“Well, you don’t really know anything about me,” I snap, but it comes out sounding a hell of a lot milder than I intended.
“Yeah. You’re right,” Daniel says. “We don’t know each other at all, do we? I don’t know Brian or Sam either. And I sure as hell didn’t know Dad.”
“Me either,” I say softly.
Daniel snorts. I shake my head and close my eyes again.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
The adrenaline from a few minutes ago has drained away, leaving me exhausted. I can feel a headache coming on.
“Well, he didn’t really know me, did he? So I don’t know how he would’ve felt about me if he did.”
“He didn’t….” Daniel fumbles around for words.
“I don’t even know if he would’ve loved me if he knew who I was, okay!”
Daniel swallows hard. “You mean because you saw how he didn’t love me once he knew I was gay.”
Shit. “I didn’t mean that.”
“No, I know.” He’s fiddling with something in his pocket and rubbing a hand over his chest absently.
After a minute of awkward silence, Rafe comes back in and lays out food from the Greek place I like down the street.
“Oh shit, this is so good,” Daniel says with his mouth full. “My—um, Rex, my—um, he loves to cook.”
“Your boyfriend?” Rafe asks.
Daniel nods, but he gets this doofy look on his face like he’s a thousand miles away, and he rubs his chest again.
“So, Daniel,” Rafe begins politely, and I can tell he’s about to initiate some kind of getting-to-know-you chatter, but Daniel interrupts him.
“We’re—I’m—we’re moving in together,” he blurts out, looking at me. “Oh, sorry,” he says to Rafe, realizing he interrupted. Rafe just smiles at him and shakes his head. “He asked me. At Christmas,” Daniel says softly, nervously fiddling with his fork. Then he shakes his head as if he’s irritated with himself for saying it.
I don’t know what to say. I kind of hated Rex on sight, but, you know, there were extenuating circumstances.
“Congratulations,” Rafe says once it’s clear I’m not going to respond.
“Thanks,” Daniel mutters, clearly embarrassed at the attention even though he’s the one who brought it up.
Daniel and I both shove food in our faces for a minute to avoid talking, and Rafe looks between us, saying nothing.
Rafe puts his hand on my thigh under the table and squeezes. Daniel stares into space as he eats, his mind clearly on something else.
“Wait,” he says after a while, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion, “I was little and he was… what?”
“What?” I say.
“Buddy McKenzie. You said you were worried something would happen to me because I was little and he… what?”
“What? Nothing. He was an asshole. And way too old for you.”
“I thought he was your friend?”
“No.” I put my fork down, my appetite gone.
“But… wasn’t he?”
“No. Well, once.”
“I just don’t understand—”
“Look, I thought he was hurting you, okay? What else is there to understand?”
Every muscle in my body is rigid, and I’m vaguely aware of Rafe tensing beside me. He can always tell when something’s wrong.
“But, I mean, I was….” Daniel blushes. “You know, I was the one… going down on him, so—”
“Yeah, so I saw,” I bite off.
“So… okay, so then, why—”
“How did I know you wanted to do that? That he didn’t manipulate you into it!” I put my hand over my mouth as Daniel’s eyes narrow.
“I don’t…. Wait, did that… happen to you?” Daniel asks. “Oh shit. Did that happen to you with Buddy? Is that why you weren’t friends anymore?”
I forgot this about Daniel. The way he takes little pieces of what you say and fills in the blanks to make whole stories. It’s why I never used to want to answer him when he’d ask me about my day or try to get me to talk about shit. Because I knew that in his head, he was weaving it all together and getting more out of it than I ever intended to let on.
“You were friends,” Daniel murmurs. “I remember.”
“You were a kid. You don’t remember shit.”
He shakes his head like I haven’t even spoken.
“What the fuck did he do?”
Rafe is motionless beside me.
IT WAS the beginning of senior year. We’d been in football together for years, but we weren’t exactly close. There was just something about the way I felt when we were together. Something that was different than my other friends. Different even than Xavier. There was this… energy between us. I didn’t know what it was at first.