Chapter 17
GARRETT
Cheating on their mom had been a huge catalyst for the rift between my kids and me, but it hadn’t been the only one.
My cowardice when it came to difficult conversations had played no small part the building disaster that had been my marriage and my kids being miserable throughout their youth, not to mention the struggle to reconnect with them.
It had only been after I’d finally manned up and pushed past that cowardice that I’d been able to reconcile with three out of four.
These days, I was trying to do better, and tonight was going to be no exception.
Chris had returned from the team’s brief road trip, and we had a little time before he had to leave for the game.
I was going to man up and push past that cowardice.
I wasn’t ready to tell Chris that I’d very briefly had a faint flicker of hope of something with Liam St. Clair, but that was fine.
This conversation was about being open and honest with my son again.
Fewer secrets. A step in the right direction.
“So.” Chris studied me as we sat on opposite ends of his couch. “You wanted to talk about something?”
I sipped the Coke he’d given me. “Yeah. It’s nothing bad—nothing you need to worry about. Just… something I wanted to be honest about.”
“Oh… kay.” His guard was up. Not that I could blame him.
And the best way past it was to lay down my cards so he knew what the hell this was about.
“Listen, um…” I stared down at my wringing hands because I was a coward. “Now that we’re in the same city… I, uh…” I swallowed, then forced myself to meet Chris’s gaze. “Well, I think I mentioned before that I’m thinking about dating again?”
Chris tensed, then relaxed. “Oh. Well, yeah.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m kind of surprised you haven’t. You know, since the divorce.”
“I have,” I admitted. “Nothing that’s really gone anywhere, but I’ve dipped my toes into the dating pool.”
He nodded slowly, some of the uncertainty creeping back in.
I went on. “The thing is, I wanted to give you a heads-up now…” I pushed my shoulders back and pretended my heart wasn’t going ninety miles an hour. “I don’t only date women.”
His eyebrows climbed. “You—so you’re bi?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
“Oh.” He laughed, all the tension suddenly vanishing. “Must run in the family, then.”
It was my turn to sit bolt upright. “It does?” But then the piece clicked into place. “You’re… Are you also…?”
Face reddening, Chris nodded. “Yeah. I mean it doesn’t really matter now because I’m with Jasmine, but before her…”
“It still matters,” I said softly. “You don’t become straight just because you’re with a woman.”
“True, I guess. I went out with a couple of guys, but…” He gestured at the stairs Jasmine had gone up earlier.
“Oh. Wow. I had no idea.”
Chris shrugged. Then he shifted, narrowing his eyes just slightly.
When he spoke, there was a subtle edge to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“Did you know you were bi when you were with Mom?” I got the sense he was digging for something, though I couldn’t be sure what.
Maybe for something else I should’ve told my kids a long time ago?
Honesty. I owed him honesty.
“I figured it out later,” I said. “I was so young when we got married, and I hadn’t really figured myself out yet.”
He inclined his head. “Is, um… Is that… Is that why you cheated on her? To be with a man?
Sighing, I broke eye contact. “No. That had nothing to do with it.”
I didn’t think a silence had ever been more loaded. The questions hung in the air as if the arena announcer had blared them into Chris’s living room.
I took a deep breath. “First, that was with a woman. Just… just to put that out there. I wasn’t…
” I paused. “Listen, I’m not going to make any excuses for what I did.
It was stupid. It was wrong to do it to your mom and to you kids.
I…” Shaking my head, I rubbed the back of my neck.
“I was angry and vindictive, and I handled it in the worst possible ways.” I steeled myself and met his gaze.
“I will never be able to say I’m sorry enough for that. To you or your mom.”
Chris swallowed. His features were taut, but not hard. He was guarded, but not defensive.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “It—I own everything I did and all the fallout from it. Trust me, I haven’t gone a day without wishing I could go back and do a lot of things differently.”
He stared down at his hands as he gnawed his lip.
“And it really had nothing to do with me being bi. ‘Bisexual’ isn’t synonymous with ‘cheater.’”
“No, no, I know.” He waved that away. “I’m bi and I would never cheat.” The sharpness of the words made me wince, as if I could hear the unspoken “unlike my fucking dad.”
“Good,” was all I said.
We were both silent for a long, uncomfortable moment.
“If you, um… How did you figure out you were bi? If you were already married to Mom?”
“Even when you’re monogamous with someone, you’re still human. You still notice people. And at some point I realized that I noticed men in ways straight guys didn’t.”
Chris’s eyes lost focus as he seemed to digest that. “When did you know?”
I thought about it. “I think I was thirty, maybe thirty-one?”
“You’ve known all this time? Like, most of my life?” Again, there was a slight edge to his voice that I couldn’t quite read.
I shifted nervously. “I… suspected, I guess?” Sighing, I shook my head.
“I was so overwhelmed with life and trying to navigate my career, being a dad, being a husband, trying to make my marriage work—I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my sexuality, you know?
I kind of tucked it in the back of my mind. ”
“Oh.” Something in him relaxed ever so slightly. “So you were still figuring it out.”
“Along with everything else, yeah. I think I thought about it a little like you said—I was married, so it didn’t matter.”
“Even after you knew you and Mom weren’t going to stay married?”
I had no idea if there was an accusation in that question or if I was just imagining it.
“I didn’t think very far ahead at that point.
Mom and I—we were both focused on just getting through and raising you kids, whatever came after that didn’t really factor in.
Or, well, that was how it was for me. You’d have to ask her.
And then I did stupid shit, and, well, here we are. ”
Chris chewed his lip, shifting on the couch as he gazed at the coffee table.
I tilted my head. “Does it bother you? It sounds like something about it is bothering you.”
He fidgeted in his chair, wringing his hands much like I had a moment ago. “I guess… I mean, I knew I was bi when I was fourteen. If I’d known my dad was also bi…”
I flinched. “I’m sorry. I never even thought about that. I… I’m sorry, Chris.”
“I know,” he whispered. “And it wasn’t like I ever thought you or Mom were homophobic. But I saw how a lot of straight guys reacted to their sons being gay or bi or whatever, and…” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”
“I get that. I think being afraid of how Grandpa would react was part of the reason I didn’t let myself focus on it too much. If I didn’t accept it and put that label on, then there was no reason to come out to him.”
Chris’s eyes went wider. You don’t think Grandpa would’ve accepted you?”
“I didn’t know. I was afraid to find out.” I paused, then admitted, “I still am, to be honest.” I pushed out a long breath. “I’m sorry I put you in that same position.”
To my surprise, he said, “No, I think I get it. You never gave me any reason to think you’d have a problem with it. Grandpa…” Chris grimaced. “He really doesn’t know now?”
“No. Maybe I’m a bit of a coward, but I didn’t want to broach that subject with him until it was necessary.”
“So, like, if you have a boyfriend?”
“If you somehow ended up dating my teammate?” my mind filled in using Chris’s voice, because yeah, that was going to happen.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s an ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it’ situation.” I laughed dryly. “Like I said… a coward.”
“You’re not a coward,” Chris said quietly. “If you hadn’t come out to me, I don’t know if I ever would’ve come out to you.”
That gave me pause. “Really?”
“Well, yeah. I’m marrying a woman and I didn’t know how you’d react to me being bi. So I didn’t really want to rock that boat, you know?” He smiled. “But since you came out to me, I knew it was safe to come out to you.”
“I just wish you’d known before that it was safe. Even before I knew about myself, I always would’ve accepted any of you kids, no matter what.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But… you know what it’s like, I guess. Being afraid your parents will disapprove even if they’ve never given you any reason to think they will.”
Guilt wound itself around my heart, but I nodded.
“I do, yeah. In hindsight, I wish I’d been clearer to you kids.
Come out when you were younger even when it didn’t seem like it mattered.
” I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed.
“Somehow it never occurred to me that I needed to do that. I don’t know why. ”
“You thought we were all straight.” The soft words weren’t an accusation. Just a statement of fact.
“I did. Which was stupid, since I’m not straight myself, but—”
“Dad.” Chris sat up a little, looking me right in the eye. “I get it. One of my teammates in juniors had two dads, and they still thought both of their kids were straight. He didn’t give them any reason to think he wasn’t, but they also just kind of… didn’t think about it, I guess.”
“I would imagine they at least made sure he knew it was safe if he wanted to come out.”
“Sure.” Chris shrugged. “But it still took him like three years because, yeah, when you’re fifteen, you worry about disappointing your gay dads by coming out as gay.” He waved a hand. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”