Pretty Sweet - Christina Lee Page 0,75

his chest, those three words dangerously close to falling from my lips.

28

Jake

I laughed at some stupid prank Tucker pulled on Brett with the tire pressure gauge on the car he was servicing.

“Paybacks are a bitch,” Brett said, pointing his lug wrench at Tucker, then turning to me. “And you—normally you’re grouchy about his antics.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I enjoy making fun of you.”

“Nah, shit feels different now.” He waved his hand. “You know what I mean.”

And there it was. It had taken him almost all day to comment on my coming out at the barbecue on Sunday. All morning I’d caught him staring at me as if trying to figure me out. One time, Tad had smacked him upside the head and told him to cut it out, but I’d pretended not to notice.

I clenched my jaw. “Shit suddenly feels different because of who I’m choosing to spend my time with?”

“No, because you’re finally getting laid on the regular,” Tad said, playfully pushing my shoulder.

“Jealous?” I threw back. He’d been the cooler of the two of them, and no doubt it had everything to do with Mia, who probably wouldn’t easily admit that she liked him too—she spent almost the entire barbecue hanging out with him. She was all smiles this morning and told me she loved Seth, and coincidentally enough, Tad was all smiles too, so who knew what the hell that meant. None of my business.

Speaking of my business, I looked back at Brett, who was scrunching his nose at me, either in disgust or confusion; it was hard to decipher. I folded my arms across my chest. “What the hell, dude?”

He opened his mouth, then shut it, before opening it again and settling on, “So…you’re really like…dating a guy?”

“Don’t be rude,” Tucker said as he passed by us with a new canister of oil for the Mazda he was working on.

“I’m not,” Brett replied in an exasperated tone. “I’m trying to wrap my brain around it.”

“Okay, I hear you. So get it out. Ask whatever the hell you want so we can move on.” And be done with this. Imagine if I asked him five hundred questions about his dating prospects. He wouldn’t like it one bit. Or maybe he would if he could tell me all the salacious details.

His cheeks flooded with color, and I hoped that meant he was embarrassed, but when it came to Brett, I highly doubted it. “I just…didn’t even suspect it. You’ve been with women. Were you really gay this whole time?”

Okay, then. I took a moment to try to rein in my thoughts in order to respond calmly. He was allowed to be curious even if it bordered on ignorant. I could answer him the best way possible, then be done with it.

But Tad beat me to the punch. “Have you never heard of someone being bisexual, you moron?”

Brett narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, sure, but I always thought that was a cop-out.”

“A cop-out?” I scoffed. Why was I even surprised?

“Yeah, like, you either can’t decide, or you use that term as an excuse until you make up your mind.”

When Tad stepped forward to spout off at him, I held up my hand. I could fight my own battles. And then some.

“You honestly don’t think someone can be attracted to both sexes and then choose to spend their time with whoever makes them most happy?” I wasn’t even going to bring up the term pansexual because it might confuse his pea brain even more.

“Fuck, dude,” Tucker said suddenly from beneath the truck. “Use the Internet and look shit up. Educate yourself. It’s not up to Jake to do that for you.”

There was a long pause, and I almost felt guilty, but Tucker did have a point.

Brett dipped his head, apparently self-conscious enough. Hallelujah. “Yeah, okay, I’ll do that.”

It got quiet after that as we all went back to work, and I was afraid it might be awkward between us from there on out. But the payoff will have been worth it. The stuff I’d shared with Seth, the way he’d taken care of me after my little breakdown all because my mom was finally moving on with her life, was something I would always be grateful for. He could’ve freaked or had any number of reactions. Instead he held me while I melted into a damned puddle, but it had been such a release to get it out, I would’ve done anything to make it up to him afterward.

Putting