Finn's Fantasy (Maine Men #1) - K.C. Wells Page 0,36

“I kinda got that.”

“For me, agreeing to the divorce was the starting point.” Joel smiled. “I guess that sounds a little odd. Divorce is an end, right? But Carrie being so honest with me about how she felt, encouraged me to show her the same honesty. There was no need for me to hide the truth any longer.” He shivered, recalling the fear that had consumed him, right up to the moment when Carrie had burst into tears. Not tears of sadness, but relief that he’d finally felt able to share.

Finn was so still. “The truth?”

“I think telling her the truth was in some way responsible for our relationship today. Now we have no secrets, yet from the moment we met, there was one huge secret—and it was mine.”

Finn said nothing, but stared at him.

“Carrie said we grew apart, but I know deep down why that was. I knew it was my fault.” She’d denied that, of course, but Joel would never be convinced otherwise.

“It can’t have been that horrendous,” Finn remonstrated. “I don’t think you’d be as close as you are, if you’d shared something awful, something bad enough to break you up.”

Joel had gone around Robin Hood’s barn long enough. “Coming out to her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” His heart pounded.

Finn swallowed. “When you say coming out…?”

Joel nodded. He lifted his chin to meet Finn’s questioning gaze head on. “I’ve always known I was gay.” He waited for some reaction—a gasp, a wide-eyed stare, anything—but Finn didn’t as much as flinch. Joel raised both hands, his palms toward Finn. “I know there are probably a lot of people who’d say I’m bi, not gay. And technically? They’d be right. Yes, I did sleep with Carrie. But she’s the only woman I’ve ever slept with. The thing is, I never thought of myself as bi. For as long as I can remember, I was more interested in guys than girls. I mean, we’re talking since elementary school here.”

Finn’s breathing hitched, but he said nothing. His lack of disgust encouraged Joel to continue.

“When I was younger…” Joel’s cheeks were on fire at the recollection of his early exploits. “Did you have sleepovers when you were younger?” Finn nodded. “Me too. Only thing was, we didn’t just read comics or watch TV. I was always spending my time trying to get the other guy—or guys—to fool around.” He smiled. “It worked sometimes too.”

Finn widened his eyes. “Oh my God. I bet you were a handful when you were growing up.”

Joel stared at him. “If one word of what I’d gotten up to had found its way back to my parents… I grew up in a very conservative state.”

“That explains it.” When Joel gave Finn a puzzled glance, he smiled. “You don’t sound like you’re a born-and-bred Mainer.”

Joel laughed. “Lord no. I was raised in Idaho. Carrie and I moved to Maine when Nate was little. My family was extremely conservative, but by that I don’t mean religious. All through my childhood, through my teenage years, we were fed the line of ‘get married, have kids.’ You have no idea of the pressure. There I was at age seventeen, in the mid-90s, desperately wanting to be myself, in a place where most people thought being gay was synonymous with having HIV.” He sighed. “And trying just as desperately to keep secret the fact that all through high school, I had a boyfriend.”

Finn took a drink from his glass. “Wow. That must’ve taken some doing.”

Joel nodded. “We went through college together too. His name was David. We spent most of our time together. But there was no way we could come out.”

“Why not? Look, I don’t begin to understand what you must’ve gone through. But surely… once you got to college…”

“That didn’t matter. David and I knew coming out wasn’t an option. We’d have lost our friends and our family. The only way to live as openly gay would have been to move out of state. And for both of us that wasn’t an option either. So… we came to a decision.”

Finn exhaled slowly. “You dated girls.”

“We both did. The first girl I dated was Carrie. We’d been together three months when she suddenly asked me to marry her.”

Finn smiled at that. “Carrie doesn’t mess about, does she?”

Joel chuckled. “Not when she sees something she wants. I hope this isn’t TMI, but at that point, we hadn’t had sex yet. This is probably where I should say David and I