He crosses his arms and doles out a warm smile. “That you’re just realizing you dig girls. Or more specifically, Ashley.”
I turn again, resting my forehead on my arms so I can’t see his face, and I groan.
“Why are we groaning?”
Brandon.
I hear the chair on my other side drag across the deck and sense Brandon sitting beside me. I peek at him as he crosses his arms over his chest.
“Not my trouble to tell,” Tristan answers.
I sit up straight and sigh. “I feel like I’m on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Brandon’s straight dark hair is standing on end. He’s wearing one of his signature black tees and a pair of jeans. He leans back and narrows his dark eyes. “Ah, we’re groaning about the argument last night?”
I feel my cheeks heat up. “Did everyone hear us?”
“Nope.” Brandon eyes my coffee, and I nod. He finishes it in one gulp. “Oh, that’s nasty. French vanilla? You should have warned me.”
“You didn’t give me time. And you owe me a refill.”
“I’m on it. As soon as you tell me what the big deal is. So you hooked up with Ash?” He shrugs, like this isn’t a revelation.
How can it not be news to anyone but me?
“You know I hooked up with Ashley?”
Brandon shrugs again. “It was an educated guess. Until now.”
Oh God. I could deny it, but I don’t want to deny it. “So you knew I was into girls this whole time and you never said anything?”
“Definitely not. You said you were dating some dude at college, so I thought you were straight.” Brandon leans across the table and hollers inside the house, “Army, bring out a pot of coffee?”
“Sure,” Wyatt calls from the kitchen.
I mull over what he’s said, and even though Brandon is bisexual, it doesn’t mean he’d assume I was. “So why would you assume I hooked up with her?”
Brandon throws an arm over the back of his chair and stretches his long legs out to the side. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, and there isn’t anything straight about those looks. So I assumed you swing both ways.” Brandon levels a stare at Tristan. “The way it should be.”
Tristan rolls his eyes. He’s used to Brandon’s brash comments. Tristan doesn’t hide the fact that he’s gay, but he doesn’t flaunt his sexuality the way Brandon does. Brandon openly eyes girls and guys like they were put on this earth solely for his taking. He hits on whomever he pleases, and if they turn him down, he simply moves on to the next, while Tristan is all about his heart. He’s selective about the men he goes out with, but he opens himself up too quickly—and gets hurt too often.
“I definitely do not swing both ways.” I have to fess up to my closest friends and tell them how I have been hiding my sexual identity. It’s embarrassing, and I feel horrible for keeping it from them, but really, I had no choice. My parents watched us like hawks, and if they had gotten wind of me being interested in girls, God only knows what they would have done.
Someone else might try to lie her way out of coming out to her friends, but I’ve spent enough time lying. I’m trying to shed my lying coat of armor, not figure out how to live within its confines for even longer.
Wyatt comes out from the kitchen with one arm around Cassidy and a pot of coffee in his other hand, which he sets on the table.
“You okay, Dee?” He sits across from me, and Cassidy sits on his lap and circles his neck with her arms.
No, but I’m trying. “Yeah. Fine.”
Tristan gets up and retrieves one of our deck chairs from the beach, where we moved them last night before the party.
He sets the chair next to Wyatt. “Here you go, Cass.”
Wyatt tightens his grip on her. “She’s fine where she is.”
Cassidy gathers her long brown hair over one shoulder and kisses Wyatt’s forehead. “One day he’ll get sick of me. Thanks, Tristan.”
“Never.” Wyatt nuzzles against her neck.
Jealousy claws up my spine. I want what they have. I want to wake up with Ashley and touch her when I feel like it, without guilt or worry or any goddamn bad feeling at all.
It’s never going to be that easy for me.
What I want and what I’m capable of giving are two different things.
“Aren’t you the one who tells me to keep it behind closed doors?” Brandon asks as he fills my coffee cup.
“We’re not having a ménage on the couch.” Wyatt’s tone stops Brandon from saying anything more. His voice softens when he addresses me. “Everything go okay with Ashley last night?”
“Yeah.” I answer, remembering how Ashley opened her arms to me even after she knew I’d been with Janessa and knowing I might not be able to reciprocate publicly for who knows how long.