Chapter Nine Bro Code #2
“What?” Kevin looks at him, black hair clinging to his shiny forehead.
“What does that mean?”
“About what?”
“Kevin.” Owen hits the big Stop button on the treadmill, letting himself slide backward. “Come on, dude. Don’t you do this
to me too.”
Letting out a deep sigh, Kevin halts his own machine. “Well, I mean . . . it makes sense that there’d be some tension. Right? You guys dated for so long.”
Owen pauses, looking out toward the ocean. “You’ve got exes. What would you do if you were trapped in the middle of the ocean
with them?”
“Depends on which one.”
“Your last girlfriend?”
“The one who tried to get me to join her polycule?” Kevin guesses as they walk over to grab wet wipes to clean the machines. “I don’t know if she was a girlfriend exactly.”
“Okay, the girl before that.”
“Joanie, she was nice. Honestly, I don’t think I’d mind being trapped on a boat with her,” Kevin says as he walks over to
the weight bench. Owen can only stand by and watch as he loads the barbell with weight after weight.
“Why’d she break up with you?” Owen asks.
“I broke up with her,” Kevin corrects.
“Okay, why did you break up with her?” he amends, remembering that he thought Joanie was nice, not that he saw her a ton. Kevin situates himself
on the bench, bracing his hands on the bar and hoisting it into the air with the sort of ease that sends a spike of jealousy
through Owen.
“Spot me?” Kevin grunts.
“Right, sorry,” Owen says, resting a hand on the underside of the weights. He’s not sure how good of a job he’s doing, or
what he’ll do if something goes horrifically wrong, but Kevin doesn’t tell him to change what he’s doing.
“She wanted me to propose,” Kevin says, groaning as he lifts over and over. “Well . . . she never outright said that, but
it was obvious with the conversations we were having. She wanted something way more serious.”
“And you didn’t?”
Kevin shakes his head, lifting the weights back into their resting position. “Nah, not with school. Besides, I’m young, dumb,
and full of cum,” he says with a grin. “I kinda wanted the chance to plant my grains or whatever the saying is.”
Owen grimaces, staring at Kevin in a stunned silence and wondering just what went wrong in his life to get to the point that he’s having this conversation. “Sow your wild oats, you mean?”
“Yeah, that’s the one!” Kevin snaps his fingers once he’s standing up, pulling some of the weights off.
“Do you think you did the right thing?” Owen asks.
“I actually have no fucking clue, dude.” Kevin laughs, the sound more forced than Owen is used to. In his mind, Kevin has
always been this happy-go-lucky guy, confident in himself and what he does.
It’s odd, seeing him like this. Serious and contemplative.
“Sometimes I still think about her. I wanted to text her a few weeks ago, when I was drunk. Like, yeah, I was horny, but I
also wanted to tell her how much I missed her and see if she’d be willing to come and spoon me like she used to.”
“You didn’t, right?”
“God no!” Kevin sputters. “Give me some credit, at least.”
“Okay, sorry!” Owen adds sarcastically, taking a step away, ready to follow Kevin to whichever machine he’s going to next.
Then, Kevin stops him.
“Ah-ah, get on the bench.”
“What? I can’t lift.”
Kevin scoffs. “The bar is forty-five pounds, I’ve seen you lift more before.”
“Have you?” Owen asks, dragging the moment out in the hopes that he’ll get out of this. But the look Kevin gives him tells
him there’s no chance of that. With a sigh, Owen situates himself on the bench, Kevin standing above him with his hand gently
on the bar as Owen grips it.
“She was probably the best girlfriend I’ve had,” Kevin continues. “Smart, funny, she’d put me in my place when I needed it.”
“At least you’re self-aware.” Owen grunts, lifting the bar more easily than he anticipated. Is this really forty-five pounds?
Kevin smiles, looking down at Owen. “I knew it wouldn’t last. She wanted things that I couldn’t give her, things I wasn’t
ready for.”
“You just ended things?”
Kevin nods. “Sometimes you’ve got to know when to let someone go. Sometimes they don’t know it themselves. Like when a mama
bird pushes her baby out of the nest, and she hopes it’ll fly. But sometimes it doesn’t, so she just murdered her child for
nothing.”
“That’s . . . grim.”
Kevin still manages to smile. “That’s the circle of life, baby! Those are the kinds of things you learn in a doctorate program.”
“I learned about the circle of life in third grade.”
“Okay, well, not all of us have the privilege of early education, Owen,” Kevin adds jokingly.
“You’re right, you’re right.” Owen chuckles, the sound only half forced as he sits back up. “Sorry.”
“I’m guessing that your questions have something to do with Jacob?” Kevin asks, adding more weight before he switches spots
with Owen again.
Owen hesitates, his gaze shifting to the view outside, the sun, as it starts to properly rise over the mountains. “Something
like that.”
“What is going on between the two of you? Kaitlyn saw you guys at the Putt-Putt course rubbing up against each other, and yesterday
she found you guys in the closet?” Kevin arches an eyebrow. “You know it might be a little late to go back in, right? We all
sorta know you like kissing boys, Owen.”
He rolls his eyes, ignoring Kevin. “He was just helping me perfect my swing.”
“Is that what they call it these days?” Kevin pretends to think, as if his imagination is running wild. “You gay guys are
always inventing all kinds of new ways to have sex.”
“We decided on a truce,” Owen says, helping Kevin re-rack the bar. “Jacob and me.”
“And how’s that working out for you?” Kevin asks curiously.
“Horribly.”
“Why?”
“If I tell you, will you keep the secret?”
Kevin sits up, extending his balled-up fist toward Owen. “Bro code, dude. Whatever you tell me, I take to my grave.”
“It’s not that serious.”
“So, I can tell Abigail? Or Kaitlyn?”
“No!”
“Okay, then.” Kevin offers his fist again. “Bro code.”
Owen finally returns the bump, still wondering if it’s the smart thing to say it aloud. “I’m pretty sure I’m still in love
with him.”
Kevin looks at him, frowning and confused, almost like he’s disappointed. Like he was expecting something more. “Oh! That’s
it?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Kevin starts to say. “I just thought that was obvious. I wanted something juicer! I thought gay guys were supposed to be good at gossiping.”
“I . . .” Owen starts to say, deciding to ignore him. Mostly. “How obvious is it?”
“Well, there’s the way you keep looking at him. Like the other night at dinner.”
Owen remembers catching himself, forcing himself to turn away, grateful that no one had seemed to notice.
Except Kevin had, apparently.
“You were together, what, four years? Living together? You talked about getting engaged, Jacob even bought you a ring. I think
I’d probably still be in love with someone if I went through all of that too.”
Owen pauses, digesting Kevin’s words. “Wait . . . what?”
“What?” Kevin stares.
“He bought me a ring?”
In a flash, Kevin’s cheeks heat, eyes going wide. “Oh, uh . . . no. Did I say that?”
“You did.”
“Well, ignore that part. That’s not real, I was lying,” Kevin insists.
“Do you think it’s normal?” Owen says, knowing he needs to move on before he starts to hyper-fixate. A ring? “To still be in love with him? After all this time?”
“I mean . . . I don’t know a lot about love, but . . . I know it takes way longer to fall out of it than into it.” Kevin hesitates.
“What does that mean for your truce?”
“I don’t know.” Owen huffs. “Kaitlyn thinks that we’re both idiots for ending the relationship.”
“How do you feel?” Kevin asks.
“Confused . . .” Owen hangs his head, letting out a slow, deep breath. “Anxious.”
“Well.” Kevin sighs, watching as Owen sits at the empty bench across from him. “I think this is the kind of situation where
you can’t rely on what other people are telling you to make your choice.”
“I did feel like an idiot. I do,” Owen admits, remembering so vividly how he regretted the things he said to Jacob the moment the phone call ended. “We didn’t even try long distance.”
“Long distance is really hard,” Kevin adds. “And, no offense, dude, but neither one of you strikes me as the type that it
would work for. You need to be a special sort of person to handle it.”
“It wasn’t just that, though. I think . . . I think that conversation made me consider things I hadn’t really before.”
“Like . . . ?” Kevin prompts.
“Like maybe Jacob and I weren’t actually good for each other, not in the way we thought.”
Kevin nods slowly, leaning forward a bit. But when Owen expects Kevin to say something unhelpful or make a bad joke, he doesn’t,
almost like he knows Owen just needs someone to listen to him right now.
“I had the thoughts even before he left. Every time Jacob wanted to go out, do something fun, and I didn’t want to go with
him because I preferred being at home. When he wanted to go on vacation, talked about all the places that he wanted to see,
friends he wanted to visit, all I felt was dread at the idea of leaving the city.” Owen threads his fingers together, feeling
his palms grow clammy.
Jacob had always been so spontaneous, so fun. Always willing to say yes to any ridiculous thing without ever thinking of the
consequences.
“I told myself that it didn’t have to mean anything—just because we don’t enjoy doing the same things all the time doesn’t
mean we’re incompatible.”
“Do you really think it bothered Jacob that much?” Kevin asks.
“I’d see the disappointment on his face every time I told him that he could go somewhere without me,” Owen says to him.
“And I mean, I’d always try to. I wanted to be with him, to be around him, but then I’d just worry that I wasn’t being enough fun, that Jacob would be more concerned with me and my enjoyment over having a good time for himself. ” It was all the push
that Owen’s brain had needed to begin the slow spiral.
It’d still be years before he actually had the thought that Jacob might be happier with someone else, but more time had only