“I’ll go grab her, and you look for Emily,” I tell him.

Walking over to Erin, I stand next to the chair she’s on top of and when she looks down at me, she clutches my hands and squeals, “Jase!”

“Come on. It’s time to go.”

“What? Hell no!”

“It’s late, and you’re wasted. Come on. Your brother is already flipping from seeing you over here. Be lucky it’s me dragging you out and not him.”

Without any warning, she jumps onto me, wrapping her legs around my waist, almost knocking me over.

“Shit.” I peel her off of me, and she stumbles over onto the floor. “How much did you drink?” I ask as I pick her up.

“I dunno.”

“Come on.” I hold her up and lead her to the front door. I turn to scan the room to see where Mark is, and I spot him holding Emily, who seems to be in the same drunken condition as Erin.

Walking up to me, he shakes his head, and tosses me the keys. “You’re driving,” he demands, and when the two girls see each other, they practically leap into each other’s arms, giggling uncontrollably. “This shit’s obnoxious.”

We practically have to carry them out to the car. Crawling on their knees, they both pile carelessly into the back seat. I hop into the front, and when Mark gets in, I hear a loud thud followed by laughing. Looking back behind my seat, Erin has fallen onto the floorboard.

“You’re a sexy bitch,” Emily slurs as Erin climbs back onto the seat.

“Mark, you need to get their seatbelts on.”

He sighs at me when he gets back out of the car to open the back door and helps them out. Their laughing is so distracting, and it takes all the concentration I have to drive on these slick roads and get us home without wrecking.

Pulling into the driveway, the girls are still loud as hell.

“How are we going to get them inside without waking up your parents?” I ask Mark as he looks at me and then back at the circus in the back seat.

“You guys have to shut up if you don’t want to get busted by Mom and Dad,” he tells them, and they burst out into an even louder fit of laughter.

Turning around, I say, “Seriously. You two have to calm down so we can get you upstairs.”

“You’re so serious,” Emily says in mock sternness, and I shake my head as I open the door to get out.

We help the girls out of the car, and Erin clings herself to me. Walking up the driveway, we hit a patch of ice and Erin goes down, taking me with her as we hit the pavement hard. On my back, I look up to see Mark joining in with his sisters as they all laugh. Picking myself up, and grabbing Erin, we manage to make it inside and up the stairs with minimal noise. Mark finds a bottle of aspirin and says, “I’ll be right back,” as he walks out of the room and down the hall.

I take a quick shower, more for the warmth than anything, and when I walk out of the bathroom, Mark is already in bed. I slip under the covers next to him and he pulls me in close, facing him. “I’m beat,” he breathes out, and I nod my head. “Sorry about being in such a crap mood tonight.”

I wrap my legs around his and ask, “You wanna talk about it?”

He takes his time and then says, “That guy is the reason I moved to Seattle.”

“What happened?”

“We used to see each other during our senior year in high school. I wasn’t out yet, and by the looks of him tonight with that chick, he still isn’t.” He shifts his eyes down when he continues. “He was the first guy I ever got involved with, and at the time, I thought I was in love. But his older brother walked in on us and caught us kissing. That was it. He totally flipped, calling me a faggot and threatening to tell everyone that I was gay if I even looked at him the wrong way.”

“God,” I sigh, wanting to kick the crap out of that guy, but in a way, I also understand him.

“I backed off, but he wound up telling some guys at school right before graduation. They made my life hell, taunting me and shit. Word started spreading, and I knew my sisters would hear about it soon. I was scared my parents would hear it too. It was a really fucked up time, and that’s when I started having trouble sleeping and having nightmares. I was forced into telling them. I was so worried that my secret would ruin the relationship with my family.”

“Why? I mean, they seem so down to earth,” I say.

“Yeah, but I had no idea how they would react to having a gay son. My sisters were mad at me for a while. After that summer, everyone knew. I was already gone to Seattle, but my sisters were here, dealing with everything I had escaped from. When school started back up, they were just known as the sisters of the gay guy that just graduated. They didn’t talk to me for months. It killed me ‘cause I love them so much, and I felt like their being bullied was all my fault, and I just left—I ran away.”

“That’s so messed up.”

“It was a rough time all around,” he says. “But it worked out for me, for all of us. Before I told them though, I honestly thought that they wouldn’t take it well. That it would be done; I’d be out.”

He looks up at me when I infer, “Like me?”

Nodding his head, he admits, “It kills me to know that my fear is your reality.” He rests his forehead against mine and says, “That’s why I wanted you to come here with me. I felt like I needed to give you this.”

Keeping my eyes closed, I ask, “But why me? After what I did with Kyle . . . well, it just doesn’t seem too far off from Carter.”

He doesn’t respond for a while, so when I open my eyes and look into his, he finally tells me, “Because when I ran into you that night at Remedy and you were so honest, the guilt was written all over you, I just knew that I would wind up falling in love with you.”

“I don’t want to imagine not being with you,” I whisper as I lean in and seal my lips with his.

I hold him close, and don’t even question the love I feel for him. I can’t. It’s heavy and palpable. It’s everything I have been missing and makes up for all the time I had been avoiding what was in me. What I was. What I am.

Everyone is in the living room while Andrea and I have spent the majority of the morning in the kitchen. We just cracked a bottle of wine and are making a few things for the family to snack on while we finish up everything for Thanksgiving dinner.

Taking the wrapped Brie out of the oven, I set it on the platter that Andrea has already set out and layered crackers on.

She takes the platter and says, “I’ll be right back,” as she heads to the other room.

I’ve missed having this. I used to have this with my own family, but that feels like forever ago. When she returns, she asks, “Could you get the bag of potatoes out of the fridge for me?”

“Yeah.”

“So who taught you how to cook?” she asks as I hand her the bag, and she dumps them into the sink to wash them.

“My mom. It was something we always did together since I was little.” I step next to her and start chopping the potatoes after she scrubs them.

“Well, I’m impressed,” she says as she hands me another potato. “I hope I’m not intruding, but Mark told me that you haven’t been talking to them much lately.” Looking over at her, she turns to face me. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t be,” I assure her. “Honestly, we haven’t spoken much since my sister died.”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she gasps with concern flushed across her face.

“It’s okay. It was a while ago. We were both in high school.”

She turns, leans her hip against the sink, and says, “Can I ask what happened?”

I set the knife down, and turn to face her as well. I’ve never spoken about this to anyone besides Candace. I just briefly told Mark, but I want his mother to know me, to know where I’m coming from, because I love her son, and I want this family to accept me. All of me.