Page 24 of The Librarian’s Familiar

“True. My problems are fairly small.” He shouldn’t be complaining.

“Problems aren’t competition, though. Food, shelter, and love are the three things people need.” Harvey ticked them off on his fingers.

“Yeah.” August nodded. He should be happy with two out of three. If he included his family, he had three out of three.

“People also need something to do, to belong,” Keaton said, putting on his boots.

He had no skills, aside from chasing after a puck. He didn’t want to be a commentator, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a coach either. If the game was done with him, maybe he was done with it. He could always spend the rest of these days in Claw Lake teaching the local children how to play until they got good enough to move away from home.

Not every kid would be able to do it, though. Some would crack without their families close by.

“That’s not it, is it?” Keaton shoulder checked him.

It was part of it, but not all of it. He didn’t have the balls to tell them, and that was like a punch to the gut that left him gasping for air.

Fuck.

If he had the balls to tell his brothers, he would’ve done so years ago. They wouldn’t have gone flapping their mouths to the media, no matter how much lip they gave him.

That was a terrible realization as it meant he was a coward.

If he told someone that it meant it was real, existing outside of him, and his brothers would expect him to start dating. Instead of talking about their wives, sisters, or best friends, they’d start talking up their brothers-in-law or their best friends. They’d expect him to step up instead of hiding.

He sighed and lowered his head to his hands.

He could almost feel the silent conversation his brothers were having about him over his head.

“I’m fine, really,” August grumbled into his legs.

“Oh yes, you’re being very convincing,” Harvey said.

“I hate you,” August muttered. Was he too young for a midlife crisis? Is that what this was? The crushing sense that his life was over, and he wasn’t ready for the rapid change in direction. He wanted off the ride. He wanted to go back to how things had been. He didn’t know how to do this.

Any of it.

Charlie made it seem easy. He laughed, then winked and looked him in the eye as he mentally undressed him all at the same time. He swallowed.

“Want a drink?”

“I’m not sure alcohol is going to help.” He was almost sure alcohol would make it worse. It usually did.

“Probably not, but sometimes it’s easier to talk, and we can all pretend that it didn’t happen tomorrow if we need to,” Keaton said.

August snorted. He shouldn’t need the false courage that alcohol provided. “I need to tell you something.”

“Are you dying?” Harvey asked, all humor gone from his voice.

August lifted his head and stared at his brother. “I’m not dying. If a puck to the head didn’t kill me…nothing can.”

Sure, he’d broken his cheekbone and eye socket, and he’d had numerous other injuries over the years. Nothing but he couldn’t shake off by spending some time as a bear. Perhaps it was the same. He could always wander off on four feet for a few weeks until he was able to face himself again.

“To be fair, you have a pretty hard skull and not a lot of brain,” Keaton tried to make a joke out of the situation.

August gave a small laugh, because what else was he supposed to do? He was not the smart one of the family. Harvey was an airplane mechanic who moonlighted at the family hardware store, while Keaton had taken over the store. His sister was a pilot. He was just a dumb jock, and he’d heard plenty of those jokes growing up, but they also cheered him on fiercely. No one was allowed to shit on him except for them.

He had no reason to doubt that it would be different this time.

The words formed on his tongue, and he let them spill out instead of swallowing them. “I’m gay.”