Chapter 17
Kent
The bar was packed. Thursday nights were always busy, and the big football game was on all the tv’s.
Lots of people were wearing their Seahawks jerseys and shoveling down chicken wings as they reacted to the game.
My coworkers were no different, though they’d fallen into their typical jokes and conversation while they ate.
I nursed my beer, only half-listening as Derek launched into another story about some idiot customer he’d dealt with that week. Normally I would’ve laughed along, added my own commentary. But tonight I was distracted, my mind stuck on James back at the apartment.
We’d been doing this dance for three days now.
The blowjobs were incredible. Better than anything I’d ever experienced.
But we still hadn’t talked about what it meant or gone all the way or what we were.
Every morning I’d wake up on the couch, and we’d act almost normal.
Then night would come and we’d end up tangled together again, desperate and hungry for each other.
“Earth to Kent,” someone said, and I realized Marcus was waving a hand in front of my face. “You with us, man?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just tired.”
“Too much overtime?” Derek asked, signaling the waitress for another round. “I told you to pace yourself on that Jackson project.”
“Nah, it’s not work.” I took a sip of my beer, trying to shake off the fog. “Just haven’t been sleeping great.”
“Brittany still giving you shit?” This from Tyler, one of the newer guys. He’d only been with the company a few months, but he’d already proven himself to be the office gossip.
I tensed. “We’re not together anymore.”
“Oh shit, really?” Tyler leaned forward, eyes gleaming with interest. “What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic. We just wanted different things.” The lie came easily now. I’d told it so many times in the past week that it almost felt true.
“That’s too bad, man,” Derek said, clapping me on the shoulder. “But hey, you’re young. Plenty of fish in the sea, right?”
“Right.”
Marcus grinned. “Speaking of which, there’s a group of girls at the bar who keep looking over here. Maybe it’s time to get back on the horse.”
I glanced over and sure enough, three women were huddled together, occasionally shooting looks in our direction. One of them, a blonde in a tight dress, caught my eye and smiled. A week ago, I would’ve smiled back. Would’ve gone over there, bought her a drink, seen where the night led.
Now the thought made my stomach turn.
“I’m good,” I said, turning back to my beer.
“Come on,” Tyler pressed. “The blonde is totally into you. Don’t tell me you’re gonna pass that up. That’s a rebound waiting to happen.”
“I said I’m good.”
The sharpness in my tone made everyone go quiet for a second. Derek raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. The conversation shifted to the game, and I thought I was off the hook.
Then Marcus had to open his big mouth.
“Hey, how’s it going living with your stepbrother? That must be weird as hell.”
My grip tightened on my beer bottle. “It’s fine.”
“James, right?” Tyler asked. “I remember you mentioning him before. Isn’t he the gay one?”
The way he said it, like it was something disgusting or unwanted, made anger coil in my chest like a rattlesnake.
“Yeah,” I said carefully.
“Must be awkward,” Tyler continued, oblivious to the warning signs. “Living with a dude who’s into dudes. You probably have to worry about him checking you out in the shower or some shit.”
Derek and Marcus laughed. It was the kind of thoughtless, casual homophobia that I’d participated in thousands of times before. The kind I’d aimed at James when we were younger. And I’d never thought twice about it because it wasn’t about me. It was just jokes. Just guys being guys.
But now it was about me. Because I was the one who’d had James’s cock in my mouth this morning. I was the one who’d begged him to touch me, who’d nearly fallen asleep in his lap.
“It’s not like that,” I said, my voice tight.
“I’m just saying,” Tyler went on, clearly not reading the room. “I couldn’t do it. Living with a gay dude? No thanks. It’d be too weird.”
“Why?” The word came out harder than I intended.
Tyler blinked. “What do you mean why? It’s just... you know. Different.”
“Different how?”
Marcus shifted uncomfortably. “Kent, man, he’s just talking.”
“No, I want to know.” I set my beer down, turning to face Tyler fully. “What exactly would be so weird about it? You think every gay guy is just sitting around trying to fuck their roommates?”
“I didn’t say that—”
“That’s exactly what you said.” My heart was pounding, adrenaline flooding my system. “You implied that James would be checking me out, like he can’t control himself. Like being gay means you’re some kind of predator.”
“Whoa, dude, calm down.” Tyler held up his hands. “I was just joking around.”
“It’s a shit joke.”
Derek’s hand landed on my arm. “Kent. Take it easy.”
I shook him off, standing up. The bar suddenly felt too small, too loud, too suffocating.
“You know what? James is a better person than any of us. He works his ass off, he’s got his shit together, and he was nice enough to let me crash at his place when I had nowhere else to go.
And all you assholes can do is make stupid fucking jokes about him being gay? ”
The table had gone silent. People at nearby tables were starting to stare.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Tyler said, his face flushed. “Jesus, I was just—”
“I don’t give a shit what you meant.” I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair. “I’m done listening to this bullshit.”
“Kent—”
But I was already gone.
I pushed through the crowd, ignoring Derek calling my name behind me. The cool night air hit my face as I burst out of the bar, and I gulped it down like I’d been drowning. My hands were shaking, adrenaline still coursing through my veins.
What the fuck had I just done?
I’d basically outed myself in front of my coworkers. Not explicitly, but the way I’d reacted, the way I’d defended James so aggressively… They had to be suspicious now. Derek wasn’t stupid. He’d put the pieces together eventually.
I started walking, no destination in mind, just needing to move. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Probably Derek or Marcus trying to figure out what crawled up my ass. I ignored it.
The thing was, I wasn’t even sorry. Listening to Tyler spew that ignorant bullshit, hearing them laugh like it was nothing…
It had made me see red in a way I’d never experienced before.
Because that could’ve been me they were talking about.
That was me now, in a way. And more importantly, it was James.
James, who’d taken me in without hesitation. Who’d fixed things between us even though I’d been a complete asshole to him for years. Who made me feel things I didn’t know I was capable of feeling.
My phone buzzed again. This time I pulled it out.
Derek: What the hell was that about?
I stared at the message, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. What could I possibly say? Sorry for freaking out, just really sensitive about homophobia now that I’m sleeping with my stepbrother?
I shoved the phone back in my pocket without responding.
The walk home took twenty minutes, and by the time I reached the apartment building, my anger had cooled into something closer to dread.
I’d probably just torpedoed my reputation at work.
Derek was going to want an explanation. Tyler would probably spread it around the office that I’d lost my shit over some harmless jokes.
But when I thought about sitting there and laughing along while they talked about James like that, my stomach turned. I couldn’t do it. Not anymore.
I let myself into the apartment quietly, half-hoping James would already be asleep. But the light was on in the living room, and I found him on the couch with his laptop, probably working on that rebrand project he’d been stressing about.
He looked up when I walked in, his expression shifting from concentration to concern in an instant. “You’re back early. I thought you’d be out until at least midnight.”
“Yeah, well. Plans changed.” I shrugged off my jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair.
James closed his laptop, giving me his full attention. Brittany had never done things like that. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Just wasn’t feeling it.”
“Kent.” His voice was gentle but firm. “You look like you either got in a fight or are about to start one. What happened?”
I sank down onto the couch beside him, suddenly exhausted. “My coworkers were being assholes. Making jokes about you. About you being gay.”
His expression didn’t change, but I saw something flicker in his eyes. “And?”
“And I told them to fuck off. More or less.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “I kind of made a scene and stormed out.”
James was quiet for a moment. “You defended me.”
“Yeah.”
“To your coworkers. The ones you have to see every day.”
“Yeah?”
“Kent, you didn’t have to do that. I’m used to—”
“Well, I’m not.” The words came out sharper than I intended. “I’m not used to sitting there listening to people talk about you like that. Like you’re some kind of... I don’t know. Like there’s something wrong with you. And I couldn’t just sit there and laugh along anymore.”
James shifted closer, his thigh pressing against mine. “What did they say?”
“Stupid shit. One of the guys was going on about how weird it must be for me, living with you. Implying that you’d be checking me out or whatever.” I let out a bitter laugh. “If he only knew.”
“Are you okay?”
The question caught me off guard. After everything I’d just told him, after I’d basically blown up my work relationships defending him, he was asking if I was okay. Brittany would’ve asked if my paycheck was in danger.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m pissed off. And I’m scared because I probably just made everyone at work suspicious. But mostly I’m just... tired of pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
I turned to look at him, taking in the concern in his eyes, the way his hand had found its way to my knee without me noticing. “Pretending that this doesn’t matter. That you don’t matter.”
James’s breath caught. “Kent—”
“I know we haven’t talked about what this is.
What we’re doing. But I need you to know that I’m not just messing around here.
This isn’t some experiment or phase or whatever the hell I was worried it was.
” The words were coming faster now, like a dam breaking.
“When I hear people talk shit about you, it makes me want to punch something. And when I come home and you’re here, I feel like I can finally breathe.
And I don’t know what that means or what label to put on it, but it’s not nothing. ”
James was staring at me, his eyes wide and maybe a little glassy. “You really told off your coworkers for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though it could cause problems at work?”
“Yeah.”
He kissed me then, soft and sweet and so full of emotion that it made my chest ache. When he pulled back, he was smiling. “You’re an idiot.”
“Thanks.”
“A brave idiot, though.” His hand came up to cup my face, his thumb stroking my cheek.
“Sorry I’m having such a hard time adjusting to all this,” I said, pressing my forehead to his.
“It’s been like three days, Kent,” he said softly, his hand on the back of my neck. “It took me almost three years to come out and then another handful to truly be comfortable with who I was. I’m not expecting you to be out by Christmas.”
“Christmas? That’s only a couple months away.”
“Exactly.” He grinned. “That’s what I’m saying. You don’t have to have everything figured out right now. The fact that you stood up for me at all is... it’s more than I ever expected from you.”
The weight of his words settled over me. He was right. A month ago, I would’ve been the one making those jokes. Hell, I had made those jokes, for years. The fact that I’d gotten angry enough to storm out was progress, even if it felt like I’d just set my professional life on fire.
“Derek’s probably going to want to talk about it,” I said, voicing the worry that had been gnawing at me during the walk home. “He’s my boss. He’s going to ask why I freaked out.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” I leaned back against the couch, suddenly exhausted. “I can’t exactly tell him the truth.”
“Why not?”
I looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Because the truth is that I’m sleeping with my stepbrother. That’s not exactly water cooler conversation.”
“No, I mean about being...” He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure which word to use. “About questioning your sexuality. You don’t have to mention me at all. You could just say you’ve been doing some soul searching or something.”
“I don’t know how he’d react to that,” I admitted. “He seems like a good guy, but it’s construction. People aren’t exactly known for being accepting.”
“Well, that’s your call,” James nodded, squeezing my shoulders. “But whatever you choose, I’ll be here to support you, okay? You can count on that.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “I’m not sure what I did to deserve you,” I said at last. “But thanks.”
He kissed me again. “Of course, Kent. You’re not alone in this.”
And I actually believed him. It was strange realizing how alone I’d been feeling for years without really knowing what was wrong. But now that I was with James, it was like all the pieces had finally slid into place.
If I’d known life could be this good, I’d have done something about it years ago.