Nate

“Mom I…”

My mom and dad are standing in the doorway, together.

“Jesse, what are you doing here?”

Mom asks, “is Harrison home?”

“No, I was just uh… studying… then we took a break to watch a movie. I should go…”

he looks at me, “unless you want me to stay?”

That isn’t something your brother’s teammate, who you’re just innocently studying with, would say, and maybe I should be worried my parents will pick up on that, but in the moment, I’m just happy he asked.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

I show him out, glad to have a moment away from my mom and dad before the inevitable talk I can feel coming.

Jesse asks me if I’m sure I’m okay when we get to the door.

I nod. For a second, I think he’s going to kiss me and I really want him to, but he doesn’t.

After he leaves, I reluctantly join my parents in the den.

Mom’s picking the Five Guys’ wrappers up from the floor and I want to apologise for making a mess, but I don’t think I’ll be able to comment without giving something away.

My dad is the first to speak.

“, sit down please.”

I want to ignore him. To rebel. But I didn’t even do that when I was a teenager. I do as I’m told.

Mom sits next to me and puts her hand on my knee.

“I’m sorry things have been a little crazy the past few days.”

I want to tell her it’s not her fault, but I remember what Katie said about not knowing the whole story and try not to jump to conclusions.

“Your father and I have had a little talk and I’m coming back home.”

“Did he have an affair?”

“,”

Dad says. Mom looks at him. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“She’s my mom,”

I say, “so it is my business.”

“I’m not going to talk about this with you ,”

he says, firm but calm, “I’d like you to go up to your room now so your mother and I can talk.”

Mom shoots me a pleading look, so I do as he says.

I wait to hear shouting, but if they’re even talking, it’s too quiet to make it up two flights of stairs to the attic.

When I check my phone, I have messages from last night I hadn’t dared look at until now. Katie asking me where I am, each message getting increasingly more worried until the last one:

‘Never mind, hunky hockey player just told me he took you home ;-)’

Jesse sends me a message, asking if I’m okay. Despite how shit I feel right now, it makes me smile.

I can’t believe I practically begged him to help me lose my virginity. He didn’t say no though, did he?

No, he didn’t get a chance.

Jesse’s sweet, and hot. And now I’ve noticed how attractive he is, I won’t be able to ignore it. But me and him would never work. If Harrison found out, it would cause so much trouble and it would only be worth all of that if we were meant to be together. Which we’re not. Jesse has made it very clear he doesn’t want a boyfriend. And if I want casual sex, surely I can find someone who isn’t on a team with my brother.

But when I message him back, we end up talking late into the night.

It looks suspiciously like flirting. Him teasing me for my taste in movies, me teasing him for his taste in… Cher!

If I forget this is Jesse, the guy who chugs the most beers at every party, my brother’s teammate, it feels like what I imagine having a boyfriend to feel like.

Katie messages again, asking if I’m hungover and can I talk. I’m not ready to go into whatever happened, or is happening with Jesse, so I send her a message saying I’m hungover and I’ll talk tomorrow.

The following morning, I come downstairs and find my dad sitting at the breakfast table, eating pancakes and drinking coffee.

“It’s nine-thirty, why aren’t you in work?”

“I took the day off,”

he says, “your mom and I have an appointment.”

“Where?”

“…”

“At therapy,” Mom says.

She gets another plate from the cupboard for me.

“Oh.”

Dad puts his coffee cup down and looks at me. “, I’m sorry about last night, and… I’m sorry about a lot of things, but I really do love you and your mom and your brother and I want to make things right. I made a mistake and I hope you can forgive me one day.”

Mom pauses with the frying pan for a second, maybe she’s waiting to see if I’ll say anything. When I don’t, she slides a pancake onto my plate and pushes the maple syrup across the table.

Katie nods with her serious ‘therapy’ face on while I tell her what happened with my parents. I know she’ll approve of them going to counselling, and my dad’s speech. She’ll be no use if I still want to trash him.

When I’ve finished speaking, she puts her coffee down and asks me how I feel.

“Fine,”

I lie. “Well, not fine, but, it’s not my relationship.”

“But it is your parents, and it’s okay if you’re upset.”

I sit back in my chair, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

“Stop therapy-ing me, please.”

I wait for her to correct my bad grammar, god knows I do it enough to her. Or tell me she’s not training to be a therapist, and that psychiatrists are different.

“Okay,”

she says, picking her coffee up, “I’m done. Now tell me about hunky hockey player.”

I glance around the coffee shop to see if anyone is listening and she laughs.

“We need a code name, how about HHP?”

I wrinkle my nose, “it sounds like a disease.”

“Or a hot sauce brand.”

She winks and I sink down in my chair with a groan.

“Come on , spill. He told me he took you home that night. I did wonder whether I should be a better friend and not let you get a drunken ride home with a jock, it’s like an after-school special on date rape, but he obviously hadn’t been drinking, and you know how suspicious I am of literally anyone, and he didn’t set my alarm bells off so…”

“We kissed.”

Katie stops talking immediately. She leans forward in her chair and fixes me in an intense stare. In a calm, but slightly menacing tone, she says, “tell me everything.”

She listens, not with the intent of a good psychiatrist, but with the excited glee of a friend who’s waited a long time for her friend to finally put themselves out there.

When I’m finished talking, she leans back in her chair and shakes her head.

“I can’t believe it, you were right.”

“Actually,”

my face flushes, “I saw him on a gay dating app, but I didn’t want to…”

Katie holds her hand up, “I get it, don’t worry. I’m not a gay guy, it would be like ratting him out to the cops.”

I snort, “not quite, but… yeah.”

“So are you gonna… you know.”

My whole body floods with warmth when I think about that kiss – the one where I wasn’t drunk – though the other one was pretty hot too.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s… you-know-who.”

I look around but no one’s listening.

“So?”

“It could cause a lot of trouble.”

“But it’s just sex. That’s what you want right? To ‘get it out of the way’ – that’s your words, not mine. I think you should wait as long as you need to.”

“I do want to get it out of the way.”

“And if you’re both into it… he seems like he’d be nice about it, and if you both know the score.”

I do want to sleep with Jesse. When he was on top of me on the couch, I’ve never felt that good. Feeling him hard against me. I wanted him to take my pants off and… okay, so the other stuff kind of scares me, but that’s why I need to do it. To ‘get it out of the way’. I don’t want the thought of sex to scare me anymore. I want to have the experiences other people around me are already enjoying. I don’t want to miss out just because of fear.

“I don’t know he’s into it.”

“He sounds pretty into it to me.”

My face flushes and I have to stifle a smile.

“If this is what you want, then stop talking yourself out of it and go get it.”