Page 43 of Coming to Grips
Like he did with Kyle.
Had never imagined his future with any of them.
Like he did with Kyle.
Chase gasps and he goes cold all over.
Oh, holy hell.
Has he been in love with Kyle all this time and never realized it?
He collapses onto the sofa and swipes a hand over his face.
Being with Kyle feels right, feels satisfying, feels like completion, as goofy as that sounds. As if a part of him he hadn’t known he’d been missing has suddenly been returned.
He’s in love with his best friend.
And his best friend is royally pissed off at him right now.
* * *
The last couple of days since Chase stuck his foot in his mouth have dragged by. Slowly.
Kyle has helped him with his exercises at home and has driven him to and from rehab on Monday, but their usually companionable silences are anything but right now. Conversation is minimal. Tension is thick and heavy. Time spent hanging out doesn’t happen. Instead, Kyle works odd jobs around the ranch even on his off days, although nothing that seems to take him too far should Chase need him. Chase needs him, all right, but not in any way that would necessitate a 911 call while he worked.
In the evenings, Kyle buries his nose in his books, having churned through two already and is over halfway through the third. There’s no baseball playing in the background. NoStar Trek.
Chase has apologized several times. Kyle has accepted his apologies and thanked him, but he remains distant. There have been no more shared showers, no more massages, no more mutual masturbation. Chase has been sleeping in his own bed, and it’s…awful and lonely. It’s crazy how quickly he’d become accustomed to having Kyle curled up next to him all night, every night. He misses the closeness. He just plain misses his best friend, everything else aside.
They need to talk. A heart-to-heart. Chase needs to explain why he’d said what he’d said, although he honestly has no freaking clue. He has to tell Kyle what happened with Anna.
Chase stands opposite Kyle seated in his chair, the coffee table between them. The leaden atmosphere is getting to him. Something has got to give. Kyle courteously looks up from his book, but otherwise makes no overture.
“Kyle, look...we should talk.”
“About?” His eyebrow arches.
“Us.”
“I didn’t know there was an us.”
Chase winces. Kyle’s words hurt. Yeah. He can’t imagine how Kyle must have felt. Hurt and humiliated for sure.
Chase slides his working fingers through his hair. “I’m so sorry—you know I am. We need to talk this out, get past it. I need you to forgive me.”
Kyle’s lips thin, his chest rises and falls. When he meets Chase’s gaze, there’s a hardness there. A hardness that has never been directed at him before. Fuck. The mantle of cold he’s been wearing tightens. A dozen horseshoes weighs down his gut.
“When did this become about you?” Kyle asks, his tone sharp.
Chase opens his mouth, then closes it again. His hope wilts in the face of Kyle’s animosity.
“I couldn’t care less what you need right now. I’m fuckin’ pissed off and until I’m good and ready to forgive you, you can fuckin’ deal with it.” He jumps from his chair, tosses his book into it, and leaves the cabin.
His words are a punch to the gut. Chase doubles over, working arm across his stomach, and tries to catch his breath. He feels lightheaded, stunned. That hadn’t gone the way he thought—hoped—it would. What the hell’s he going to do now?
Unfortunately, all he can do is wait. But he considers Kyle’s words and feels even more like a shithead. Kyle is right—hegets to decide when to forgive Chase, and Chase just has to suck it up.
So Kyle needs his space, he needs to be mad, Chase finally understands that—how could he not after Kyle so helpfully pointed it out. Once the forgiveness comes, though, an apology isn’t going to be enough. Chase has a feeling that something will be irrevocably broken if he allowsthe incidentto fade into history with nothing more than a simple apology. Any conversation they have after Kyle is ready to talk will be important, but equally important, Chase thinks, is some sort of grand gesture.
His betrayal had been awful and big and very, very public. Whatever he decides to do needs to be equally big and public and the opposite of awful. Kyle needs to know, needs toseethat Chase really isn’t afraid to express his feelings in public. Chase is though. Afraid. Part of it is his reticence to be in the spotlight at all. Part of it is that he actually is, if not afraid exactly, then nervous about going public with something so personal and private. Kyle’s experiences as a teen had been horrendous. Sure, that had been ten years ago, and Chase has never witnessed any sort of blatant homophobia in his time on the ranch, but the thought of going public is still nerve wracking.
But as Kyle was so vehement about pointing out, this isn’t about Chase, and he’ll do anything to make it up to Kyle. He needs to say, in a big, public way, how much Kyle means to him.
Now, how to do that?
Chase has done a bad thing in a big way and he needs to nut up and fix their friendship in front of an audience. The same audience he’d broken it in front of or as near to it as he can get. That means Black Gold.
So Chase plans his coming out—he’s still not gay, but whatever. He plans his public apology.
When he suggests they go out on Saturday night, after yet another day of stilted conversation during housekeeping and errands, Kyle agrees almost too enthusiastically. Neither one of them wants to spend another evening holed up in a cabin fraught with tension. For the first time in their ten-year-plus friendship, things are strained and awkward. Chase hates it, and he’s sure Kyle does too, but the onus is on Chase to mend the fence. Hopefully, tonight will end the stalemate.
