Page 12 of Find Me Again (KRK Security #3)

Coming to the Hopkins' house had been harder than Ryan had expected, so after taking in everything that had changed and everything that hadn't, he was enormously grateful for Ken's presence. He definitely needed the support, and in turn, was willing to give Ken all the cuddles.

Ryan also needed to push things along, though. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

Unfortunately, Neil only tensed further at his prompting. The silence stretched between them again, and Ryan rubbed his free hand over his thigh, unable to sit still.

"What's it like?" Neil finally blurted out, glancing between Ryan and the mug he was holding. "Being out, I mean."

Ryan's heart skipped a beat, then quickened his rhythm right after.

That was… not what Ryan had expected. He'd had some ideas, earlier, about what it could've been about, but he'd clearly guessed wrong.

As his nostrils flared, he needed to consciously relax his grip on Ken before he could hurt him by accident.

"That's what you wanted to talk about?" Ryan slumped back in his chair. He had so many questions, but he also didn't know if he wanted to hear the answers now. "You wanted me to be your fucking coming out buddy?"

Swallowing hard, Neil looked to the side, and Ryan was tempted to call him a coward, to get in his face and remind him that no matter his fame, this, right here, was still something he had no idea how to do.

But it would be stupid, and childish, and Ryan expected more from himself than to lash out when hurt.

He'd grown up. If he could take any solace in this situation, it was the fact that he wasn't the boy he'd been twelve years ago in many ways, including the one where his emotions and self-worth weren't so dependent on the man in front of him anymore.

"No, I— I'm sorry." Neil shook his head before meeting Ryan's gaze. "I should've started with that, but I freaked out." He paused to take a deep breath. "First of all, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what just happened, but I'm also sorry for the way I behaved twelve years ago."

"What exactly are you sorry for from back then?"

Ryan could hear that his tone was harsher than before, but it was too late to change it now.

Neil snorted humorlessly. "Yeah, that's fair. I'm sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry for handling all of what happened so badly."

"But you're not sorry for going," Ryan said, because he needed to hear it.

Neil tightened his grip on the mug and looked away again.

"No," he finally said. "I'm not sorry for that."

Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, the rush of anger leaving him as quickly as it had come.

"Okay," he whispered.

A second passed, then another, and when Ryan opened his eyes, Neil was staring right at him with a frown.

"Okay?"

"Yeah." Ryan shrugged. "I always knew you weren't sorry for that part. There was a time when I hoped you'd be, but I still knew better."

"Then why ask now?"

"Because I wanted to see if you're being honest with me. About the rest, I mean."

Neil sat back at that. "You didn't believe I was sorry for hurting you?"

"What I believe doesn't really matter, because I've been wrong about trusting you before." Ryan crossed his arms as he rested them on the table. "I learned that it was better safe than sorry."

"That's—" Neil ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward again. "I can't even argue that, can I? That's completely fair. For what it's worth, I am sorry. I was never proud of the way I acted back then. That was a shitty thing to do, not only to my boyfriend but also to my best friend."

Something unraveled in Ryan's chest, an old, tight knot loosening at last, and the hitch in his breath told him he better change the subject soon or this would become embarrassing.

"I believe your apology now. We can—" He unwound himself and grasped his mug, letting the heat from it slowly spread through his body. "—move on from that."

Can we, really? he wondered a moment later, and the similar sentiment was there on Neil's face, but neither of them said it out loud.

Only time would tell, after all.

What Ryan was sure about, however, was that he didn't want to hold onto that grudge or that pain forever. He definitely didn't want to feel like he was that eighteen-year-old again, wondering why he'd been so easily discarded by the one person who was supposed to never do that.

"So," he finally said when it didn't seem like Neil would. "Are you thinking about coming out?"

He wished he didn't immediately assume there was a man Neil was doing it for, someone who made him happy and safe enough to be open about who he was. But they weren't living in a perfect world, not by a long shot, so Ryan was stuck with the reality in which he assumed exactly that.

"Yeah, it's… complicated. And sudden." Neil pursed his lips. "I wasn't planning on it, not for a long while yet, but I have no choice now, so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for it. I didn't want to blurt that out, though, honestly."

"Someone is forcing you to do this?" Ryan sat up straighter. Ken grumbled at that, then lay down at his feet, but Ryan hardly noticed.

It was one thing to want your partner to come out, but to force them—

"Not in that way! I'm not… There's no one…" Neil hung his head and stared at his mug. "I didn't want to get into this, but I guess I can't escape it. There's a guy I slept with who is threatening to out me if I don't do what he wants."

Ryan inhaled sharply.

"No, wait," Neil hurried, looking up again. "It's not, like, dangerous or anything. It's just his Hail Mary for the shit he's gotten himself into. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I decided to come out myself, so he can't touch me."

"It doesn't matter."

As if.

"It does matter, Neil! This shit isn't legal, someone is threatening you—"

"And what am I going to do, go to the police?" Neil snorted. "They won't do anything other than leak the story themselves, and I'm screwed either way. If I do this, at least I have a say in it."

"Not enough say," Ryan grumbled, but he leaned against the table and took a sip of his tea.

"I thought you were all for coming out," Neil said, then grimaced immediately. "Sorry. Sorry, that was uncalled for."

Ryan rubbed his forehead, forcing down the flare of irritation.

"I'm all for coming out when it's a personal decision a person makes for themselves."

"I know, I'm sorry. I wasn't… I'm stressed out, and I keep saying stupid shit."

"I can imagine." Ryan paused. Could he, really? He wasn't so sure. "I mean, I know how stressful it is to come out when you want to do it, so this has to be ten times worse."

Neil stared down at his mug again before taking a sip of his tea.

"It's not like I've never thought about it. I have. But I've always pushed it far into the future, after I retire and the fallout can't hurt me much. There's no pushing it off anymore, though. While I may lose my career over this either way, him coming forward first would be way worse, so I guess I'm salvaging what I can. If it's the end, I want to at least be prepared and do it right. And if it's somehow not the end, I need to be prepared even more, because everyone's eyes will be on me."

Ryan grimaced. Progress had been made in many different ways, but professional hockey was still a bastion of silence. There were a few guys who came out young or after they retired, but as far as he knew, there had never been a player who came out at the height of his career. Ryan purposefully didn't follow hockey news, but he would certainly hear about it, if it happened.

"What do you want to know, then?" he asked, returning to Neil's first question.

Over the years, Ryan had talked to a few people about his experience of coming out, but he'd never expected to do it with Neil. Still, no matter how angry he'd been earlier, he would never say no this. He couldn't.

Well, okay, he wasn't a saint. He might have said no if he'd known Neil was doing this for another guy, but only because it would hurt too much. He'd worked hard over the years to learn how not to disregard his own boundaries for other people, after all.

"I'm not sure, actually," Neil admitted after a long stretch of silence, during which Ryan drank his tea and enjoyed the weight of Ken on his feet, even though he knew he'd pay for not moving them for so long later on. "Whatever you want to tell me, I guess."

Since that didn't narrow it down at all, Ryan decided to switch it up a little.

"Okay. Have you ever come out to anybody close to you? Not a sexual partner, but a friend, a family member, a colleague? I'm not judging," he added quickly. "I'm only trying to figure out where to start."

Neil nodded. "I told my parents a few days ago."

Ryan smiled at that. Neil's parents were good people and they loved their son a lot, so that was a good start.

"However, that's not duplicable," Neil went on, "because it turns out they'd figured it out already, and I didn't have to explain much."

Ryan would have happily heard the details of the story—had they known back in high school? Had they suspected what his own parents suspected about the two of them?—but he pushed it away. This wasn't about him and his curiosity, after all.

"It's still important that they reacted well," he pointed out.

"Yeah, of course. Of course it matters. I can't imagine what I would've done if they reacted badly." Neil looked down at his mug again. "It was… It was good."

"My parents and my brother were the first ones I told in person. It was right before I left for the boot camp, and it really helped to have them be supportive. They were worried, of course, but it was more about me potentially being harassed because of it than anything else."

Neil tilted his head. "Wait, in person? Have you told someone not in person first?"

"Yeah." Ryan ran his teeth over his lower lip. "During the last months of high school, I got involved in an on-line community, and we talked about a bunch of stuff. It turned out quite a few people there were either gay, or bi, or trans, so it was easier to admit that I was gay as well. Their support meant a lot."

And they helped him deal with the heartbreak and the loneliness even more than with the issue of wanting to come out but not knowing how, especially without accidentally outing Neil as well.

Neil opened his mouth, then paused and took another sip of his tea.

Maybe he, too, wanted to ask questions they had no right to ask each other anymore.

Or maybe Ryan was projecting.

"After that, I kept it pretty quiet, since I was on active duty," he went on. "With time, some of my friends found out, too, but mostly by accident or due to their observation skills, not any real plan to share on my part. Then I told my grandparents on Christmas break four years ago, and it went well. I wouldn't say they'd known, but they weren't shocked or anything. After that, I allowed my parents and grandparents to tell other family members, and the news spread quickly. I didn't mind people knowing anymore, I simply didn't want to be the one having to tell everybody and answer questions they might have. From what I heard, there was only a little grumbling and the culprit, my uncle, was quickly shut down by my grandpa."

"It sounds smooth enough," Neil offered quietly.

"Yeah, I definitely didn't have it bad or anything. Still, it weighs on you. It's stressful. You may think you know how people would react, but until you're going through this, you don't actually know for certain. And it's… I don't know, sometimes I got angry that I had to do it in the first place, just so they were prepared in case I ever brought a guy home or whatever."

Neil frowned briefly, but Ryan only shrugged.

"In the end, I didn't realize how stressful it all really was until I started working at my current job and found out that most of my coworkers were queer, too," he went on and chuckled at Neil's incredulous expression. "I know, right? I didn't expect it, either, but it's true. And it's not, like, a prerequisite to getting the job or anything, but I do believe it's self-selecting on some level. If someone has a problem with it, they don't last long, and those who might need it, hear about the company through the grapevine. At this point, I think the whole industry knows."

"And the clients?"

"I don't know. Either way, they can't argue with our track record. KRK Security is relatively small, and yet we're one of the most sought-after private security companies in DC. I'm sure there are people who would never work with us in a million years, but that's fine, because we wouldn't want to, either. Any prospective client can take us or leave us, and we'll be fine. While there's certain freedom in that, of course, for me the most freedom comes from the company culture. With a bunch of my male friends having boyfriends or partners, nobody cares that I want one as well. Even better, they'll cheer me on." He smiled down at the mug. "I didn't realize how important it would be to have my own little gay tribe, but I love it."

Ryan looked up, only to lose his smile when he took Neil in—he was staring at the table with hunched shoulders and a frown.

Damn it.