Page 24 of Necessary Time

Colin slowed as he approached a stoplight, turning his whole body in his seat to face me as much as he could manage.

“I’ll keep it a secret if that’s what you want,” he said, eyes boring holes into me. I knew he was telling me the truth, that anything I shared with Colin would be his and mine and no one else’s. Even though I’d been best friends with David, there’d always been other people to talk to, other people to tell things to, and I didn’t get that feeling with Colin. With him, I felt safe and brave, and…

“Thank you,” I rasped.

Behind us, a horn honked and we both startled. Colin stomped on the gas and roared through the intersection. Neither of us said another word for the rest of the drive, and when he parked in front of the pub, I rolled up my window and stepped out of the car without a word. He joined me on the sidewalk, fingers curled tight around his keys and his phone.

We got a table, got seated, and still, nothing. Colin looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin and I wanted to make a joke about it to lighten the mood, but the words escaped me. I used humor to deflect, and I’d just laid myself bare for this man. What was the point in trying to pretend I was anything other than exactly what I was?

“Can I ask you something now?” I repeated my question from earlier, knowing the answer would be the same.

The waitress came over and he ordered a beer. I got a Coke, and then he looked at me, waiting.

“Are you…” I bit the inside of my cheek, letting my eyes close. The intensity of his stare was too heavy, too strong. Colin took me seriously, he listened to me, and no one had ever done that before.

Hendrix tried to parent me and Grayson was great, but he was self-indulgent trouble wrapped in a six-figure savings account. Everything between me and David had been called into question because it was impossible to not wonder if our entire friendship had been built around him biding his time until he thought I would be receptive to him making a move on me. Colin looked at me, and he saw me, and…

That was honestly a bit terrifying.

“Am I?” he prompted.

I forced myself to look him in the eye, to gauge his reaction before I spoke again.

“Are you straight?”

He swallowed, the muscles in his throat tensing and working. The waitress dropped off our drinks and neither of us so much as acknowledged her. A little bit of his beer frothed over the rim of his glass, sliding down into a hoppy puddle on the table.

“No,” he answered, voice so soft I barely heard him.

“Are you gay?”

Colin glanced toward the ceiling, then down at his drink. “Probably.”

“You’re not sure?”

“Are you sure you’re bisexual?” he countered, finally turning his attention back to me. He caught my eyes and held them, a thousand more questions skittering across his face that we both knew were too dangerous to ask.

“I’m sure,” I said.

“How?” The question sounded desperate, confused.

“I’ve thought about it a lot.” I grabbed my straw to give my hands something to do, scrunching down the wrapper until it was barely the size of a potato bug. The straw was a bendy one, and I’d never felt more like an out-of-place child than I did in that moment, shoving my white bendy straw into my soda while my date—no, my friend—ignored his beer.

Colin wasn’t my date.

He was a friend.

At best.

Barely.

I laid my hand on my thigh, over the place he’d touched me in the car.

“Is that all?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It fucking sucked. Is that what you want me to tell you? David kissed me and it startled me, but I didn’t hate it. I hated it was him, and I tried to convince myself it was the whole thing, but then it was small shit and I just realized I’d been lying to myself the whole time. And that it didn’t matter that I’d never been with a man before. I didn’t need to be with someone sexually to admit I find some men attractive.”

“Oh.”