Page 40 of My Brother’s Best Friend

I nodded. My brain was oddly muted. Like it was lying under a blanket of ash.

Why wasn’t I panicking? I should be panicking, right? I’d built up the idea of coming out so much, tortured myself over how I could never tell anyone, about how it could change everything. But here was someone who knew, and I was…okay.

The strangest sense of weightlessness filled me.

My heart felt raw, exposed, but not altogether bad. More like the underbrush had been burned off. A forest fire clearing away dead wood.

Granted, Deacon wasn’t Levi. He wasn’t my grandparents. He certainly wasn’t the rest of the island. But he was someone. And suddenly, I was on the verge of tears.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Nothing to thank me for.” Deacon’s words were firm, but his smile was kind. “And we don’t have to keep talking about this. Really. There’s no pressure for you to do anything at all. You don’t have to tell anyone else, or download ten different dating apps, or do anything you don’t want to—”

“Oh, fuck,” I said, remembering Miller’s messages from this morning. I’d never responded to them, and he’d asked if I wanted to meet up tonight.

“Everything okay?” Deacon asked.

I ran a hand over my face. “Yeah, no, I just—there’s this guy.”

“Shit, really?”

“No, not—not like that.” I waved his words off. “We’re not dating. Just hooking up. Except we’re not even doing that, because he didn’t show up when we were going to meet last night, and then he apologized, and asked if I wanted to get together tonight instead. And I haven’t responded yet.”

“Oh.” Deacon’s eyes went wide. “Well, do you want to see him?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I thought I did, at first. I was the one who messaged him, because he said he was just looking to hook up, and I had this whole plan about how I wanted to get some experience under my belt—experience with guys, that is,” I added, deciding that Deacon didn’t need to know every detail about my desperation, “before I actually came out and tried to date anyone. But then things kind of changed.”

Deacon tilted his head to the side. “Did you start to like him?”

“Not him,” I said. “Someone else. Someone who’s very, very off-limits. And not interested. And who doesn’t even know I’m gay, because no one does. And it’s absolutely ridiculous to not want to hook up with this other guy just because of a pointless crush, but—”

“Is he straight?” Deacon asked.

“Who, the hookup guy?”

“The other one.”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then how do you know it’s pointless?”

“Because it is! He doesn’t like me.”

“But how do you know?”

“Because I just…do. I would know if he did.”

“Maybe.” Deacon shrugged. “Or maybe he doesn’t realize you like guys, so he’s been hiding it. Maybe he thinks you would never like him, so he thinks he has no chance.”

“That’s ridiculous. Have you met me? I’m not exactly beating people away with a stick.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’ve done such a good job of hiding yourself away that half the island thinks you hate them.”

I stared at Deacon. It was like a funhouse-mirror version of what I’d said to Jordan earlier today. It didn’t sound right. But then, I’d been wrong about what people thought of me before. Case in point, Deacon being here at all.

“Look, I’m not saying you have to run up to him and declare your love or anything,” Deacon said. “I’m not even saying you have to come out to him, or anyone. What I am saying is that you owe it to yourself to treat your feelings with respect. And if your feelings mean you don’t want to hook up with the other guy, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But maybe I should. I mean, what guy is going to want me when I’m completely inexperienced?”