Chapter 4

CHAPTER

FOUR

SCOUT

" Y ou look like you need a drink," Bax said over a 100% Egyptian cotton sheet with a 1500 thread count.

"I had a lot of drinks already," I said, my face numb enough and my brain scrambled enough to prove it.

"Come on," Bax said. He took me by the elbow and steered me out of the guest room. On our way down the stairs, we ran into Mak.

"Scout," she said, "your boyfriend is so cute! And funny too!"

"Babe," Bax said, and gave her the same ‘shut the fuck up now' signals I'd given him earlier in the tailor's fitting room. She was obviously smarter than him, because she didn't keep talking. "Can you keep everyone distracted for a bit? Me and Scout need to talk."

"Sure, babe."

Cutesy names were nails on a chalkboard to me, but for once I didn't notice. Or I did notice, but suddenly imagined them coming out of Trey's mouth instead of my brother's or Mak's, and they hit differently. Instead of landing like a punch to the gut—the sort that made your stomach lurch and your dinner threaten a second appearance—they landed like a punch to the chest instead, a heartstarter. And I didn't know what to do with that.

Mak led the way back downstairs, and then peeled off to presumably run interference with Trey and my parents. Bax drew me into the library, where Dad kept his emergency stash of whiskey behind his leatherbound collection of Dickens. Bax hauled the bottle out from behind David Copperfield , and a couple of glasses from behind Bleak House .

We sat on the couch, and Bax poured.

"Drink that," he ordered.

I drank it.

"Okay," he said. "Now explain , Scout."

"Trey isn't my boyfriend," I said. "I'm not gay."

"Okay." He tilted his head. "So why did you freeze like a possum when I said Mom and Dad thought he was?"

"What?"

"If all of this is just a funny misunderstanding, why are you having a freakout?"

"I'm not having a freakout."

"You are," he said. "It's a very you kind of freakout. It's very..." He wrinkled his nose.

"Buttoned down?" I suggested.

"Exactly."

I eyed the whiskey bottle. "Trey's not my boyfriend and I'm not gay," I said, "but we have done... stuff ."

"Do I want to know?" Bax asked.

"Probably not in detail, no."

"Agreed. So, like you've fooled around and made out and stuff?"

"There has been no making out." On that point I was clear. "Just…y'know. Bro stuff. You know how it is."

Bax topped up my glass. "Pretend I don't and explain it to me."

I shrugged. "It's… we're both single. Trey's an attractive gu y. We jerk off and stuff. It's convenient, that's all. Trey's not gay. I'm not gay."

"Scout," Bax said in that spooked-horse tone of voice again, "I think you might be at least a little bit gay. And you know what? That's actually fine."

I grabbed my glass. The whiskey burned on the way down, but at least it distracted me from the way my heart was trying to pound out of my chest as I considered the possibility that maybe I was gay. Or bi.

Or something.

Bax put a hand on my shoulder. "Why don't you sit here and have your low-key freakout, and I'll go finish getting Trey's room ready?"

I nodded wordlessly.

Once he'd left, I rolled my empty glass between my palms and considered refilling it, but decided against it. My head was already a mess. Instead, I sat there on Dad's Chesterfield, staring unseeing at the wall of books in front of me as Bax's words rolled around and around in my head like a marble in a hamster wheel. Was it possible to be gay and not know it? Was the reason dating had always seemed like too much trouble because I wasn't interested in the first place?

Maybe the reason I hadn't realized Trey and I were a thing was because spending time with Trey didn't come with the normal surge of reluctance that accompanied dating.

And we were a thing, that much was obvious—to my family at least. It was just my dumb ass that hadn't known.

Which begged the question—did Trey know?

It was suddenly vitally important that I talk to him. I lurched to my feet, wobbling slightly and steadying myself on the arm of the couch, and set out to find him.

I must have sat in the library for longer than I'd thought, because when I went downstairs only my dad was sitting in the living room. He peered at me over the top of his glasses and set his book aside. "If you're looking for Trey, your mother took him up to the guest room a little while ago." He lowered his voice. "He seems like a decent young man, and I suspect he'll go far. I'm glad you brought him home to meet us." He hesitated for just a beat. "I'm proud of you, Scout."

Which was the last thing I'd expected to hear, honestly. I blinked slowly. "You are?"

He nodded. "You're living your truth. And it takes a brave man to do that." The corners of his mouth twitched. "It takes an even braver man to spring a boyfriend on your mother unannounced."

"He's not my—" I swallowed back the words, because were they even true anymore? I settled for, "We weren't exactly planning to stop by."

"Well, I'm glad you did. Goodnight, Scout." He picked up his book again, whatever kind of moment we'd been having apparently over.

I nodded dumbly and wandered through to the kitchen, grabbing a can of soda and popping the tab. The bubbles burst cool and fresh against my tongue, and helped clear my head a little.

My parents thought Trey was my boyfriend. Mak and Bax thought Trey was my boyfriend. And now I'd started to think about it? I really wanted Trey to be my boyfriend.

I just had to screw up the nerve to actually ask him.

My phone buzzed in my pocket with a text.

Bro. Where did you go? Also, these sheets are like sleeping on fucking clouds.

I pictured him sprawled out naked, all lean muscle and smooth skin dark against white sheets, and yeah.

I was definitely gay.

I found myself halfway up the stairs before I'd really had a chance to think too hard about it, carried on a wave of something that was sixty percent bravado, forty percent whiskey sours. I stopped outside the door to the guest room, took a deep breath, and knocked, still wondering what the hell I was going to say.

Trey opened the door half an inch. He swung it wide when he saw it was me and ushered me inside. He closed the door and stood there in his boxers. "Bro, where have you been? I think your folks like me. Your mom was asking about my plans for Thanksgiv?—"

I reached out, clasped his face in my palms, and shut him up with a soft kiss. Trey froze for a split second, but then his arms wrapped around me and he was kissing me back. He parted his lips at the same time I did, our tongues sliding together in a slow dance that seemed to go on forever, yet was over far too soon.

It was different to kissing a girl. Better.

We parted, and Trey licked his lips. "What was that, Scout? You don't— we don't —do that."

I blinked at him, unsure where to start, and I stood there looking like a dumbass for long enough that Trey leaned in and kissed me again—just a gentle brush of his lips on mine, but it was enough to kickstart my brain. "I think I might be gay."

Trey cocked an eyebrow. "You think?"

Images of all the times I'd sucked his dick and come all over his face rose unbidden in my mind and my face heated. "Okay, fine. I'm definitely gay."

"Congratulations on figuring it out," he said drily.

I blinked. "You're not freaking out?"

"Why would I be freaking out, Scout?"

"Because we've been getting off together and you're straight?" I'd had my own moment when I'd realized I was considering dating a guy. I couldn't imagine Trey not going through the same thing, at least to some degree—if I ever managed to gather the nerve to ask him.

Trey shot me a look that clearly said he thought I was an idiot. "When did I ever say I was straight? "

"What?"

"I'm bi."

My brain shorted out. My mouth didn't. "Since when?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Since forever."

"You never said anything!"

"You never asked." He shrugged like he hadn't just turned my world on its head. Because what he'd just said? Changed everything.

Suddenly this wasn't two straight guys just fooling around. This was two very not-straight guys—which meant that this could actually be something.

"Scout?" Trey was studying me intently, eyes dark and brow creased with concern. "You okay?"

I blurted out, "My parents think we're dating."

The divot between his brows deepened. "Is that what the business with your grandma's cobbler recipe was?'

"Yeah. Except we're not."

"No," he agreed, tone guarded.

"But we could be."

Trey tilted his head. "Scout, what are you saying?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm asking if you want to date me. Properly."

Trey froze like he couldn't believe what he was hearing and his face did something complicated. My stomach dropped and a sense of dread settled over me. Just because Trey was bi, didn't mean he wanted to date me. It wasn't like he'd ever mentioned it. What the hell had I been thinking? For all I knew, he was happy to keep things as they were, and now I'd ruined any chance of that happening and made shit weird.

Hell, he'd probably want a new roommate, and I'd end up sharing with Marty fucking O'Brien. I dropped my head, unable to look him in the eye as I waited for him to turn me down.

"Bro. Stop overthinking," he said quietly. Warm fingertips pressed the underside of my chin as he lifted my head, looked me in the eye and kissed my cheek before saying, "Of course I want to date you."

The rock in my gut became a flurry of butterflies, swooping and fluttering. "Really?"

Trey didn't answer, but my back hit the wall with a thud, and his kiss wasn't gentle this time. It was hungry and raw and desperate, and it told me everything I needed to know. He wanted this as much as I did.

Trey's taller frame boxed me in, and the heat and weight of him against me as we made out did things to my insides that had me wondering how I'd ever thought I wasn't into guys generally, and Trey specifically.

Trey dragged his mouth off mine, his breaths quick and shallow. "Wanted to do that for weeks ." He gave me that slow, easy smile that made me weak at the knees, and said in a low voice, "So, you stayin'? Or will your mom pitch a fit?"

"Oh, I think fits would be pitched. She didn't raise me to be that kind of boy."

"Damn," he said with a sigh, stepping back. I moved forward, already missing him, and he reached around and squeezed my ass just once before letting go. "Guess you'd better get, then. Don't wanna upset the future mother-in-law."

My heart raced, and I wasn't sure if it was from Trey's hand on my ass, or the way he so casually mentioned a future together.

Maybe both.

I took a shaky breath and moved past him to the door, pausing. "I mean, we're pretty quiet. I could sneak out later."

Trey grinned and shook his head. "Not a chance. Your folks like me, and I plan to keep it that way."

I didn't want to leave, and not just because Trey's kiss had got me hot and bothered. A stupid part of me was afraid that if I stepped outside the room and closed the door on this moment, there would be nothing to prove it had happened. The snick of the door closing might break the magic spell where Trey, my boyfriend, had kissed me and talked about a future together. Jesus. I'd only allowed myself to start imagining it tonight, and I was already panicking that it might suddenly vanish.

Trey closed the distance between us. "You're freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out."

He cocked an eyebrow. "I am fluent in resting bitch face, baby."

There were those butterflies again.

He hooked his fingers into my belt loops and tugged me against him. He brushed his lips against mine, feather light, and I was going to spend the rest of my life discovering all the different ways that Trey Montgomery kissed. "Go to bed, Scout."

"Okay," I whispered.

I did not sleep well that night in a bed that felt too empty.

Over breakfast the next morning, I tried to drown my hangover with cranberry juice, and also explain to my mother that I wasn't out at school, so could she please lay off planning a second wedding, this one with matching white linen suits?

"It's not that it's not serious, Mrs. Talbot-Smith," Trey said smoothly. "It's just that we're both concentrating on school right now, and then we have law school. And we're not out at Lassiter; only to our families."

"Your family ," Mom said. "Well, Trey, I must meet your family! Is your family here in Richmond? What country clubs are they members of? You have to give me your mother's number, so I can arrange an invitation to lunch."

I hoped Trey's mom was as chill as her son.

"You know," Mom continued, "Baxter Two gave me an engagement ring right when he graduated law school. Isn't that right, Two?"

My father grunted in agreement around his eggs .

"You must come to Bax Three's wedding," Mom said. "You're family now."

Bax swept into the dining room, still wearing his pajamas.

"Mom," I complained, reaching for more toast, "we just said we're not out. It's gonna look weird if my plus one to the wedding is my fraternity brother."

"Well, who else would you take then?" my mother asked.

I shrugged. "Nobody?"

"Come stag," Bax said. "I like it. You know what? You should come, Trey. And the other guys too. Not like all of them. But a few. Half the groomsmen are Alpha Tau anyway, and a whole bunch of Dad's judiciary friends will be there; it's practically a fraternity reunion as it is."

"There had better not be any shenanigans," Dad said firmly. "Not from your friends, Bax, or yours, Scout."

"I've seen the chapter records, Dad," Bax said. "I'm more worried about your friends."

Dad snorted, but didn't deny it.

Mak sailed into the dining room, looking as fresh as a daisy. "Oh, it is a beautiful day for apartment hunting isn't it?"

And just like that, my parents' attention shifted from the wedding—and me and Trey—to Bax and Mak's potential new apartment. Bax shot me a grin, and Mak winked, and, under the cover of the tablecloth, Trey closed his hand around mine.

It felt pretty good.

"So, why aren't we coming out?" I asked as we drove back toward Lassiter after breakfast.

Trey scrolled through songs on my phone, picking one he liked. "Scout, yesterday you didn't even know you were gay. It's not a race." He turned the volume on the stereo up. "Besides, you hate people knowing things about you."

"I do hate that. "

"Can you imagine if all the guys knew?"

I shuddered. "They'd ask questions. There would be comments. Casey wouldn't be able to ask how I slept without winking and leering."

Trey hummed. "For the record, I would be out with you in a second. I would buy you chocolates on Valentines Day and turn up with a boombox to serenade you under your window. But remember that time Archer asked what brand of toothpaste you used, and you got all squirrelly about it?"

"It was a weird personal question, and really none of his business."

"Mm hmm. So let's leave being out and open off the table for now."

I nodded. "But not forever."

"No," he said, and flashed me a smile. "Not forever."

"Just until I'm comfortable."

Trey raised his eyebrows.

"Well, not comfortable. As has been pointed out to me many times, I am a deeply uncomfortable person. But just for now. I think it would be nice to figure out us first."

"I think that would be nice too. And we'll come out in our own time."

It felt strange, but good, to be talking about this, and I couldn't help wondering what magic words I needed to say to get him to call me ‘baby' again. I liked that. A lot. Enough that the more I thought about it, the more I decided that just maybe, it was worth asking for. Communication between couples was a thing, right? And that's what we were now. A couple. The idea filled me with unaccustomed warmth.

"You know, I don't hate it."

Trey hummed. "Don't hate what?"

I studied the screen of my phone intently. "The pet name thing. When you do it."

His mouth curled up in a satisfied smile. "I know, sugar."

"Asshole. "

He laughed. "If that's your idea of a pet name, it needs some work."

I laughed too, because I'd put myself out there, shared something I liked, and it hadn't been as terrifying as I'd imagined. It wasn't something I was going to start doing with anyone else, but with Trey? It felt safe.

I felt safe. And damned if I didn't like it.

"You know," Trey said, "your parents were pretty chill about the whole thing, considering. I thought they'd be more…"

"Bigoted?"

"Conservative," he said, side-eyeing me.

"Something something books and covers," I said. "They're old money, but they're not old school. Besides, my daddy knows it will make him look good in more liberal circles, having a son dating a Black man. When we do come out he and my mom are just as likely to throw a fundraising gala for the Trevor Project or something."

"I could get behind that," Trey said with a smile. "Being the Talbot-Smith poster boy."

I could picture it now. There would probably be bunting. Rainbow bunting. I normally hated fundraisers—too many people—but I found I didn't mind the idea of this one. Not if I'd have Trey by my side.

Hell, even driving down the highway on a Sunday on my way back to campus was pretty damn amazing, with Trey by my side.

We pulled into Lassiter just before lunch, and parked out the front of Alpha Tau House. I opened up the cargo hatch of the Jeep and Trey and I both stared down at the window.

"You know what?" I asked. "I'm going to grab some of the guys to help out. I don't want to be responsible for dropping this damn thing trying to get it into the house."

"Good idea," Trey said.

I jogged up the porch steps and let myself into the house. I said hi to a few of the guys lounging around the place as I headed through to the chapter executive office.

Marshall was at his desk, scowling at a spreadsheet.

"Hey," I said. "Give us a hand with this window?"

"Sure." He closed his laptop. "Oh, guess what?"

"What?"

"I've had complaints about the roommate situation," he said, "so I'm doing a reshuffle. If you want me to move Trey, I can?—"

"No," I said, and the word echoed sharply in the small room.

"Oh," he said, and blinked. "So, you guys are cool now?"

"Yeah," I said, hoping my resting bitch face didn't give away the dopey grin that was trying its hardest to escape me. "Yeah, we're cool."

And we headed outside to help my new boyfriend.