The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,114

cut it out, comparing him to his sisters every time you open your goddamn mouth. You can just cut it out. Did the rest of you know he lives in a run-down apartment, wears cheap clothes, has glasses that won’t stay on his face, because he’s paying most of the bills for your parents? I didn’t think so. Great. So now you can take turns. Hugh can write out next month’s check; that’s the price for being a bigoted, closed-minded piece of trash.” Jem’s chest was heaving. The glassy ocean where he’d been swimming felt far away now, and the world had come dangerously close again. “All right, I think we’ve covered the big talking points. If I’ve got any luck at all, I’ll never have to see you miserable excuses for human beings again. Also, brunch smelled really good, and I think I saw a quiche.” Jem could hear himself losing focus, so he flipped them double birds and jogged back to the front of the house.

Tean was standing by the gate, staring, with Scipio in his harness.

“I realize you probably never want to see me again,” Jem said, “but those disposable ass plugs needed to hear that at least once.”

Tean swallowed. Off in the distance, the engine of a tractor-trailer roared.

“Ok,” Jem said. “I’ll get out of here.”

“I think,” Tean said, and then he paused and licked his lips. “I think maybe I could go for some McDonald’s.”

Jem felt the grin exploding across his face. He tried to make his voice sound respectably butch as he said, “Well, we didn’t get brunch.”

“Yeah,” Tean said. He sounded like he was talking from somewhere far off. “Yeah.”

A neighbor family had emerged across the street, and they were singing an annoyingly lilting song that sounded like a show tune; it had something vaguely to do with mothers.

“So maybe we should go to McDonald’s,” Jem said.

“Yeah,” Tean said.

A woman who had to be in her eighties was standing on the porch, dabbing at her eyes as she listened to her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren singing. Jem was pretty sure he heard a few raunchy lines in the lyrics, but nobody seemed to hesitate.

“Teancum Leon,” Jem finally said. “Would you please drive me to McDonald’s so I can buy you breakfast?”

Tean smiled, covered his mouth, and nodded.

31

They ate McDonald’s. They drove home. Scipio, exhausted, dropped onto the dog bed and immediately fell asleep.

“Be right back,” Tean said, tossing his keys on the counter and heading for the bathroom.

Jem opened the sliding glass door. Spring air rushed in, smelling like the flowering trees below, like new grass, a hint of cooking onions from one of the other apartments. The sun was still high in the sky. It seemed impossible that this was the same day. Everything felt like it had shifted, like they’d fast-forwarded a hundred years. Jem glanced at the clock; it wasn’t even noon.

When the door opened and Tean came out, his eyes were red.

“Oh no,” Jem said.

“No, I’m ok. I just—it kind of caught up with me in there.”

“I’m sorry. I know that’ll be super awkward when you have to work it out.”

“Don’t be. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to work it out. I don’t even know if there’s something to work out. They’ll probably do what they always do. They’ll wait. They’ll hold out. Because I’ve always been the one to apologize. When I came out, I ended up having to apologize. For coming out. I mean, not in those words. But I had to apologize for how I sprang it on them. I had to apologize for not giving them enough time to process it. I had to apologize for not understanding how difficult it was for them.”

“Fuck,” Jem said, drawing out the word.

“More or less.” Tean wiped his eyes; he was crying again, just a little, as he dropped into a dinette chair. “I think I’m done apologizing.”

“Hell yes.”

“What the fuck is wrong with them? I mean, really. You saw them. You met them. Just tell me what the fuck is wrong with them so I’ll quit feeling like something is really fucking wrong with me.”

“Nothing’s wrong with you.” Jem moved to stand behind Tean, putting his hands on Tean’s shoulders, and began to rub small circles with his thumbs, fighting the knots he felt there. “They’re just who they are. People are who they are, how they’re raised, what’s been put in their brains, all the way they learn to cope with being alive.