“Traffic?” he asked when I arrived at the table, where he waited and quickly stood for a hug.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” He tightened his grip before releasing me. “I was surprised you were back early. Did Becks drive you nuts?”
We both sat, and Sam drained the rest of his beer, making me jealous I didn’t have the same head start. “No, I just wanted to get back and get ready for the semester.”
He nodded. “Did you have fun?”
“I did.” A waiter came by, halting our conversation and worsening my nerves. After ordering a beer for me, and our steak dinners, I began to fill Sam in on Florida life to buy me some time. During my speech, I miraculously managed to forget my discomfort and focused on our family. But then, while showing him a video on my phone, the giant giraffe and elephant both came to life at the same time, causing Sam to go into hysterics.
“Holy fuck, are those the gifts from Ricky?”
“You know about them?”
“Hell yeah! Becks told Lydia and me all about that app on his phone. Hilarious! I fucking love that guy.” Not as much as me. “He’s quite the ballbuster,” Sam went on to say.
“That he is,” I droned.
Sensing my tone, Sam looked away from my phone. “What? Was he a prick to you again?”
“What do you mean again?” I barked.
His hands sprang up in response to my outburst. “The night of my rehearsal dinner, you kept mumbling how much you hated him… of course we all knew you had a few too many.” Fuck, I had no recollection of that. Sam continued to study me, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head. “Is that why you’re back early? Did Ricky drive you out of Florida?”
“Not exactly.” Subconsciously, I began picking at the label on my beer, considering the best way to say it. “We, um… actually got pretty close these past few months.” Sam’s hearty chuckle caught me off guard. “What’s so funny?”
“I don’t exactly see you two meshing. He’s so uptight and you’re so…” Sam smirked before adding, “Complaisant.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d been accused of that. Actually, my entire life I’d been known as the peacemaker, the first to cave to avoid conflicts. It wasn’t insulting to me, but having Sam use uptight to describe Ricky pissed me off. He was far from uptight. Cautious, yes… and that had a lot to do with where we’d ended up. Cocky, arrogant, and frustratingly evasive? Absolutely. And yes, I had accused Ricky of having a stick up his ass, but claiming he was uptight was not a fair assessment.
“I saw a different side to him.” It figured that was the moment our steaks arrived. What I needed to say sat on the tip of my tongue, and with each second I’d been delayed, the words became a tad more bitter. Nine, maybe ten minutes ticked by at an excruciating pace as we both began eating, the conversation forgotten because our perfectly cooked filets, mounds of potatoes, and stalks of broccoli stole the focus.
Sam eventually moved on to other topics—Lydia, a client he finally nabbed at work, and even the stupid weather. And as we talked and ate our dinner, one that Ricky would’ve scoffed at compared to his beloved steak house, I decided I’d let my brother enjoy his food before broaching my sexuality.
Okay, so I chickened the fuck out. The entire meal went by, and then dessert, and now a farewell.
“Want to shoot hoops this weekend?” Sam asked, competing with the city noise surrounding us. Today was Tuesday, which meant another opportunity to tell him in person wouldn’t come for days.
“Sounds good,” I agreed as the little voice in my head screamed, “Pussy!”
When the blast of a cab horn caused me to jump, he stared at me a bit too long. “You okay, dude?”
“Yeah.” I needed to do this now, or the possibility that Sam would find out my truth during my eulogy was a great one. I needed my fucking mouth to grow a set of balls and speak. “Want to grab a beer?” I pathetically asked.
“We just had three.” Sam folded his arms and frowned. “Seriously, Coop. What is going on with you?”
“I need to talk to you.” I looked around and shook my head. “But not out on the street.”
“We were just together for over two hours. Why didn’t you tell me in the restaurant?” My silence caused his frown to deepen. “Jesus, Cooper. You’re scaring me. Are you sick? Is it Mom or Dad?”
“It’s nothing like that.” I flicked my head back toward the door we’d exited. “Let’s go back in. Sit at the bar. I’ll fill you in.”
“Okay.”
Wordlessly, he followed me toward two barstools at the far end. The restaurant had still been bustling with customers, but I was grateful there were few at the bar. I had no way to predict how Sam would react, and the fewer eyes on us the better. I quickly ordered two more of the beers we’d been drinking, and when the bartender went to retrieve them, Sam immediately said, “So spill it. What do you need to tell me?”
I met his concerned expression with one of determination. “You know how you felt after you and Lydia reunited again? You said once she came back into your life, it was obvious that your heart had searched for something until then?”
“Yeah,” he said cautiously.
“It’s no secret I’ve been looking for the same, an undeniable connection that makes it obvious every other one you had was a farce.” That time he nodded just as I dragged in a fortifying breath. “Okay, well, at your wedding, I felt a crackling, for lack of a better word, that I had never felt before. A lure, a pull.”
“That chick the cruise director?” he asked through a grin. “I saw you talking to her. Redhead, smoking-hot body?”
“Let’s ignore that you noticed her attributes during your wedding…” He shrugged. “But no. Not her.”
Sam’s gaze focused on something beyond my head as he tried to remember which of the other females could’ve caught my eye. Sparing him, I came out with it. “Ricky.”
Pure and undeniable shock altered his entire face. “What?”
“Ricky. I felt that pull toward Ricky.” I took his silence as an opportunity to keep plowing on, explaining how much I’d pushed him away that week. I admitted that Ricky had dominated my thoughts once I got home and until the moment I’d landed in Florida. During my rundown, Sam wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t plan for it to happen, but it did. We spent a lot of time together and…” Sam’s suddenly drilling me with his stare had me falter before adding, “I love him.”
“What?” he repeated. “You’re not gay.”
“But I am.”
“How does one go from being straight to gay without warning?” The accusing question flew at me like a cobra strike, quick and immobilizing… and valid. “Maybe this is just one of your phases,” he suggested, clearly looking for an out for me.
“It’s not. I never felt this way before, not with any woman I’d ever been with… not even with Riana. She knows.”
“She does?”
“Yeah. She was who I confided in when I got home from your wedding.” The look he gave me prompted further explanation. “I needed to talk to someone, and you were on your honeymoon.”