Frat Boy and Toppy (7 page)

“I don’t . . .” Brad stopped and cleared his throat. “You already thought that, uh . . . ?”

“Little things. I can’t even tell you what they were anymore. Maybe your mother remembers better if you need to know.”

Fuck
. “Mom knows?”

Dad nodded calmly and held out his mug. Brad looked at it blankly. What was he supposed to do with that? “So, who else thought I might be?”

Dad stood up and walked to the coffeemaker. “I don’t think anyone else thought you were. Not with the way you slept around in high school. And, I assume, in college?” He quirked an eyebrow. Brad swallowed. “So, are you really gay, or bisexual?”

Stupidly, Brad wondered where his dad had learned a word like bisexual. The things they put on TV these days. He shook his head slowly. He’d thought about this. Practiced saying it to himself after his talk with Ashley. “I’m pretty sure I’m gay.”

Cool, he hadn’t stuttered at all.

Dad leaned against the counter next to him, sipping his coffee. “What about all those girls?”

Brad took a sip of his own coffee. Some kind of fortification. “I think what I was with them was drunk and stupid and faking it.”

“So you’ve really known all this time?”

Brad shrugged, feeling more and more comfortable. He took another sip of coffee. “More like I knew something wasn’t right, I think. I guess I knew, kinda; I just didn’t think it could be true. Like it was a mistake and some day it would go away. It just . . . didn’t.” He sucked in a breath, his chest loosening up a little more. “You know, denial.”

His dad clapped him on the shoulder. The encouragement pat. “Well, when your mother gets here, we can all talk about it together. We’ll help you through this.”

“Mom? I thought she had to work . . .” Of course his father had called his mother and she was on her way home. What was that going to be like? Was she upset? “Did you
tell
her you thought I might be gay?” That was all he needed, his mom forewarned and forearmed.

“No, she already thought so. We’ve talked about it, so I called her . . . Why are you looking at me like that? It’s not like someone died. You’re just gay. You just be who you are and the rest will work out fine.”

His mom had texted Val and Ellie before she left work.

“When did you learn how to text?” Brad was starting to get over “dazed”; the way his family was acting, he was approaching annoyed. Not that he could explain why, exactly.

“Val taught me. In case of emergencies.”

“Me being gay was an emergency?”

“No, sweetie! No! It’s a celebration. When Val gets here—”

Brad exploded. “Why are you guys taking this so well?”

Dad finally looked up from the paper he was reading at the table. “Would you rather we took it badly?”

“No! Just . . . shouldn’t you be upset? Adjusting?
Something
? What about the grandchildren you won’t have to carry on the family name?”

His mom shrugged. “Not my family name. I don’t care.”

His dad went back to his paper, saying absently, “Don’t worry, even if Max turns up gay too, I’m sure Val will manage to get herself pregnant without the benefit of a husband.” Mom halfheartedly whacked Dad in the back of the head. He ignored it. Brad stared at them. Dad was back to reading the paper, and his mother was rattling around in the cupboards, going on about some sirloin tip roast she’d been saving for “an occasion.”

“Gah!” he finally yelled, and stomped off to the guest room to slam the door. He heard his mother ask his father faintly, “What was that all about?”

He didn’t hear if his dad bothered to answer.

Brad couldn’t explain why he was disgruntled with his family’s easy acceptance. Maybe he needed them to have a hard time with it so he’d have a reason not to come out all over the place.

Not as if he didn’t have enough reason, anyway. He could barely say the word, especially when he was talking about himself. So yeah. Made sense that he wanted to wait to unveil his hard-on for guys in general. He was still adjusting.

Didn’t make his siblings any less annoying. Except Max and Olivia. Max was disgusted, but in a non-offensive way Brad could understand. Kind of the way he’d been disgusted at fourteen when he’d figured out he was supposed to want to touch girly parts.

Olivia just shrugged. Apparently ten-year-old girls weren’t interested in gay guys.

Unlike nineteen- and twenty-five-year-old girls. Val and Ellie were excited about it. They started asking him dumbass questions about guys and clothes. “You two are such fucking stereotypes,” Brad said. Mom hit him half-heartedly in the back of the head. He ignored it.

Ellie somehow managed to make him go out with her and Val after dinner. He mostly grumbled at them and pouted in the backseat. She took them to a place the next town over so they could talk without running into anyone they knew.

Ellie sighed when Val ordered a drink and then produced her nice, shiny, fake ID when the waiter asked for it. “Mom probably thinks I’m going to stop you from doing shit like that when you come with me, huh?”

Val shrugged. “Nah. Probably not.”

“That’s a relief.”

The night turned into a drunken love-fest. The familial kind. “’M gonna have to call Dad to come’n pick us up!” Ellie announced joyfully after killing off the second pitcher of beer.

It was good, though, because they finally fucking
listened
to what Brad had to say. “I dunno,” he shrugged drunkenly. “I had that football coach, you know? Coach Radcliffe?”

“Yeah,” Ellie sighed. “He was
hot
.”

Brad nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, he was. Smokin’ hot. He used to shower with us sometimes, y’know?”

“
Real
—ly?” Ellie was sounding kinda squealy.

Val clapped her hands together in delight. “Our brother is talking about cute guys with us!”

Brad scowled at her. “He was just, like, everything I wanted to be, y’know?” Val and Ellie nodded raptly. “I guess he was kinda everything I wanted. So one day he’s showering with us, and I’m watching him. Not, like,
looking
at him, just sorta out of the corner of my eye. There were these mirrors, y’know? Near the showers? ’N’ if I was in the right spot and he was in the right spot, I could watch him in the mirror. I thought he never noticed, y’know?”

More nodding, with a little bit of horrified delight thrown in. Brad snorted at them before going on. “I was watching him, and I glanced up and he was looking at me in the mirror. Right into my eyes. So my heart, like, stops, then it starts banging away and I don’t know what I think’s gonna happen, but I managed to keep it under control, y’know? S’not easy for a fourteen-year-old guy to do that. But he’s looking in my eyes and I start to chub up—”

“Eeeewww!” Val squealed, closing her eyes and plugging her ears. “Ican’thearyouIcan’thearyouIcan’thearyou,” she chanted, drawing the attention of the people at neighboring tables. Ellie knocked Val in the back of the head, shutting her up and dislodging her hands. They shared a mutual scowl.

Yeah, okay, that might have been a little graphic to share with his sisters. “Sorry, my bad,” he muttered.

“Whatevs, go on,” Ellie commanded.

Brad took a deep breath. “So he calls me into his office after that, and he starts talking about ‘fags’ and how jocks who were, uh, gay never made it anywhere and no one liked them and, I dunno, a bunch of shit. Said he expected all his ‘men’—that’s what he called the guys on the team, y’know, men—said he expected us all to show a healthy interest in girls. He scared the shit outta me. I don’t even know what all he said, but . . .” Brad trailed off and shrugged.

“So that’s why you were in denial?” Val asked after a short silence.

“I dunno. I think I mighta been anyway.” More shrugging. “I mean, ’member? I was almost six feet when I was fourteen and everyone was always tellin’ me I was a jock ’n’ macho ’n’ shit. I just din’t know, y’know?”

Now they looked confused. And bleary. Beery. “Din’t know what?” Val asked.

“What I
was
. I mean, I kin’a thought I might like guys, but it was like ever’one tellin’ me I liked girls . . . so I did, I guess. Least, I tried.”

Ellie had that little wrinkle between her eyebrows. “But, I mean, y’just forgot ’bout the whole lusting-after-your-coach thingy?”

“No, I just . . .” Brad heaved out a sigh and took a sip of beer. “I thought maybe it was just one a’those things, y’know? Like I’s just confused.”

“Oh, Brad,” Ellie said softly, looking remarkably sober all of a sudden.

Brad shrugged.

The next morning, after their parents and Max and Olivia had left, the three of them lay around groaning. Especially Brad, who’d gotten into Val’s cigarettes the night before. In general, hangovers were par for the course, but the nicotine headache: ugh. “Does Mom know you smoke?” he asked Val from the depths of his coffee mug at around 2 p.m.

Her shrug was a little pained. “Probably,” she rasped. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s just a phase.”

Snorting hurt his head.

His first Saturday night back at school. Another fucking party.

Yee. Haw.

One he had to at least make an appearance at. TAG had a weird rush system—they had a long selection process over spring term and then the pledges had to live in the house for summer term. Most of the pledges’ initiation rituals revolved around fixing leaky pipes and repairing various holes in the drywall. It was basically free labor.

The first Saturday of the term was their first rush party of the selection. The rest would be more formal, but this one was raucous. Lots of girls, lots of beer, lots of other stuff.

Brad wasn’t drinking, though. He hadn’t been doing much besides moping lately. He was short on sleep, food, and beer. He was also bored as shit, holding up a wall, wishing he could disappear into his room. Not that it was much of a haven anymore; Kyle had emailed him over spring break to tell him the frat wanted to move another guy into their room. They couldn’t really say no. Brad should have known it would be Collin. Murphy’s law. But it wasn’t until he got back to school on Sunday night that he found out.

Collin, who was trying to out him. Brad sent Collin a narrow-eyed glance across the living room. Some chick was talking him up, but Brad caught Collin staring at him. Collin looked away quickly. Brad watched him a moment longer, but Collin was avoiding his eyes. Brad sighed and turned away. To see a group of girls looking at him and talking.

Brad rolled his eyes and thought about what Ellie and Val had said. They (so kindly) agreed with him on his looks—he wasn’t model-worthy by quite a bit (although they kept going on about his cheekbones for some reason). According to his loving, kind, and brutally honest sisters, most of his appeal was in reputation and disinterest. He was disinterested; girls chased him. If they caught him (or could make it look like they did), they got a little “street cred,” and it made other girls want him.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” Val had intoned seriously.

Made absolutely no fucking sense to him. He ignored the girl-gaggle and let his eyes wander around the room. Stoned guy, drunk guy vomiting out a window, drunk girls in a pack, girl with no shirt, Kyle leading girl upstairs, drunk guy, Sebastian, guy propping up wall next to Sebastian, guy with a bong, guy jerking and seizing to music, girl dancing next to him with a horrified expression—

Wait. Sebastian?

Brad’s heart started running around in his chest like a frightened rodent. He squinted through the low light, but it wasn’t really
that
low. It
was
Sebastian.

Ah, shit. What should he do?
What would Ellie tell you to do
? Dammit, why was he thinking about his sister at a time like this?

Because she gave great advice. Sometimes. Who else did he have to ask? For some reason the thought of asking Ashley flitted through is mind. Yeeeeah. That was gonna happen. In another lifetime. Ellie it was.

Brad dug around in his front pocket, refusing to look away from Sebastian as he pulled out his phone. He couldn’t lose him.

At party
, he texted to Ellie.
He’s HERE! What do I do?