silence for a long while, the things we weren’t willing to say making the air thick with tension. “Well, you better get ready for work. We can eat ice cream and watch movies on the couch tomorrow,” Lance finally offered.
Placing a hand on my brother’s shoulder, I nodded solemnly before disappearing.
Something told me this conversation was far from over.
“Why the long face, hot stuff?” Rose asked as I mopped the floor after closing. My feet were tired. There was beer on my shirt. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and cuddle Decker.
“I’m just tired.”
“What kind of tired?” Rose asked. “The emotional tired? The physically tired? The hopeless sort of tired? Are you the kind of tired that lamely uses a universal term for exhaustion but you’re really just falling apart?”
Rose was spit firing questions, one after the other, and I felt my body give in. My face contorted into pain, the kind that wasn’t exhaustion. “Oh, baby, come here. Is this about Decker?”
My mouth dropped open. “You know?”
“That boy tells me everything. Of course I know. I’m actually a little offended that it’s taken you so long to open up to me,” she tsked while grabbing the mop from my hand and wrapping me in a big hug. She smelled like vanilla and incense.
“Lance almost caught us tonight, and all I wanted to do was tell him,” I whimpered.
“So why didn’t you?” Rose guided me to a booth and sat me down, reaching across the table to hold my hand in solidarity.
“I was going to. But then I looked at Decker and saw his face. He looked terrified. It’s a lot of pressure, you know? Walking this tightrope between telling Lance and preserving their relationship while trying to build my own with Decker. Add the issue of school and living together, and it’s a clusterfuck of massive proportions.”
Rose nodded as I spoke, while pulling a joint out from her shirt pocket and lighting it up. She took a slow, deep inhale and held it in her chest for a long while before blowing out rings of smoke. “You love them, don’t you?” Rose finally asked with a smile. “I’m so proud of you. Look at that big ol’ heart opening up for the world to see.”
“That's your takeaway from all of this?” I asked incredulously.
“You’re focusing on all the wrong stuff. When you arrived in my office, you were closed off. Your aura was jaded and dark. Now you love two people so much that you’re crying in front of me. If that’s not progress, then I don’t know what is.”
I mulled over her words while tracing scratches in the wood on the table. “I do love them. It’s why I feel so selfish and guilty. My mama never cared who she bulldozed over to get what she wanted. I can’t help but feel like I’m doing that with Decker. I want—love—him so much that I’m willing to potentially destroy Lance in the process. It’s at the point where it’s not just our relationship that’ll hurt my brother, it’s the betrayal of keeping it secret that’ll ruin him.”
“It’s gonna burn, babe. But it’s all temporary.”
“Temporary? How can you be so sure?” I asked with a huff.
“Because, child, this whole damn life is temporary. You’re not promised forever. You’re not even promised tomorrow. You get one life. One heart. One opportunity to make your existence count, and even if Lance never speaks to the two of you again, it’ll all be temporary, even when it feels like forever, it’s not. And I don’t know your brother, but he’s not going to throw away decades of friendship over this. He’s not going to push you away like everyone else in your life has, Blake.”
“It’s Blakely, Rose. Blakely.”
“Atta girl.” Rose took another drag of her joint and closed her eyes happily as she held it in. Her smile was infectious, and I wished I could have the sort of confidence and optimism she spewed daily. “Tell them, Blakely. Life’s too short for secrets. Call Decker up right now and say it’s time to put his big boy panties on and handle his shit.”
“Right now?” I stuttered.
“Right. Now. I’m gonna sit with you while you tell him.”
I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and stared at the screen for a long moment, debating on whether or not I could actually do this. My chest constricted as I pulled up his name and hit dial. My stomach fell the moment his