Page 28 of Sean's Sunshine
Billy’s expression went sober. “You said it the other night. You went from the light to the dark to the light, and then you got stabbed. It’s gonna take your confidence some, you think? This is something that needs doing. It’s not all glamorous and shit, like your day job, but to the people getting their vacuum cleaners ripped off, it’s important. I thought….” He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “You’re bored. You watch one more cop show and your head’s gonna pop off. This’ll keep you from being that guy.”
“That guy?” Sean asked, trying to remember if he’d lost his temper or gottentoofrustrated with his healing body in the last month.
“That bitter guy who yells at all the neighbors and doesn’t like kids and screams at the dogs and shit.”
Sean blinked. “Uhm… I… I don’tthinkI’m that guy yet. How would I turn into that guy?”
Billy gave a snort of disgust. “I don’t know. My old man—he seemed okay when I was little, but, you know. Went out on a couple of deployments. Every time he came back there was another kid. Then he quit the military, and everything went to hell. Mad all the time. Hitting us, hitting Mom. I figured he missed the action. He was always such a macho guy, pushing his chest at everyone. He didn’t have that place to be a badass, and he’s got to be a badass somewhere.”
Sean swallowed. “If he was taking his temper out on your family, he wasn’t a badass.”
“What, your dad didn’t yell?” Billy asked derisively.
“Course he did,” Sean said, giving a small laugh. “We’re Polish. He yelled, he judged, he snapped. It was pretty much all bluster. Only time he ever got pissed enough to hit someone was….” He grimaced. “This is a sucky story. Anyway, he only hit one of us once, and Charlie was almost an adult. But there’s a difference, right? Between bluster and abuse. Most of the time when he was yelling, he was funny. ‘By God’s mother’s panties, those assholes better not have forgotten to do the fuckin’ dishes!’ And he’d be yelling it coming up the stairs after he left us all at home to take Mom out or something. And suddenly we’d realize that all our peace and quiet time had gone, and we’d promised to clean the house, and they’d walk in and we’d be like a little army of worker bees, vacuuming and doing dishes and such. He’d open the door and see that and yell that we’d better be working because we were all worthless little pukes anyway, and then he’d slam the door and say he was taking Mom to ice cream, and weweren’tgetting any.”
Billy was laughing by now, but Sean realized his eyes were hot.
“What?” Billy asked, pausing.
“Just… there was all that awkwardness after I came out, and then he was so upset I was joining the force, and I’d forgotten how much I missed the surly old bastard until….” He bit his lip.
“Until now.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry,” Billy said, voice a little rusty. “I… what was the story you didn’t want to tell me? Who’d he hit? You, when you came out?”
Sean shook his head. “No.” He blew out a ragged breath. He hated coming-out stories. Many of them were horrible—so many that the good ones broke your heart because they shouldallbe that way. But his was sort of a mix of the two, and the mix twisted up his insides.
“Then what?” Billy prodded, and Sean was about to insist that Billy go first, but he saw the way Billy was looking at him, like he was waiting for the flaw.
“See, I came out at school,” Sean said, resigning himself. “Not on purpose. I was on the football team, and while I didn’t ogle, one kid asked me why I wasn’t going out with a cheerleader who was crushing on me, and I told him straight up that she wasn’t my type. The guy was a jerk—and I was probably a jerk back because, you know, still worshipped the old man. Anyway, the whole thing melted down in the quad, and it was me versus three of the other football players.”
Billy sucked air in through his teeth. “Anyone need an ambulance?”
“Heh heh heh….” Sean heard the sound and clapped his hand over his own mouth.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“That’s aJacksonlaugh,” Sean said, aghast. “And Henry’s getting it too! Oh my God! Next thing you know I’m going to let my hair grow long and wear my pants dropping halfway down my ass.”
Billy arched his eyebrows and raked a glance over Sean, who was wearing a fitted athletic T-shirt—no logo—and khaki shorts that were a little large but obviously would fit when he’d recovered his health.
“No,” he said without equivocation. “Judging by the way you freaked out about getting your hair cut last week, that’s a super strong absolute no.”
Sean chuckled. “Apparently only when I’m channeling my inner devil—good to know.”
“Finish the story!” Billy urged him. “What does this have to do with your father?”
Ugh. It was so much easier when he was agonizing over not turning into Jackson.
“Well, I got home, and I was a mess—broke my nose, dislocated some fingers, black eyes, split lip… the works. And my dad turns to my brother Charlie—we were Polish twins, he’s about eleven months younger than I am—and goes, ‘You don’t have a mark on you. What happened?’”
“Good question!”
Sean grimaced. He hated this part. He could never explain why. “And Charlie goes, ‘But Dad, he told them guys he was queer! I’m supposed to defend him for that?’” Sean shook his head. “And Dad popped him one. A slap, not a punch, because I don’t think he wanted to KO Charlie, but it broke his nose. Said, ‘He’s yer fuckin’ brother, and you defend him till yer dead.’ Full-on accent, which I guess he got from my grandpa. And that was it. The family knew I was gay. Mom stopped asking me if I was dating girls, started tentatively asking if I was crushing on guys. And Dad stopped asking me about the police academy. And Charlie….” He sighed. “Charlie did what he was supposed to. Defended me in public. Nobody talked down to us in public. But you know, we shared a room, and….” He shook his head.
“But he wasn’t your brother anymore?” Billy asked, his voice catching.