?”
“Well, yeah, but… not just kissed. I… We… I mean, it went further than that.” He felt his cheeks heat and looked at the floor. “If you don’t want to hear this I completely understand…”
“Oh hell no. I absolutely want to hear how my straight little brother came to be kissing andgoing further, with his gay best friend.” There was amusement in Bran’s voice now but also something else, something that sounded a lot like worry.
It was that something else in Bran’s voice, the concerned look in his familiar blue gaze, that had Dawson spilling his guts to his brother until he had told him everything.
About how he loved Beau in ways he hadn’t even known were possible. About the feelings that had snuck up on him. About the conversation he’d accidentally overheard between Felix and Beau earlier in the day. Then he told Bran about going to Beau’s to talk, about him coming out of the shower and the hurt he’d seen on his face, about how much he’d wanted to make him happy and about the kiss and everything that came after. He even told him about how his body had betrayed him and how upset Beau had been, how convinced he was that he’d ruined everything and how lost he felt about how to fix it.
Bran stared at him for a long time when he finally finished talking. Dawson waited but it was clear Julian had vacated the area and wasn’t coming back to give advice. Bran looked thoughtful but when he remained quiet Dawson groaned.
“Say something.”
“I’m just trying to figure out how.”
“How, what?” He narrowed his eyes at his brother.
“How you can still say you’re not gay when you just told me you’re in love with your best friend and your main concern isn’t that your dick reacted to him, but that itdidn’tin the heat of the moment.”
Dawson clenched his jaw, “I don’t know, Bran! That’s the point. That’s why I’m here, talking to you, trying to figure this out so please, give me something useful to work with.”
Bran shrugged, “Maybe you’re not gay for all guys, or even most guys, but you’re definitely gay for Beau, little brother. I think that’s been obvious to everyone but you for a long time now. You two have the spark and the tension between you is… hard to be around to be honest. We’ve all talked about it.”
“Great. So my entire family is talking about my sexuality behind my back. Just great.”
“That’s not my point.” Bran sighed, “What I’m saying is, Beau knows how you feel about him. He has to. So if he’s pushing you away now, after you finally made a move, it’s because he thinks it’s what you want.”
“I told him it wasn’t though.”
Bran shook his head, “You’ve also spent a year telling him that you’re not gay.”
“That’s different.”
“No. It’s not. Because he’s in love with you too, Dawson. If he wasn’t, he never could have spent the last year pretending he was okay just being your friend when it’s obvious there’s something more between you two. He’s in love with you and he’s spent your entire friendship trying to ignore how he feels about you only to let it all out in one heated exchange and then reality set back in and he panicked because you weren’t on the same page anymore.”
“But I was on the same page. My dick just didn’t get the memo.”
Bran snorted when Dawson pouted, “Correct me if I’m wrong but, being with Beau like that, that was your first time with another guy?”
“Of course it was.”
“So you got stage fright.” Bran’s lips twisted in a wry smile, “Happens to the best of us in new situations.”
“You really think that’s all it was? That my dick deflated because I got scared?”
“Absolutely. If you really want Beau, like I think it’s clear you do, then of course you panicked in your first gay encounter. Happened to me.” Bran looked almost wistful, “Seventh grade, Nathan Hardy, the boys locker room after a lacrosse match. I had the biggest crush but as soon as he made a move, I went stiff, or the opposite of it really. You’re a few decades late to the party but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have a bit of a freak out your first time with another guy, even if you are in love with him.”
