it that if I didn’t know better I would say was pity.
“Shit!” I jump up from the table, completely and utterly mortified. I know Sam is my best friend, and I know I can tell him anything, and he is probably not looking at me right now thinking I am the biggest idiot in the whole world, but that’s how I’m feeling.
I am the biggest idiot in the whole world.
“Cat?” Sam jumps up after me. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you didn’t know. You have great gaydar. How could you not tell? I’m so sorry. I can’t believe you didn’t … Oh God. I’m sorry.”
I turn from the stairs, which I am climbing in a bid to crawl back into bed and hide under the covers, never wanting to look Sam in the eye again.
“I cannot believe what a fool I seem.”
“Sweetie,” he says gently, taking my hand and pulling me back toward the kitchen, “if you knew the number of times I’ve hit on straight men convinced they were interested in me, you would not be feeling a fool. And he’s not swishy. And he’s American, and frankly, even I wasn’t sure. I mean, I kind of thought he was at a certain point in the evening, but I don’t always get it right.”
“But how can his mother not know?”
“Apparently his dad was a huge homophobe, and he just decided it was easier to not tell anyone. It’s why he moved away for so long. He’s planning on telling his mother, just hasn’t found the right time, although she’s constantly trying to fix him up with women, so he’s realizing he’s just going to have to bite the bullet and get it over with soon.”
“How do you live with that kind of secret from your parents?” I say, realizing, as the words come out of my mouth, that my mother lived with a far bigger secret, one that would have blown her life apart.
“His mother would be fine,” I say, knowing that her years in program will have prepared her for this. “Shocked, probably, given that she thinks her son is the most eligible straight single man on the island, but she’ll accept it. She has years of recovery. I can’t believe he wouldn’t tell her.”
“He said on some levels his mother is extraordinary, and accepting, and loving, but she’s also a devout Christian, and has particularly strong views on homosexuals, as she calls them.”
“So he actually kissed you?”
“Are you sure you want to hear about this?” He peers at me dubiously.
“Yes. Now that I am over my utter mortification at fantasizing a future with a gay man, yes, I want to hear all about it.”
“Oh my God, Cat,” Sam burbles, suddenly as giddy as a teenager. “He is gorgeous! We talked about everything, the whole him being gay thing, but I wasn’t sure he was interested in me, and then, when we left the Club Car and were walking down a side street, he just grabbed me, pushed me back against a wall, and started kissing me. It was the craziest, sexiest thing that’s happened to me in years.”
I pull the front of my shirt away from my chest, fanning myself. “Okay, so I’m not supremely jealous. Given that the last person I kissed was Jason, and that was probably a year and a half ago, I could throw up, I’m so jealous. So it was amazing, yes?”
“Out of this world amazing.”
I look closely at Sam. “Did you have sex?”
His hand flies to his chest, a horrified expression on his face. “Cat! What kind of boy do you think I am?”
“A horny one?”
“Well, yes. I certainly was last night, but no, we didn’t have sex. Not on the first date.”
“Are you seeing him again?”
“I bloody well hope so. He apparently has some kind of social tonight and invited us.”
“Both of us?”
“Yes.”
“So I can be the big fat gooseberry?”
“Well, it was nice of him to invite you.”
“There’s no way I’m going to come and be the third wheel in your budding romance. I’ll feel like an idiot.”
“Apparently there’ll be a few single men there. Straight ones. I think we should go.”
“I don’t know whether I’m interested in meeting anyone. Right now I need to stay focused on raising Annie and being a good mum.”
Sam raises an eyebrow. “And that’s why you were all aquiver last night at the possibility of Eddie being straight?”
“Can you please not remind me? Let’s just move on.”
And we do.
* * *
Annie emerges,