Paul held his palms up, not quite touching his brother’s chest. “Please, Steven, you’ve got it completely wrong,” he said gently. “Holly and I are just friends really good friends. She’s been helping me with something.” He lowered his hands, frustrated that he couldn’t explain more fully. “I needed someone I could talk to, and you know what a good listener she is.”
“Helping you!” Steven barked out. “Oh, I’ll bet she’s helping you.” He rakes his hand over his face and snorts. “And since when can’t you talk to me about stuff? My whole life we’ve always told each other everything.”
Paul could see the hurt in his brother’s eyes behind the fury on the surface, and it cut him deeply. “Not exactly everything,” he muttered.
“And what a lame fucking excuse! ‘I needed to, like, talk to someone.’ I call bullshit! Tell me the truth, damn it!” Steven thundered.
Something in Paul snapped. Steven was right he was lying to him and he owed him some truth. And nothing was going to calm him down now.
“You want the truth?” Paul yelled back. “I’m gay!”
Steven’s mouth hung open for a moment in the ringing silence that followed. Then he narrowed his eyes and sneered. “Now you’re just being an asshole. You’re really not going to come clean?”
“I am,” Paul said, quiet again. “Though it’s called coming out, not coming clean. I’m gay.” His shoulders slumped and he leaned heavily against the wall, counting on it to keep him upright.
Paul met his brother’s eyes, trying to read the emotions racing across them disbelief, pain, anger, confusion. Fuck, this is harder than I thought it would be.
“This is the truth I have for you,” Paul said. “This is what Holly has been helping me with. She figured it out.”
The silence stretched painfully between them. Paul bit his tongue against the apology that was straining to escape. He wasn’t going to be sorry for being gay for being who he was.
“But you ” Steven spoke haltingly. “You’re… I never… How ”
“I’ve kept it well hidden. Nobody knew until Holly.” And Ace. He decided not to drag Ace into this right now. This was his own battle.
Steven hadn’t moved from the spot where he had frozen. Paul could tell Steven was starting to believe what he was hearing.
One word, that’s all he wanted. ‘It’s okay, Paul. I understand.’ Or not. He could yell, he could scream LIAR, and he’d be right. Just not this awful silence.
“Please say something.” Paul felt the break in his voice. “Steven ”
Steven held up his hands and backed away, his shocked eyes still fixed on Paul. He opened the door and left without a word.
Paul let the tears come then. He slid against the wall until he landed on the floor and he stayed there, staring at the closed door, wanting to rip his own weeping heart out.
*****
“Oh look. Somebody left you a treat on the porch.”
Ace looked up from his phone at Erik’s drawl and groaned. A treat on the porch had to be code for a dead bird from Lola. “What has that cat done now?” he mumbled.
Erik pulled the car into Ace’s drive, and what he finally saw on the porch wasn’t a bloodied robin, but Paul.
“Clearly, he couldn’t stay away from you for even one night,” Erik muttered under his breath.
“Now, now,” Ace chided. “Come on up and really meet him. I want you guys to be friends.”
As they got closer to the porch, Ace’s heart stuttered at the sight of Paul desolately petting Lola. His normally hypnotizing blue grey eyes were ringed with red and he looked so … broken.
“Hey babe,” Paul sighed. He gave a weak smile and gently lifted Lola off his lap. “I’m sorry to interrupt your night, but …”
It was bad, whatever had happened. Ace knew immediately that he had come out to someone and it hadn’t gone well. He knew that look of loss.
Ace took Paul’s hand in his own and squeezed. He searched Paul’s eyes for the answer, and he knew suddenly that only one person could do this to him.
“Steven?” he guessed.
Paul ducked his head and nodded. Ace pulled him into a tight hug.
Behind him, Erik stood awkwardly, waiting for a cue.
“Do you want me to stay?” Erik asked quietly.
Ace looked up at his friend with a small smile. “No, but thanks.”
Erik nodded and silently left.
Ace squeezed Paul’s shoulders. “Come up here,” he gestured to the porch. “Tell me.”
Paul slumped against Ace on the porch swing. Lola immediately joined him on his lap, and Paul automatically started stroking.
“He thought I was screwing Holly, if you can believe that. He had no clue about…” Paul stopped and swallowed. “I just blurted it out. Yelled it, really. Then he got really quiet and he left. Just left. Just looked at me like I was some kind of alien, like someone he didn’t recognize.”
Ace felt a bolt of anger at the way Steven handled Paul’s news. He considered Steven a friend, and it upset him that any friend of his would cause Paul such pain.
“Well, at least you’re not guilty of aiding and abetting an adultery, right?”
Paul coughed a laugh and wiped the renewed tears off his face. “He probably would have preferred it if he’d been right about that.”
“Have you talked to Holly?” Ace asked.
Paul shook his head. “After Steven left, I came right here. I forgot you’d be gone. But Lola filled in for you.”
“Lola is my comfort ambassador.” The cat in question craned up to prod Paul into more petting.
They were still on the front porch, and while it was a pleasant summer night, this was a discussion fit for a sofa inside. Plus, Ace was hyper-aware of every person who walked or drove by, and he didn’t want Paul to worry about breaking down in front of witnesses, even anonymous ones.
It was a sign, though, of where Paul was. Of how far he had come. In the past, he never would have swung on that porch so long with Ace for fear of being seen.
“Wanna head inside?” Ace asked. “You probably don’t want the whole neighborhood to see you like this, do you?”
“I don’t care anymore,” Paul sighed. “Not now. I just lost my best friend and brother with one little word. The G-word.”
“I don’t believe you’ve lost him forever,” Ace said. “Imagine if he’d told you the same thing, no warning, no warm-up, no hints. How would you react?”
Paul sighed deeply and looked away. “True,” he conceded.
Ace stood and reached down for Paul’s hand. “Let’s go inside.”