I had known a Jamie Tuttle when I was in school. Perhaps she was his younger sister. Obviously, I had missed something vital to the story. I didn't understand how any of that was embarrassing. I could always trust on Lauren to provide clarification when needed. "She was Oliver's crush at the time."
"Girlfriend," Oliver corrected.
"You went out once!" Bryce laughed. "She didn't even like you. She thought you smelled like cheese." We all laughed at that. "Besides, she liked younger men."
"Clearly," I agreed with a smile.
Oliver continued. "Anyway, when I saw them together, I was furious. So, I grabbed him by the waistband of his swim trunks and threw him out into the open."
"Yeah, except my swim trunks didn't make the entire trip."
I squinted my eyes and tilted my head, confused.
"I was so angry that I had ripped his shorts right off!" My smile grew. "So, there he was, naked as a jaybird -"
"And aroused," Bryce added.
"Oh my god," I said, covering my mouth with my palm to hide the size of my gape.
Oliver continued. "Fortunately, these were the years before everyone had a camera in their pocket. But there were still over twenty kids there. They were more than happy to paint the picture for anyone at school who had missed it."
"It worked in my favour though," Bryce said with gusto. "By the time I was fifteen, rumours of what I was packing had made me very popular with the senior girls."
Lauren and I both rolled our eyes. "I am proud to say that no one in this town has ever seen me naked," I quipped. "No one is this town has ever wanted to."
"You didn't date much?" Bryce inquired.
Lauren beat me to it. "Parker didn't date at all. He wasn't given much opportunity." I was a little taken back by the quick response and vagueness of her statement. The better part of me would have let it slide, but liquor had something else in mind. My earlier argument with my father had left me feeling stifled, closeted even. I wasn't ashamed of who I was, so I decided to set the record straight.
"What Lauren isn't saying is, it was hard to date when I was the only homo in town."
Lauren snapped her head in my direction, "Why do you do that?" I wasn't sure I understood the question, and she could tell. "Why do you have to bring up the gay thing all the time?"
"Because it's the truth? I didn't date because I'm gay. There's no shame in admitting that."
Lauren started to say something but then stopped, likely realizing whatever she was about to say would appear rude or intolerant. Instead, she took a different approach. "It's just that you always refer to yourself in such negative terms: fag, queer, homo. I don't like you being so self-defecating."
"I'm pretty sure you mean deprecating. Unless you meant to imply that I shit myself."
She scowled at me. "English major rears its ugly head. Anyway, you know what I'm saying. The problem wasn't that you were gay. The problem was that no one, including Daddy, gave you the opportunities the rest of us had. We had two hundred students in our school, do you honestly think you were the only gay kid? Devan Baxter was gay. Everyone knew it, including his parents." Devan had been in Lauren's grade. He had been barely eleven when I had left River Bluff. He was hardly the best example to give me.
Bryce piped up, "Isn't the statistic like, one-in-ten, or something like that?" New statistics were closer to one-in-five, but whatever. "Just because you didn't know, doesn't mean they didn't want to."
I was confused again. "Want to what?" I asked.
"See you naked," Bryce smiled as he said it, and I felt a flush come over me.
"I'm very uncomfortable with the direction this conversation has taken."
Oliver chuckled. "That's his fancy edumacated way of telling us to shut up."
"Not at all," I shook my head. "Only to mind your business."
Lauren sighed, "At least tell us that you're dating someone now, back in Toronto? I hate the idea of you all alone."
"Toronto has six million people in it. I'd hardly consider myself alone."
Lauren grunted. "Unless you're fucking all six million of them, they don't count." I was shocked to hear it come out of her mouth. She never spoke like that. She was feeling the effects of the wine.
"Well, you know, I was thinking about installing swinging doors in my bedroom. If I took a couple hundred a night, I could catch up in a few months."
Oliver winced. "That sounds very painful."
It was pitch black outside, but there was calm in the darkness. I sat on Lauren's back porch, rocking in a rusted swing. I adjusted the fleece throw blanket over my lap with a slow-moving hand and sipped a glass of lukewarm tap water. As a child, I had always found comfort in the quiet, country nights. My father had always disapproved of my nocturnal tendencies. To my astonishment, it was my only activity he disapproved of but did not punish me for doing. That was likely why I still enjoyed it as much as I did. The others had been asleep for a few hours. Oliver had been the first to retire for the night, knowing he'd have to be up at five am for work. Bryce had fallen asleep on the couch soon after, which left Lauren and me. Rather than risk more awkward moments, she too decided to head to bed, which left only me.
I gazed up at the spectacular stars, bringing my feet up and crossing them on the seat under the blanket. Sometimes, I wondered why I chose a career that required me to live in such a big, thriving city. Between the high-rises, the smog and city lights, the only stars I saw in Toronto had Twitter accounts. My back hurt a little from the awful motel mattress. The thought of sleeping on Lauren's hardwood floor, while Bryce had the sofa, did not sit very well with me. Damn, I'm getting old, I thought to myself. I could almost feel Felicity smacking me on the arm with the latest copy of Vogue. "If you're old, what on earth does that make me?" she'd say. Thirty-seven wasn't so bad. It only meant that my days of sleeping on cheap mattresses and the floor were numbered.
I was shocked when the screen door opened. Bryce, looking both dishevelled and adorable, appeared in the threshold. He was barefoot and shirtless, and though his jeans were still done-up, his belt hung open. I tried not to blush at the sight of him. He's your sister's brother-in-law, I reminded myself. You're practically related. He's also very, very heterosexual. Stop gawking.
"Did I wake you?" I asked as he stepped outside, stretching his well-defined shoulders and back muscles. He walked past me and leaned himself against the porch railing. He brought his arms to rest, folded against his chest. I was annoyed with myself for the way my eyes followed him.
"Only if you're hardwood." God, why did he say that? I self-consciously adjusted the blanket over my lap. "I rolled off the couch and onto the floor," he explained. "It's not wide enough for sleeping."
"Yeah, that's one of the reasons I didn't take Lauren up on her offer. Although the motel isn't much better, it's like sleeping on rocks." There was plenty else about the motel to complain about, but I decided to spare him the unnecessary details.
Bryce yawned and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. "What are you doing out here?"