Page 51 of Backward Motion

Sam could see the pain in his eyes. Knowing what he knew, knowing everything he’d struggled against.

Sam’s mother pushed out her chair and stood. She jutted her chin, and her eyes narrowed into slits. “I’ll save you the trouble, Ian. If you won’t extend my son the decency of an apology, we’ll be leaving.”

Sam remembered that voice. All those times he’d come home from school and collapsed on his bed, hoping no one would hear him cry. It was his mom who would appear at his side. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are,” she’d say, her steady hand on his shoulder. “They don’t know a goddamn thing.” That voice, those words, had gotten him through that last horrible year in Oakdale.

“Sam has worked too hard and overcome too much to sit around and put up with that kind of talk, thank you very much.” His mom looped her purse straps over her arm. “Congratulations, Connor. Lovely to see you, Maureen.”

Sam stood, his eyes meeting Connor’s for the briefest of moments before he turned and wordlessly followed his mother out of the room.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Connor paced his living room in a fury, still in his award-night getup.How did this happen? How, in the space of a few minutes, did it all unravel so spectacularly?

He cringed as he recalled the shock on Sam’s face when his father spoke those words. Even worse was his complete inability to do anything about it. His own father had insulted his boyfriend, and Connor had sat there and let him. Because unlike Sam, he was still protected by the shield of his decades-old fiction. His cowardice.

Humiliated, Connor had left with his parents shortly after Sam. They’d raised a few eyebrows from the rest of the audience, who sat waiting for the remaining presentations. He’d driven his parents home without a word and helped his dad into the house. His mother stopped him at the door as he was leaving.

“Please, Connor,” she pleaded. “He really is proud of you. But with everything that’s happened, he’s in a dark place. He’s lost his way. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“He knows exactly what he’s saying,” Connor said through gritted teeth. “Sam didn’t deserve that.”

His mother shook her head, her eyes sad. “No, he didn’t. And neither did you.”

Connor had left before he could read too much into her words.

A soft knock at the front door pulled him from his internal spiral. Connor’s heart leapt. He strode down the hall and opened the door to find Sam, no longer in his beautiful green suit but wearingjeans and a baggy sweater. Connor searched the man’s face, desperate to know what he was thinking, but Sam only graced him with a small, guarded smile.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Connor said, holding open the door. Sam stepped inside, and together, they walked into the living room. He stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thanks. I won’t be long.”

It hung over them like foreshadowing, and Connor’s earlier hope morphed into fear. “Sam, I’m so sorry about what happened tonight.”

Sam’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “The photos were a bad idea. I should have known they wouldn’t go down well. You’ve been clear from the start about how much the business means to your dad and how you want to do right by him. You went along with it because I twisted your arm, and that wasn’t fair.”

Connor shook his head. “No, it wasn’t a bad idea. I—”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Sam said in a strained voice. “Even so, he shouldn’t talk to you like that.”

Connor let out a heavy sigh. “You don’t understand. He’s had a free pass for years. Kind of hard to knock someone with a debilitating disease.”

“That’s an excuse. You’re making excuses for him.” Sam’s voice rose. “You don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

Sam’s conviction hit against a truth Connor struggled to accept—harder still to hear from someone else. But what did Sam know? He didn’t have to stand by and watch as his father became a shell of the person he’d once been. Would mouthing off and stirring up trouble make any difference to that eventual conclusion or just make the journey more difficult?

“That’s a bit rich coming from you.” Connor hated himself the moment he said it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The flash of fear that crossed Sam’s face made Connor’s chest ache. “You think I should’ve stood up to those assholes at school? Given Plimmerton some choice words when he forced himself on me?”

“No, God, that’s not what I meant,” Connor said, covering his face with his hand. “High school was pure survival. All any of us could do was get through that. But that night when we were together after the movie, what you said...”Hasn’t exactly stopped people before.“You don’t have to accept whatever people give you.”

Sam fell silent, just like that first time at trivia, when the team had circled too close to what he didn’t want to share.

“And look, you’re right—my dad’s a dick, he treats me like crap, but the situation’s more complicated than that,” Connor went on, trying to explain away his father’s bad behavior for Sam’s sake as much as his own. “Life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. It took my dad getting sick for me to realize I couldn’t afford to be a fuckup anymore. One of those moments when everything comes to a head, like what you’re going through now—”

“What I’m going through?” Sam echoed flatly. “What are you talking about?”