Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
DIEGO
Even when I’m jogging up the stairs to my apartment, I still can’t get the faint sounds of Callan’s grunts and moans out of my head.
Why can’t I stop thinking about how it would feel to have those noises vibrating against my skin as he sucks a bruise onto my collarbone…
or against my tongue as he shoves his into my mouth in a rough, demanding kiss.
My breath catches and my knees buckle on the last step, and I have to grab the railing to keep myself from stumbling.
I’m not gay. I’m not gay. If I were gay, I think I would have realized it a hell of a lot sooner.
My head is just all twisted up and confused right now.
It’s like I told Callan earlier—I don’t feel like myself since the injury, my whole fucking world has been flipped upside down.
So, whatever this confusion is, it’s just that. Confusion. It’ll pass.
The question is, what do I do about it in the meantime? Is it better to fight it? To shove it deep down and try to forget that any of it’s there? Or will I get past it all sooner if I give in to it and get it out of my system? Fuck, I wish there was someone I could ask for advice about this.
Once my legs feel steady again, I take the last step and turn down the hall towards my apartment door.
The mat in front of it is slightly askew, and I’m positive I didn’t leave it that way after I stuck my key back under it.
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth, and I immediately feel a little less alone.
Slaps doesn’t greet me at the door when I step inside, which doesn’t surprise me at all.
I kick off my shoes and drop my gym bag by the door, then I head right into the living room where I find my traitorous dog lying on the couch with all four paws up in the air, getting a belly rub from my sister.
“Wow. Auntie Val comes over and suddenly I’m not worth getting off your lazy butt to greet at the door?” I shake my head at the stilted wag of his tail, awkwardly squished underneath him. Of course, he still doesn’t bother to get up. And they say dogs are loyal.
“I’m sure your ego will survive one single moment of not being the center of attention.” Val rolls her eyes, patting the empty seat on her other side.
I’m not sure when she came over, but she’s clearly made herself at home like she always does, with a box of expensive cookies from Stud Muffin bakery open on the coffee table, her feet up, and some asinine reality show playing on the TV.
“What are you doing here?” I flop down onto the couch next to her. I should probably shower, but I’m a little bit worried that if I do that right now, I might end up jerking off thinking about Callan again, and I’m not sure I can handle any more “confusion” right now.
“Can’t I just miss my baby brother?” She makes a move to playfully pinch my cheek and I bat her hand away with a laugh.
I arch an eyebrow at her. She knows she’s allowed to stop by anytime she wants, I just find it a little suspicious that she’s here now in the middle of the day without any warning.
Unless I missed a text. “Okay, fine. My roommate is having some big drama with her boyfriend, and their shouting was giving me a headache. Don’t even get me started on the fact that I’m thirty-fucking-four years old and still live with a roommate. ”
“I told you I’d buy you a house or a condo if you want. You know I can afford it.”
She waves me off. “I appreciate it, but it won’t feel the same if I don’t earn it myself. As annoying as Janice is, living with her has gotten me most of the way to my savings goal for a downpayment, so I should be able to buy my own cute little house before the end of the year.”
“Fine, but I’m buying you one hell of a housewarming present.”
I love how stubbornly self-sufficient my sister is, but I wish she would let me use all this pro-hockey-player money for something useful for a change.
I get the pride issue though. Hell, she can tease me about my ego all she wants, but we both know where I got it, and it wasn’t from our parents.
They definitely didn’t have a problem letting me upgrade their house, or buy them a couple of expensive cars, and a vacation home, and a yacht…
They did pay for all of my equipment and the fees for peewee hockey all those years, after all.
And I’m sure they’ll never let me forget it.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I blurt before my brain and my mouth can actually have any kind of conversation about what I’m planning to ask.
“Yeah, of course,” she says casually, most of her attention still on the couple on the TV, trying to convince themselves and everyone else that the relationship that started six days ago on a reality TV show is going to last a lifetime.
“Never mind.”
She picks up the remote, mutes the TV, and looks at me fully.
“Well, now I have to know what you were going to ask.”
She doesn’t want to hear about my sex life, but, fuck, it would be nice to just get some of this shit out there so I can get an outside perspective and sort through it a little bit myself.
“Do you think straight guys can actually mess around with other guys and still be straight?”
“Sure. Human sexuality is complicated. I kiss women all the time and I’m still straight.”
“That’s different.”
Val frowns, a little crease forming between her eyebrows. “Why is it different?”
“Because you’re a woman. It’s different for women.” I bounce my knee and stick my thumbnail between my teeth so I can gnaw away the uneven edge.
“Well, that’s some misogynistic bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.”
“What?” I scoff. “How is it misogynistic to say women can do something that men can’t do?”
She rolls her eyes at me again and purses her lips in a way that lets me know I’m about to get one of her lectures. Great, I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Because the implication is that it’s somehow less serious if I go down on a woman than if you go down on a man. It’s dick worship, pure and simple.”
I cringe at the visual her comment puts into my head. I really don’t need to picture my sister with her face between anyone’s legs.
“I didn’t go down on any guy. Jesus, Val. And it’s not about dicks or whatever, it’s just that everybody knows guys can’t act certain ways. Women are more free to explore that kind of stuff and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“So you’re more worried about whether other people would think you were gay if you hooked up with a guy?”
It sounds way too simplistic when she says it that way, but I guess it’s in the ballpark, at least. I’m not sure I have the words to explain what I’m actually wrestling with anyway, so her guess is close enough.
“I don’t know. I guess. I didn’t hook up with anyone though, I’m just…” I shake my head, then chew on my cuticle, tasting the coppery tang of blood as I pull a little bit of skin off. “Forget it.”
“Dude, it’s painful to watch you try this hard.
Just take a breath. I’m not making any assumptions, and you know I couldn’t give less of a shit about your sexuality or who you sleep with as long as I never hear that you’ve done anything to anybody that they didn’t want.
Because then I would have to fucking kill you. ”
I stop chewing on my nail and hold my hands up in self-defense.
“Of course I wouldn’t.” Jesus, I hope she knows that would never be me.
I shake my head and take a deep breath like she suggested, since her breathing voodoo usually does help.
“I don’t know what I’m even trying to ask.
I guess maybe I’m just wondering if it’s okay that I’m fucking confused right now, or if even being confused means I’m gay and it somehow took me thirty damn years to realize it. ”
She pats my still bouncing knee and gives me a look only a sister could manage—somewhere between understanding and calling me a dumbass without having to utter a word.
“The only rules that exist are the ones you make up for yourself. If you’re feeling some kind of way and want to explore it, go for it.
No one else has to know if you decide you don’t want them to.
You’ve only got one life, bro, don’t waste it letting everyone else tell you how you’re supposed to live. ”
I don’t know how she does it, but that was exactly what I needed to hear. All the tension that has been twisting and tightening inside me since I got that awkward boner on the massage table suddenly relaxes.
“Yeah.” My knee stops bouncing and I sink a little deeper into the couch. “Thanks.”
“Any time.” She pats my knee one more time then un-mutes the TV. “You know, now that I think about it, maybe I do like girls a little bit. It’s a spectrum anyway; it’s not like there’s just ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ and that’s it.”
She says it so casually that I can’t help but laugh. Can it really be that simple? For her maybe—she doesn’t have an entire career and millions of dollars riding on being allowed into locker rooms and welcomed onto a team of men who aren’t always so open minded.
It doesn’t have to go that far though. Like she said, there’s just this one life, and I’ve had a hard fucking year. I can let myself explore whatever this feeling is with Callan for a little while, can’t I? Until the season starts, at least? Or until the feeling passes, whichever comes first.