Page 21

I once had a foolproof plan for studying. It required two components: waking up three hours early and coffee. So much coffee. Each cup only added fuel to my cram sessions, taking me closer and closer to a perfect grade.

Preparing for the next speakeasy felt like that.

Since I’d gotten home last night, I’d been cramming. The pressure was pressuring. I had to prove I could do this. Maybe then Sawyer would think I was brave too. She’d always seen me as her shadow, someone who followed her lead. That had been okay when life was out of my control. Now I knew better.

I have to make this epic, I thought, staring down at the blinking cursor on my laptop.

Light from the newly unpacked lamp spilled across the keyboard as my hands stilled.

I’d typed up a list for tomorrow. The same decorations from last weekend would work, and Owen the ranger said I could use their sound system.

I’d made a playlist before falling asleep, envisioning a giant party and how it’d felt to dance with Mason that first night.

But I wasn’t so sure if that was enough.

With a sigh, I reached for the steaming cup of coffee on my nightstand. I’d been stuck on brainstorming ways to make it bigger. Nothing was coming to mind yet, no matter how hard I searched online for ideas. I took a gulp of bitterness and closed my laptop in defeat.

“What else?” I questioned, glancing around my room.

No reply except for the soft rustle of my curtains in the breeze. I watched sunbeams cut through the gray light for a moment before I realized it was morning. Which meant Mason might be awake.

We’d been chatting until midnight about my best friend woes, and he’d fallen asleep before replying to my last message. The urge to check my DMs had me searching the sheets for my phone. I grinned as a familiar notification lit up the screen, and I unlocked to read the thread.

12:05 AM

zekechapman

Sawyer wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t stand up to my father

zekechapman

I need to do this for myself and now she’s big mad because I’m leading the speakeasies even if she is the QSA pres but they were my idea

12:09 AM

zekechapman

does that make me a bad person?

7:43 AM

bedmas_22

I don’t think it makes you a bad person at all. I’m sure she’d understand if you’d just talk to her?

bedmas_22

Also, good morning.

zekechapman

good morning

zekechapman

it’s too complicated and she’d just try to fix everything instead of letting me figure it out myself but I’m glad we’re talking

He was typing a response. I could picture him in his bed, his dark hair haloing him on his pillow.

The image made me smile as I took a sip of coffee and waited.

The stillness of a new day was disrupted by caffeine-fueled heartbeats and the sounds of Mom getting ready in the other room.

I listened as she shuffled around, watching my screen intently until a new message popped up.

bedmas_22

Glad we are too and I’m glad you’re doing this for yourself. You can talk to me about anything, even those things about your dad. I will try to understand if you’ll let me

Mason had called me brave, and I was starting to feel even more so as I reread his message.

Without doubting myself, I started typing.

Listing out everything the JACass had done, why I had been kept from coming out before, how I was trying to be the right kind of gay.

All of it poured out of me like a dam had ruptured.

I hit send, then dropped my phone on the bed like it was on fire and stood up.

The screen remained dark for a minute, then two.

There was no going back now. I really hoped he’d meant what he said about being able to talk to him.

That he wouldn’t be disappointed by the real me and Z-step like I’d done countless times and then—

A sudden, sharp knock on my bedroom door scared me. I jumped, spilling coffee down my Wildcats Baseball shirt. For a second, I thought Mason had appeared in the hallway to tell me how much of a fuck-up I was.

“Y-yeah?” I stammered, voice thick.

“Are you awake?” Mom asked. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah. Um. Give me a minute.” I rushed to change my shirt, nearly knocking over a stack of empty moving boxes.

“Take all the time you need,” she called, “and if you’re doing boy stuff—”

“Ohmygodno.”

My face scorched worse than my chest as I opened the door. Mom stood there in her green Roaring Mechanics shirt. One of her delicate eyebrows rose as she noted the wadded-up shirt in my hand and the laptop on my bed.

“Hun,” she said. “No reason to be embarrassed. It’s perfectly natural—”

“We are absolutely not doing this.”

I sat back on the edge of my bed. My mental capacity was limited to one difficult conversation at a time. I couldn’t handle anything else after confessing all my deepest, darkest thoughts to Mason.

“What, uh, did you want to talk about?” I asked.

She gave me a tight-lipped smile and stepped into my room. “Your father texted about your upcoming birthday.”

“What about it?”

“You know how we usually take you out to eat at The Cove…” she started hesitantly. “He asked if he could—”

“No.”

“—take you this year. He wants to talk.”

Damn it, Sawyer jinxed me. “Hard pass,” I said, risking a glance at my phone. Still no new messages.

“Zeke, I get it. Trust me, I really do.” She huffed from the heaviness of her words. “I won’t make you, but I think you should.”

“Why?”

“He wants to discuss the future with you.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a finger to stop me.

“And you can tell him what we decided. I’ll go with you if you want, and we can present a united front.

No matter what he says, you’ll be eighteen and free to make your own choices.

I’ll make sure he leaves understanding that. ”

“Fine,” I muttered. Because I want to see the look on his face. “Only if you come too.”

“Then we’ll both go.”

She let out a tense exhale and leaned against the doorframe. Slowly, she took in my room. I watched her gaze travel from the pride flag above my bed to the picture of us on the dresser.

“I should’ve done that for you a long time ago,” she said, voice quieter. “Present a united front, I mean.”

Her expression flickered from sadness to the remorse I’d come to know. “Mom,” I heard myself say, “we are now.”

She gave me a watery smile. “I know you had a hard time coming out because of him, but I’m relieved you have the QSA now and that Sawyer is there for you.” At the mention of her name, a pang rattled inside me. “Especially with how scary Family First—”

“I’m not afraid,” I said forcefully, mainly to myself.

“It’s okay if you are,” she added softly. “You don’t have to hide it.”

But it wasn’t okay. Too many people were looking at me to be their King of Pride. To be brave despite the ban and…I wanted to be that person.

“An uproar is starting,” Mom continued, “because someone vandalized that statue in the town square.”

“Oh?” I fought to keep my face neutral.

“It’s all over the Beggs Facebook Group.

They’re blaming Carmen’s campaign, and now the mayor is doubling down on his Family First bullshit.

I swear if I could, I would divorce James Anthony Chapman all over again for sponsoring—” She took a breath in an attempt to maintain her composure, sparing me an apologetic look.

She motioned to the mug on my nightstand.

“Didn’t expect to get this deep before coffee.

Is there any left, or do I need to brew some? ”

“I might’ve finished a pot,” I said sheepishly, shoulders rising. “I needed the boost to figure out tomorrow night.”

“What’s happening?” she asked through a yawn.

Shit. I rushed to find an excuse. “A party. Event, I mean. For the QSA. To, um, get more club sign-ups. For the fall.”

“A membership drive?”

“Yeah…that.”

“Still that boy who wants to fix things,” she said fondly, looking once more at the picture frame. Then she turned to leave. “Okay. I’ll put another pot of coffee on and get the shop open. Just meet me downstairs when you finish.”

“Be there in a minute,” I called as she retreated into the hallway.

But I wasn’t anywhere near done. I glanced back at the laptop, her footsteps in sync with the blinking cursor. Everything was spiraling in my mind. The uproar in town and the statue and the mayor and what Cohen had said at the rec center and lying to Mom about Saturday’s speakeasy…

A membership drive, she’d called it.

An idea began taking shape. Tomorrow could be about getting more sign-ups.

Then I’d single-handedly save the QSA. I reached for my phone to text the group chat.

However, a new-message notification paused my excitement.

Mason had finally replied. My heart thundered in my eardrums as I tapped it to read it.

Relief eased the tension in my chest. I laughed softly, a faint “hah” as air rushed from my lungs. Because this response meant that he must like me, despite every messy thing in my life.

bedmas_22

I’m sorry you had to go through all that, but that doesn’t make you any less of a person.

I promise you aren’t a bad gay either, Zeke.

Not everyone is brave enough to rebel against the mayor.

Promise me you’ll be careful because things are getting crazy around here.

A restaurant in West Point was shut down because of a drag brunch, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.