The Blueprint, page 2
My sister came forward and punched me in the shoulder. “I’m here for your big gay engagement.” When I didn’t laugh, her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong? I might’ve let my only chance at love and marriage squeal off in a silver Lexus with Georgetown plates. Judging from Rob’s speed, he was probably supersonic by then. Exiting our atmosphere, T-minus pissed the fuck off.
I sighed wearily and looked over the decorated room. They’d gone through a lot of trouble and effort, and despite my weariness, I was touched. I glanced at the buffet table that creaked and groaned with delicious food, and my despondent gaze lit upon a giant dessert creation that lurked behind two silver warming dishes.
My stomach growled, clearly unperturbed by any of the night’s horrific events. Yes, life sucked, and I was clearly determined to die alone. I might be a little in love with my best friend, who was straight and, luckily for me, clueless. But there was cake—chocolate cake with what appeared to be creamy, double-chocolate buttercream frosting.
Sometimes it really was about the small things.
Chapter 2
Kelly
THE PARTY was pretty whack. No way around it.
To be fair, I guessed that was what happened when you threw an engagement party with no engagement. In the movies, maybe another couple we’d been hoping would get together would suddenly decide to use the party for their own engagement, and everyone would cheer and clap. In real life I made a beeline for the buffet and left concerned head tilts and hushed whispers in my wake like waves behind a motorboat.
They seemed to be taking cues from me on how to proceed, trying to suss out my mood. Well, that was unfortunate because I didn’t really know how to feel. But we had beer and cake and bacon-wrapped treats, so… party on.
As the night went on and my small talk got smaller—and louder—I realized I was well on my way to getting trashed. I had enough presence of mind left to exchange my beers for water. The only thing more hellacious than teaching early morning physics on a Monday would be teaching it hungover, with giant shades crammed on my face as though I were an aging rock star. I headed out to the back patio to get some fresh air and slid the door closed quietly behind me.
The patio was small, like the rest of my condo, with only room enough for two chairs and a couple plants—three lilies that my mom thought would spruce up the place. She was big on outdoor living spaces. My condo was taller than wide, which made up for the narrow footprint with a third floor I rarely used. It was more than enough room for me.
Just me.
I set my jaw as I sat in one of the chairs and pulled my feet up. I looped my arms around my knees and dangled my water bottle loosely from my fingers. And just me it would clearly stay. Because as much as I hated to admit it, Robert was kind of right.
I was in love with Blue.
I was pining for something that was never going to happen, and I had been for the longest time. It was stupid. It wasn’t productive. And I was pretty sure it was damaging every relationship I’d had since we were sixteen years old.
I met Blue in elementary school, when he and his family moved in next door. At first we had nothing in common other than being close in age—mostly because a good time to Blue was being outside, and I pretty much abhorred the sun and sweat in general. Our moms forced us to play together, and we eventually found common ground over video games—PlayStation, the great equalizer.
Pretty soon he was spending the night at my house, and I was spending the night at his house. We walked to school together, walked home together. The rest kind of fell into place.
The rest.
I exhaled heavily. That was a blanket term for us being best friends for as long as I could remember. Helping Blue with his science homework and him covering up for my lagging ass in P.E. Figuring out how to get revenge on his older brother and my sister. Camping outside under the stars in the backyard and sharing anything, everything we could think of. It all seemed so easy. I like you and you like me. You make my life better, and I want to keep you forever. Simple stuff.
Kid stuff.
When his mom up and left, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do with a Blue who wasn’t gregarious and laughing. For the first time in my young life, I felt the frustration of him not talking to me. I could hear my parents whispering about it and my dad getting pissed at Blue’s parents and my mother calming him down.
She was extra solicitous that night when Blue stayed over, gave him extra dessert and shooed him out of the kitchen when he tried to help clean up. I put on a video game, and he went through the motions, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. And later that night, from my bunk bed, I heard him crying.
I was scared at first. I’d never heard him cry—not even when he thought he was Tony Hawk for six seconds and tried a skateboard trick that resulted in a broken arm, a trip to the hospital, and mutual grounding for us both.
I rolled over in the top bunk, facedown, and stretched out my hand as far as I could reach. I felt stupid and embarrassed and vulnerable, but after a few moments, he grabbed it. His hand was a lot bigger than mine, even back then, and he squeezed it so hard I thought my bones might be pulverized. Before an hour passed, I had the worst crick in my neck, but we stayed like that all night, holding hands in the dark. I’d never felt closer to another person in my life.
Right then and there, something inside me just… changed. I realized I liked him in a different way. I wanted to take care of him—take away his pain—even though, at thirteen, I had no idea how.
It still wasn’t a sexual kind of like, even though, by that time, I’d been experimenting plenty. Hello, Internet porn. Hello, hand who doesn’t judge me and never turns me down. Hello, weird kid in Sunday school who likes to make out in the janitor’s closet. But I digress.
When we were in high school, he got serious about football, and we had to rearrange our schedules to make an effort to see each other more. I usually came by after whatever geeky club I had going on at the time and waited for practice to end so we could walk home together. And so what if I sat up in the bleachers and ogled his teammates behind my shades?
Even looking back on it, I couldn’t pinpoint what changed. One day it was fine, and the next it just wasn’t. I just started noticing things. Like the way Blue would ruck up his jersey when he was overheated and tuck it up beneath his pads to get some air on his skin. He had really well-defined abs. A really, really nice ass. And sweat would roll off his sun-kissed skin in slow motion and well, goddamn, it was as though someone had beaned me on the head with a brick.
He wasn’t even my type. I didn’t go for the all-American jock. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It just wasn’t my deal. I liked them geeky and sardonic and disillusioned with the world. If a guy wore glasses, it was a big plus for me. If he wore quirky clothes, it was even better. If he liked science and identified as an egghead, hell, I just might be in love.
Blue ticked none of my geeky, sardonic, and quirky boxes, but all of a sudden, he made my heart beat faster, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. His eyes weren’t just blue anymore. They were the prettiest color I’d ever seen, like the clear summer sky on a cloudless day. His hair wasn’t just dark blond anymore. It was golden in the sun. Then there was that smile—that reckless, sexy smile he’d give me, usually right before he got us in a shitload of trouble.
I tried to forget about it, mostly because I didn’t have a chance. But the universe just laid a situation in my lap, and I didn’t know what to do. My love for Blue as a person had combined and meshed with the fact that he had turned into a bona fide, grade-A, smoking-hot piece of prime beefcake.
And while looks were nice and all, that’s not what made me love him. He was sweet under that tough football-player exterior. He stood up for me, usually when my smart mouth got a little too smart and got me in a pickle. And when he got drafted to the NFL, he could’ve gotten a big head and left me in the dust. He didn’t. Instead he paid off my student loans and helped me financially through graduate school. No questions asked. And he didn’t bat an eyelash when I told him I was gay. I didn’t even think it crossed his mind to make me feel weird about it.
In the tapestry of our life, our threads were so interwoven we’d have to unravel the whole damn blanket to pull them apart. So what was a guy supposed to do?
I rolled my sweating water bottle in my hands. Apparently he was supposed to bury his love forever. No map to this treasure. Just call me the Blackbeard of love.
I heard the sliding glass door open and glanced over to see Holly, head of the chemistry department, stick her head through the crack. “Sorry to bother you, but do have any Clorox Wipes?”
I didn’t even ask what someone had spilled, destroyed, or broken. “In the hall closet. Third shelf from the bottom.”
“Thank you.” She beamed and disappeared back inside.
I sighed. Yet one more thing I realized as I got out of the chair—I was getting old. There was really no fix for it. It was just one of those thoughts that crept up on you at odd times—the certainty that, yes, you were aging, and no, you were not the exception to the natural progression of the universe. I felt every one of my twenty-nine years, especially when I came back inside and realized my party had turned into an impromptu cleaning fest.
It was nice of them. But a little depressing. Especially when someone broke out the vacuum. Holly bustled by with the Clorox Wipes, and I sighed again as I grabbed a garbage bag. I collected stray paper cups and plates and stopped complaining. Mostly because, when you couldn’t beat ’em, you really should just fucking join ’em.
IT WASN’T long before my condo smelled like lemon and bleach and freshly vacuumed carpet, and I thought maybe I could get used to having parties with mature people. Then I watched a couple of my coworkers comparing methods of packing hors d’oeuvres in Tupperware and thought maybe not.
I glanced at my watch. Ten o’clock. At least we wrapped up at a reasonable hour. Plenty of time for everyone to get home, brush their respective teeth, and settle down for the late-night news.
Jesus. I should’ve done us all a favor and spiked the punch bowl with antifreeze.
I ferried a couple of containers of chocolate cake to the kitchen to make sure no one made off with the precioussss and found the situation well under control. The dishwasher hummed pleasantly, and my sister was at the sink, sleeves rolled up to the elbows as she washed dishes with neurosurgical focus. I told her she could leave, but I was glad she stayed. Not that I’d ever admit it aloud.
I put the cake in the subzero and turned to find her scrubbing an aluminum serving dish. “Don’t bother,” I said. “I’m just going to throw those out.”
She added more soap. “I don’t mind. Washing dishes clears my mind.”
I leaned one hip against the counter, arms folded as I chewed on my lip. My mind whirled busily, picking through questions that I could possibly ask without offending her. At the top of my list? How long had she known I was gay? I certainly hadn’t told her.
We might’ve grown up close, but we’d long since drifted apart. Life just had a way of working between you if you let it, and we had—colleges far apart, busy jobs. Her husband and two adorable kids who, now that I thought about it, had started acting a lot less adorable since her recent divorce. I tried to provide an ear, almost like a sounding board, but she turned me down flat in that polite but oh-so-final way of hers. Repeatedly. Whatever happened between her and Derrick was clearly a no-fly zone for me.
Which brought me back to my original point. We didn’t share a lot, and we didn’t talk a lot, so when and how had she found out I was gay?
She glanced up and sent me a distracted smile. “You might as well ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Whatever is making you nearly chew your lip off? You’re still shit at hiding when something is bothering you.”
Some people had a natural poker face. I practically had to superglue mine on, and even then, it kept falling off. “How did you find out about the party?”
Her smile blossomed even farther. “Your coworker emailed me. O’Rouke?”
“Ah.” I soothed my bruised lip by poking at the inside with my tongue. “I didn’t know you knew Connor.”
“You remember when I stayed with you last year? You were sleeping, and he dropped off some of that overpriced fundraiser wrapping paper. Said you’d ordered them from his niece.”
I fidgeted some more. “I wasn’t aware dropping off wrapping paper required so much conversation.”
“Well, no, I didn’t snatch the Santa paper and slam the door in his face.” She raised an eyebrow. “No wonder you have to order your holiday supplies through a third party.”
“Very funny. What did you guys talk about?”
“Not much.”
“What’s not much?”
“Weather. Work. The usual.”
I gritted my teeth. Figured. When I was actually interested in a topic, the same woman who could go on for thirty minutes about Cool Ranch versus Spicy Chili Doritos had nothing to say. “Was that all you talked about?”
Kennedy cast me a side glance, gray eyes slanted with mischief, clearly done hiding her amusement. “I’m sorry, Kelly. Was there something specific you wanted to ask me?”
I growled.
She pulled the stopper in the sink. Water and suds swirled down the drain as she turned to me and patted her hands dry on a checkered dishtowel. “Let’s just get to it, shall we?”
“Get to what?”
“If you have your way, you’ll be hedging all night. Yes, I’m fine with you being gay. Yes, I’ve known for a while now.” She ticked off the items on her damp fingers. “Yes, O’Rourke outed you by mistake. He asked if he could leave Robert’s wrapping paper with me, and I asked him why.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh,’” she said mockingly. “Imagine when the earth didn’t open right up upon me learning that my little brother is gay.” When I didn’t speak, she gave me a frustrated look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Even though there was chattering from the few guests left in the living room, the kitchen was relatively quiet as we stared at one another. When that became too much, I pushed off the counter and reached under the sink for a fresh garbage bag. I snapped it open and let it balloon up and flap a couple of times.
I wasn’t avoiding the question. I just… didn’t really have a good answer for it. It was a little difficult to tell everyone in my life that I wasn’t really an x. I was an entirely different variable. I was a y. And did the y keep getting invited to Christmas dinner? Or did all the xs tell the y to go home because he no longer fit the equation?
I’d established two very distinct halves of my life—my work and social life, where I was out and proud, and my home life, where I left things alone. The fact that I lived four hours away from my parents and hometown made that possible. Even though it sometimes felt cowardly hiding who I was, I did it because it was just… easier. Safer. Because while it would be wonderful for my family to support me, I didn’t know if I was strong enough to take it if they didn’t.
I didn’t know how to put any of that in words. “I don’t know,” I finally said.
She stared at me hard, and I briefly thought she might press the issue. But she shook her head and sighed. “Whatever. But maybe you should tell Mom and Dad, huh? Before you get married?”
My phone rang in my back pocket, but I stubbornly ignored it and stuffed paper cups in the trash bag. If I had to guess, it was probably Robert, and I had no desire to get yelled at by him any more.
“I’m not getting married,” I said lamely.
“Maybe not to Robert, no. But what about in the future?” She went on with indisputable logic that was vintage Kennedy. “I can’t even imagine what this secrecy must’ve done to your relationship. When you brought him home for Christmas, you said he was a friend.”
I scrunched my brow as my phone started up again. “Don’t be ridiculous. He was a friend. One I just happened to have sex with. Besides, are you seriously giving me relationship advice?”
She sent me a decidedly cool look. She shouldn’t have bothered. I was already regretting my impulsive words. “Sorry,” I finally muttered. “I just…. It’s been a rough night.”
“You should answer that. You know a ringing phone drives me nuts.” She headed back out of the kitchen to the living room, and I stared at her back for a moment. My phone rang for the third time, and I swore and dug in my pocket.
“Yeah?”
“Wow.” Blue’s deep voice sounded vaguely impressed. “You only made me call three times.”
“I figured answering was the polite thing to do.”
“And since when do you do the polite thing?” His chuckle was warm and soft. “I figured I’d call and congratulate you. It didn’t seem like the type of thing to leave on voicemail.”
Congratulate me. It bothered me that he wasn’t bothered that I was possibly getting engaged to someone else. I felt a little… deflated.
I cleared my throat. It was hard to hear him clearly over the din in the background—a hip-hop beat, loud voices, and the occasional raucous laughter. “Where are you, anyway? I thought you had a game.”
“I did. One of the players wanted to show off his new boat, and it turned into a thing. I thought I’d swing by after—”
“There is no after. We’re pretty much wrapping things up over here.” The fact that his party sounded a thousand times more fun than mine didn’t improve my mood. “Sounds like you guys are having a good time. You must’ve won.”
“Of course. I can’t think of a better way to kick off a season than winning our last preseason game.” At my lack of response, he went on. “So where’s Robert?”
Probably at a witch doctor’s house asking him to construct a skinny, black-haired, gray-eyed voodoo doll named Kelly.
“Gone,” I said shortly. “I told him no. Well, to be perfectly accurate, I said yes, and then I said no.”
