Page 18 of Christmas at Hart's Ridge

“You’ve never called anyone bro in your life. Not me. Not anyone. This is supposed to be a heartfelt moment. I’ve seen it on TV so I know how it’s supposed to go. You can’t call me bro in a heartfelt moment.”

Ethan tilted his head. “I think the rule is, I come out however the fuck I want to come out.”

He had me there. “Fair enough.”

Ethan studied me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

I hated that he even felt the need to ask that. There shouldn’t be a doubt in his mind that I was okay. Gay wasn’t a bad thing, not when it was some random stranger, and not when it was my brother. I felt a little bit offended, a little bit defensive, like I should remind Ethan that I had gay friends, so obviously I wasn’t a bigot. But that was stupid. This wasn’t about me. I hoped.

I rubbed my jaw. Ethan’s proclamation had shocked me…and then it hadn’t. It made sense, even though I hadn’t seen it coming. “I just…why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you probably knew.” Ethan lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted attempt at indifference that stabbed me right in the heart. “I hoped you did,” he muttered.

“It never occurred to me.”

I wished it had. Wished I had been the big brother Ethan had needed me to be. Instead I had been his surrogate parent—and a pretty shitty one, at that. All of my attention and effort had been focused on just keeping everything together. Getting us both to school on time. Paying the bills. Making sure Maw Maw didn’t set the house on fire. Ethan’s physical needs were taken care of, I had made sure of that, but I had rarely spared a thought to how he was doing emotionally.

“Well,” Ethan said. “Now you know.”

“Yeah. Now I know.” I cleared my throat. “I love you, bro. In case you didn’t know.”

Ethan cracked a grin. “I know.”

“And Bethany…she knows you’re gay?”

“She’s always known.” Ethan laughed. “Actually, she might have known even before I did. Or at least, she had a word for it. There was a time when I didn’t know what it was that was wrong with me.”

“Hey, now. Nothing is wrong with you,” I said fiercely. “Nothing.”

Ethan’s mouth quirked and his eyes glimmered with some emotion, which was as expressive as he ever got. “I knew something wasdifferent, then. I was different and I didn’t know how to describe that. It’s not like Hart’s Ridge has a strong gay scene, you know. We have four lesbians, all coupled off, and one of those couples is pushing seventy. No gay men. Believe me, if there were, I would have figured that out.”

“That sounds…lonely.”

“Yeah. Well.” Ethan shrugged, not contradicting me, which broke my heart a little.

“So you’ve never actually…” I struggled for words that wouldn’t make me sound like a dumbass, but gave up. “So you’ve never actually tried it out? With a guy, I mean. How do you know you’re gay, then?”

Ethan snorted. “You knew you liked girls before you ever got your hands on one, didn’t you? So…same. But no. I mean, yes, I havetried it out.” There was a bite of sarcasm on those last words. “In New York. One of Bethany’s friends.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know why that affected me so deeply, that my baby brother had a whole goddamnlifethat I knew nothing about. I was the big brother. It was myjobto know, dammit.

But suddenly it seemed a lot less imperative that I tell Ethan about kissing Bethany.

Ethan, never one for emotional scenes, disappeared into the hallway, muttering something about closing time. Leaving me alone with my thoughts. Which was…irritating. I didn’t like to be alone with my thoughts.

One of my favorite things about being a bartender was listening. Specifically, tootherpeople’s problems. I fully leaned into the cliché, dispensing bits of wisdom in between beers and sarcasm. What I never did was share myself in return. That was how I liked it. If something was bothering me, I didn’t talk about it. And I did my damnedest not to think about it, either.

Feelings, ugh. That was what women and liquor were for.

And while Icouldindulge in both—there might be a female straggler or two hanging around the bar—the idea of getting my sin on with another woman after what I had just done with Bethany did not appeal.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t drink.

I helped myself to a shot of whiskey—mid-shelf, not the good stuff, because I hadn’t earned it, but not the bottom shelf, either, because I still had basic self-respect. I took the whiskey in one burning swallow and poured myself another, this time to savor while I wrapped my mind around what had just happened.

Not Ethan coming out. That was…well, it was a fact, that was all. It changed nothing about how I saw my brother, except I felt like shit that I hadn’t known, and I was determined to be a better brother to him.

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