I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that Cindy Turner and I had gone out a few times that spring, but things hadn’t worked out. Accusing the guy you’re dating of being gay because he couldn’t get hard while you gave him a drunken lap dance would do that to a relationship.
“My dad’s the wild card,” I told Elijah flatly.
“He loves you,” he assured me. “Maybe he’s not the warmest or fuzziest dad in the world, but I know he’s proud of you and will support you.”
I leaned my head sideways against the car’s headrest to look at him. “You can’t know that.”
He sighed. “I know. But he raised you, and you’re amazing, so I’m confident.” His lips tipped down into a slight frown. “I can wait out here if that’ll make things easier.”
“No,” I said, reaching for his hand and bringing it to my lips. “I’m not hiding you. I want them to meet you so they’ll see why I fell in love with you.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do this.”
“Dad? Ben?” I called, pushing open the front door.
“In here,” a voice I recognized as my future sister-in-law Calliope’s calling from the rear of the one-story cape style house my brother and I had grown up in.
Ten years ago, Dad had built a screened-in porch off the kitchen to distract himself from his grief over Mom’s death, and it was where he spent most of his time now when he wasn’t at the diner. The house didn’t have air conditioning, so he’d made sure he could run a ceiling fan out there. Given that today was a humid eighty-two, I knew it was where I’d find him, my brother, and my brother’s fiancee.
“This way,” I gestured as I led Elijah through the living room with its brown shag carpeting, past the orange and green striped corduroy sofa that had been a fixture under the two small windows for as long as I could remember, crossing the dining nook that contained the round, wooden table and matching chairs that had been a wedding present from my mom’s parents almost forty years ago, through the kitchen with its beige tiles and matching countertops, and out onto the porch where my family sat around a picnic table playing cards.
“Hi, guys.” I stopped just inside the doorway, Elijah to my right and slightly behind me.
My dad looked up from his hand, and before addressing me, tossed one of his cards down on top of a growing pile. “You’re back.”
Ben and Calliope stood when I stepped further into the room, my dad rising gingerly after them.
“I am,” I said, noting the obvious confusion on Ben’s face when I set my hand to Elijah’s back and nudged him forward to stand beside me. I’d never been one to hesitate in the face of make-or-break decisions, and I wasn’t about to start now. This might have been the first time I’d introduced them to someone I was dating (assuming you didn’t count the girl I’d taken to prom, and that was only because my mom had insisted on getting pictures of us in front of the old sugar maple tree out back), but I was proud of the fact that it was Elijah by my side. “I want you to meet someone. Guys, this is Elijah Crane. Elijah, this is my dad Paul, my brother Ben, and his fiancee, Calliope.”
“Hi, Elijah,” Calliope said in that soft, kind way she had for everyone she met. It might have taken me a while to warm up to her, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my brother really was a lucky man. She was sweet and loyal, but no pushover. She’d always have Ben’s back.
“Elijah,” my brother said by way of introduction, his eyes filled with an unspoken question as they bounced between us.
“So. Is this your surprise, then?” my dad asked in place of a proper greeting as he stared at the man at my side like he couldn’t quite make out what he was seeing. I could practically see the wheels turning in the old man’s head; I just didn’t know which direction his mind was going.
I swallowed deeply and nodded, grabbing hold of Elijah’s hand so there’d be no mistaking my intent. “Yes.”
Calliope let out a startled gasp, her hand rising to cover her mouth, while Ben’s gaze darted our dad’s direction and then back.
For several seconds, no one spoke, and just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, my dad let out a bark of laughter. He flattened his hands on the table and lowered himself back down into his seat. “You should see your face right now,” he said, shaking his head and dabbing at the tears leaking out the side of his eyes. “What did you think I was going to do, disown you?”
I swallowed deeply as I exchanged a long glance with Elijah. He squeezed my hand and nodded briefly, giving me the encouragement I needed to keep going. “Quite possibly. Yes,” I said slowly.
“Why? Because you’re queer? Please.” He waved his hand in front of his face in dismissal. “Besides, you think I didn’t already suspect it?”
“Umm, yes? I mean, I don’t know how you could have.”
He tossed me a look that clearly said I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. “Son. Why do you think I’ve been trying to set you up all these years?”
“With women,” I pointed out, my mind still going in small, confused circles.
“Yeah. With women,” he agreed solemnly, letting out a long, wheezy gust of air. He’d finally kicked his half-a-pack of cigarettes a day habit last summer, but it’d left him with a rattle in his lungs akin to that of an eighty-year-old asthmatic at just sixty-five. The doctors had given him a clean bill of health earlier in the year, but Ben and I still worried he would develop emphysema or lung cancer somewhere down the line. “In hindsight, likely not the best approach, but I thought you might eventually get fed up enough that you’d tell me the truth. You know I don’t give two shits if you’re gay.”
Next to me, Elijah moved even closer until our shoulders touched. I stared at my father. “You … were trying to annoy me into coming out?” I was flabbergasted. “I couldn’t have told you the truth because I didn’t know what it was myself.” I pulled a deep breath into my lungs and stood straight and proud. “And besides, I’m not gay. Well, not technically. I think I’m what’s known as demisexual.”
Ben and Calliope shared a look that told me they were even less surprised than my dad had been to hear this news.
“I’ve got zero clue what that means, Oliver,” my dad said matter-of-factly. “To be frank, I’m still a little fuzzy on what the ‘A’ in L-G-B-T-Q-I-A stands for.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing each letter and counting them off on his fingers. “And unless I’m missing something, there’s no D in there.”
“It means he’s only attracted to people he has a close, emotional connection with, Frank,” Calliope explained helpfully, smiling warmly at Elijah and me from the other side of the room.
My dad turned to Ben, and with the confidence of a man who would move mountains for his child, simply asked, “How do we get that list updated?”
“Oh my god,” I breathed out as I felt Elijah attempting to stifle his laughter, his left shoulder trembling against my right.
I’d pictured this conversation going any different number of ways, but wading into the various abbreviations to address the spectrum of sexuality hadn’t been one of the scenarios I’d envisioned. Honestly, I was faintly shocked that my dad knew any of them at all, much less had managed to call them out in proper order.