Page 64 of Uncharted

That stopped him cold. “What?”

“It’s about Jake.”

“What about him?”

“And…me.”

He squinted. “Is this about everyone saying you two are fucking or together?”

“Well,” I said slowly.

“If you want them to stop, fucking tell them. Don’t ask me to yell at them for being idiots; I do it enough as it is, according to someone,” he said with a glower.

“We kind of…are?”

“I…okay,” he said, taken off balance again. “Well, I don’t need to know that.”

“But kind of aren’t.”

Xander stared at me, pursing his lips. “How about this? You tell me what the fuck you need from me, because I’m lost.”

So I explained what had been going on with Jake and me. Thank God I had the sense to keep the details out; he didn’t need to know everything we’d done, a brief little ‘we’ve been fooling around and had sex a couple of times’ was enough. Xander listened while I stammered and sputtered, the look on his face a horribly amusing mixture of discomfort and wonder.

“Great, so I’m really hoping that was the context I need to understand whatever you actually came here for,” he said. “Because if that’s it⁠—”

“No, I just…I wanted you to understand that stuff has…happened,” I said, tapping my glass nervously. “And I want to keep doing stuff. But I’m also like…freaked the fuck out about it, Xander. I don’t know what’s going on in my head. It’s like when I’m not around him, I’m almost ready to just move away from it all, bury it, and forget it happened. Then I’m around him and it’s just the two of us and suddenly it’s more than just us and I’m ready to go and sucking him off in the shower…and I’m so fucking sorry I blurted that out.”

“I’m sorry too,” Xander said.

“I just…you’re the only person I know who spent their whole life being straight and then ending up with a guy somehow,” I said, hanging my head and staring at my knees. “I don’t…how?”

“How what?”

“Did you do it? Did you…work past it?”

Xander took a breath. “Christ, never thought I’d have someone coming to my door to ask how not to be straight. What a fucking weird-ass world we live in.”

“Tell me about it. I didn’t see this coming. Everyone else fucking did apparently, but I didn’t,” I said with a huff. “But I guess Jake didn’t see it either, so I’m not alone.”

There was a pause. “And how’s he doing with it?”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Seriously? It’s Jake. Save for the world’s tiniest list of exceptions, he takes everything in stride and rolls with it. He’s enjoying himself and…fucking unbothered while I’m losing my mind. He’s…being good though. He knows I’m struggling, and he’s not rushing me or making me feel bad. He’s letting me work through it, but…I don’t know if I am working through it. So…here I am.”

“Yeah, dunno why I asked after that idiot,” he scoffed. “I mean, I don’t know what to tell you here, kid. I mean…yeah, it was like how it was with you two, just not my best friend. It was like, I saw Colin and he just…stuck,” he explained, something passing over his face, almost as if he wanted to laugh but thought better of it. “It was…a memorable first meeting.”

“When you caught him jerking off in the showers to thoughts of Jake?”

“I…what the fuck did you say?”

“Oh, God, are you telling me Jake was right? Fuck, I wish I hadn’t said that, now I have to live with that knowledge.”

“You? How the fuck do you think I feel?”

“Pissed, like usual.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll deal with that and Colin later. Point is, let’s say you’re right, and that happened⁠—”

His face told me that’s definitely what happened.