Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tim
BY THE TIME WE reach South Dakota, everyone on that tour bus has asked if I’m okay. Kelsey asked if I was sick while covering her face. Fortunately for her, being way too into a guy who hates me isn’t contagious.
I don’t get it. Maybe it’s my inexperience, but I don’t understand how you do all this with someone and feel nothing. Is sex that casual for Keannen? He can hook up with anyone and it doesn’t matter the next day? He can hook up with them several times and remain immune?
Then there was that time in Chicago when he fell asleep in my bed. He even kissed me in the morning. Obviously I’m no expert, but that doesn’t feel like the behavior of someone completely detached and disinterested. That feels like the behavior of a guy who wants me .
Is it really so crazy of me to think I have a chance?
This all started going sideways because of that call with my parents. I guess Keannen never knew what they were like. In his defense, I never told him. I could and should have, but at first I was scared. Then so much time had passed I assumed it didn’t matter anymore. I assumed I’d broken this beyond repair.
By the time I get off the bus in South Dakota, determination burns in my gut. My parents ruined this when we were teenagers. They caught us in Keannen’s car and yanked me out of Baltimore, out of the entire state of Maryland. They sent me all over the country to cure me, but here I am eight years later, still pining after the same man who lured me under those bleachers and taught me who I really am.
I am not letting my parents take him away from me a second time.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll think of something. Step one is getting a shower so I don’t smell like a guy who’s been on a bus for two days wallowing in a pool of self-pity. I get clean swiftly, throwing on whatever clothing seems the freshest.
“Going out?” Cameron asks when he spots me charging toward the door to our room. He’s barely gotten himself settled yet.
“I was gonna grab a drink.”
Concern creases Cameron’s face, the same concern I’ve had to deal with for two days. I’m pretty over it.
“If you wait, I could go with you or…” he says.
“I’m fine,” I cut in. “It’s one drink. I won’t be gone long.”
“You’re sure.”
“Totally.”
He doesn’t look confident in my response, but he accepts it, and that’s all that really matters. I take my opening and get out of the motel room, charging across the parking lot and toward the bar. It doesn’t look like much, especially after all the bars we’ve played shows in. It’s shaped more like a barn or a stable than a bar, a broad building with a peaked roof. It’s even called “The Stable,” so maybe it truly was a barn at some point.
I head inside before I can think too hard about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s the worst bar on the planet. All that matters is them selling me the liquid courage I require to go knock on Keannen’s door.
I hesitate when I step inside, however. Country music plays softly. Everything is made of wood, from the simple, plain tables and chairs to the bar stretching along one wall. Neon signs advertise beer brands, but that’s about all the place offers by way of decoration. The ceiling looms high overhead thanks to that peaked roof, and two struggling fans push the stale, warm air around the room.
More than one patron eyes me when I enter.
Do I look that out of place? I threw on jeans, a T-shirt and a hoodie, figuring that was neutral clothing just about anywhere in the country, but most of the (primarily male) clientele of the bar are wearing black jeans and leather jackets. Loud logos splash across the backs of some of those jackets, and suddenly I recall seeing more than a couple motorcycles lined up outside the place. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but maybe this bar caters to a specific set of clientele, clientele I’m certainly not a part of.
I try to shake it off. I’m here to get a drink. Anyone can sit down and get a drink. Besides, I’ve got to be the most boring-looking guy on the planet. Brown hair, brown eyes, a bit of stubble. About the only thing that sets me apart is the freckles.
Is that why Keannen can be so casual? Am I simply not interesting enough, not attractive enough, not edgy enough? He must attract men with piercings and tattoos and interesting hair cuts. It’s no wonder I would bore him.
That fear pushes me toward the bar. The stares of the patrons are nothing compared to the anxiety burrowing through my chest at the thought of not being good enough for Keannen. Of course I’m not good enough. I’ve never been good enough, not for him, not for my parents, not for my band. I’ve been the weak link in every relationship in my life.
I slide onto a stool at the bar. The bartender is bored enough to notice me after a minute and ask what I’d like.
“Whatever you can make that has whiskey in it,” I say.
He nods and leaves, but before he finishes with my drink, someone sits beside me. I glance surreptitiously to the side to find a big guy in one of those fancy leather jackets sitting way too close. Several open stools stand on either side of us. We’re the only two people at the bar, but he’s chosen to sit directly beside me.
I sit up straighter. The bartender returns with a glass of amber liquid, and I throw down a couple bills for him, telling him to keep the change. He nods his thanks, then shoots the guy beside me a look.
“Dean,” the bartender says, but somehow it sounds more like a warning than a greeting.
Whatever he thinks of the guy sitting next to me, he leaves when a customer waves for him at the other end of the bar.
“What are you doing here?” Dean says without preamble.
“Sorry?” It comes out automatically, and judging by Dean’s scowl, it does not do me any favors.
The big man leans closer. “I asked what you’re doing here.”
His eyes sweep swiftly up and down me, and recognition hits me like a blinding flash of light. He’s looking at me like I don’t belong here. He’s looking at me like he can tell from jeans and a hoodie that I’m gay. No one has ever looked at me like this, even that one time I worked up the courage to go to a gay bar. In a city like Seattle, I do more than pass for straight. I’m the epitome of dull, not just straight but wholly unremarkable.
A secret thrill races through me, even though this is the worst time in my entire life for a stranger to figure out I’m gay.
“I’m just having a drink, man,” I say, trying to sound normal.
I can’t keep the nerves out of my voice. I’ve never had to hide. I’ve never had to think about passing. Even in high school, I passed. When my parents yanked me out of Baltimore to fix me, I only got better at hiding. Has being with Keannen somehow made me more obvious? Or is this guy simply so homophobic that anything out of the ordinary will ping his radar?
“Listen,” Dean says, leaning even closer, the whiskey pungent on his breath, “soft city boys like you don’t belong in this bar, you understand?”
“I’m only here for the night.”
“Then stay in your room and stay out of places that aren’t for you.”
Pure hatred burns in the man’s eyes, a deep, seething hatred I’ve only encountered one other time in my life. This was the look my father wore when my mother explained how she’d caught me with Keannen in the back of his car. This seething disgust twisted his features into a mask I’ll never forget. It was the last time I ever saw him in person.
An old fear propels me to my feet. I start backing away, but apparently that’s not good enough for Dean. He follows as I walk backward toward the door, and two other men jump up to join him. They crowd me out of the bar and into the night.
I realize my mistake immediately.
In the bar, there were lights. In the bar, there were other people. In the bar, there was the bartender, who may have been sympathetic to my plight. Out here, there’s nothing but the ambient light of the sign on the roof. Out here, I’m completely alone against three men easily as big as me, if not bigger.
The first time one of them uses that slur, that ugly, harsh, old word, it hits my ears in my father’s voice. The guy shoves me back by the shoulder, but I barely feel it, my body going numb as my mind rockets back eight years in time. All of a sudden I’m not a man but a teenage boy facing his parents as they tell him he has to leave his life, his friends … his love. He has to lose all of it and go to a whole new place so someone can fix him.
It didn’t work.
I’m still that kid. I’m still gay. I’m still hopelessly, destructively, pathetically in love with Keannen Summers, even if he’ll never love me back.
And I’m about to get my ass kicked for it.
The guys close in on me, Dean in the lead. I keep backing away, but I don’t have a lot of space before I’m past the bar and out of the parking lot. An open field in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to offer me any sort of salvation, but I don’t have many other options. The second I stop moving, they’ll pounce. I’ve never been in a fight in my life, and even if I had, I doubt I could take three guys by myself. I look around, searching for any sort of help. Maybe someone will come out of the bar and I can yell for them. Maybe Cameron is looking for me after all. Maybe—
My eyes catch movement, furious, fast movement, someone rushing toward this disastrous scene with almighty purpose. They’re tall but not that broad. Dressed all in black, I can’t tell who’s coming toward me, whether it’s Cameron or maybe another one of Dean’s friends or someone else entirely.
Then the light from the bar reaches the man’s face, crashing over dark eyes ablaze with rage.
I freeze, my flight forgotten as Keannen storms toward my three assailants like death itself.