“This is a good thing for all of us, kiddo. Just be patient and we’ll all get better at being a unit again.”
“It’s just dinner, Dad. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Well, we have to walk before we run, son, and as of now the Archers are barely managing a staggering limp. All we can do is move forward.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I just kept my mouth shut and watched Shaw’s shapely form as the hostess guided our group to a table in the back of the building. My mom was jabbering nonstop at Shaw and she was occasionally nodding and making noises of agreement, but what she wasn’t doing at all was looking at me or acknowledging me in any way. The anger was starting to turn from a smolder to a burn. If something didn’t give soon, I was bound to do something I would regret later.
At the table, I ended up sandwiched between my brother and my girlfriend. One was looking at me warningly, and the other was watching me with eyes shrouded in sadness and accusation—two things I didn’t understand. I was ready to say the hell with it to get some answers. I didn’t get the chance because as soon as I turned to Shaw, the waitress appeared and we were busy ordering drinks. My mom once again hijacked all Shaw’s attention.
Just to test the waters, I put a hand on her thigh under the table and felt her tense at my touch. I waited for her to move or to pry it off with her own hand but she didn’t even stop the flow of conversation with my mom. It was obvious that they had missed each other. I felt a stab of guilt that, because of her loyalty and feelings for me, Shaw had missed out on a relationship she obviously appreciated. I let my dad and brother draw me into a conversation about the Broncos and kept an eye on Shaw as we ordered dinner. She never moved my hand but she never once looked my way, either. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was grateful, however, that as long as my mom was focused on her she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash in my direction, allowing the dinner to go as smoothly as it could, considering the circumstances. Dad ordered a bottle of champagne with dessert and before it showed up my mom went to use the restroom, finally giving Shaw a chance to turn and look at me. When she did her mouth was tight and her superlight eyebrows were furrowed over her eyes.
“We need to talk.”
My own eyebrows shot up so hard they pulled against the hoops pierced there. “That’s kind of hard to do when you won’t answer the phone when I call and you make up lame-ass excuses to avoid spending time with me.”
I saw her flinch and she leaned closer so that our heads were bent near each other. She hissed in a tone low enough that only I could hear, “Well, excuse me for not knowing what to say to you, considering the last time we didn’t talk for a few days you stuck your tongue down the first willing girl’s throat. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I feel like you’re turning into a stranger and I hate it.”
I scowled at her and tightened my fingers on her leg. “Do you trust me at all? Geez, Shaw, maybe I was just trying to be a better boyfriend—one who doesn’t flip out over stupid shit all the time and one who isn’t in jail while your psycho ex is still on the prowl? Maybe I was trying to act right for a change. I was trying to be the kind of guy you deserve.”
She blew out a hard breath through her clenched teeth and her emerald-colored eyes sharpened with an anger that I was surprised to see burned as hot as mine. “Maybe you should have asked me before deciding what I deserve, Rule. Maybe I liked the you that flips out over stupid shit. Maybe I miss the you that is passionate enough about me, about my safety, to risk going to jail over my psycho ex, and I sure as hell never asked for you to be a better boyfriend. In fact, the boyfriend you’ve been the last week has done nothing but make me confused and sad.”
I don’t think either of us realized that we had raised our voices or that we now had a captive audience. In fact, it took my mom making a noise low in her throat like a wounded animal as she wobbled on her heels to get our attention. She was looking from me to Shaw with huge eyes, and had a hand pressed hard into her chest. My dad looked far less surprised, but worried about my mom as usual.
“What did you just call him?”
Shaw looked at my mom, then back at me. She sighed and answered softly like she was afraid the news would shatter the woman before her. “Rule and I have been seeing each other for a little over a month now. I told him to stop acting like he needed to be someone else to be a good boyfriend.” She turned to look at me and I could see her doing some kind of internal warfare with herself. Finally, she sucked in a deep breath and turned back to my mom. “I’ve been in love with him since I was fourteen, Margot.”
I went still at her confession and felt everything inside me turn to jelly. She loves me. This perfect, wonderful, kind young woman loves me and had for a long time. I didn’t know where to put that because my mom started blinking back tears, and for the first time that night turned her attention to me.
“It’s not enough that you took Remy’s life? You had to take the girl he loved from him, too?”
Stunned silence landed on the table like a ton of bricks. My instinct was to push away from the table and storm out of the restaurant, but I couldn’t because Shaw clamped a hand over mine on her leg. My dad and Rome both leapt to their feet in outrage. “Margot!” “Mom!” Voices were raised and the other patrons in the restaurant were starting to pay all kinds of attention to the scene we were making, but I was too stunned to care. I heard Shaw say my name, felt my brother put his hand on my shoulder, but I just wasn’t there. At least I wasn’t there until Shaw climbed to her feet, put her fingers in her mouth, and let out a whistle that had us all looking at her in shock. She put her hands on the table and leaned forward so that she was talking directly to my mom, but she made eye contact with all of us.
“Everyone shut up.” She pointed a finger at my mom and narrowed her eyes. “Listen to me, Margot, and for once you need to hear what I’m saying. I loved Remy, still do, but we were never in love. He knew how I felt about Rule and at times both encouraged and discouraged it, but at the end of the day he agreed that we don’t necessarily get to choose who we fall in love with.”
She took a deep breath and I watched her chest rise and fall. She was struggling with something, something big, if the flush on her face and the way her hands balled into fists were any indication.
“Remy had secrets. I know you boys were close, that you all loved and respected each other, but Remy was different from the two of you and he just didn’t know how to tell you. He thought that maybe it was best for everyone to just let all of you assume we were a couple because of how hard Dale and Margot were on Rule—and all he did was tattoo himself and wear his hair all crazy.”
She turned so that she was fully facing me and I saw she had tears in her eyes and that her bottom lip was trembling. I wanted to wrap her up in a hug and make it all better but even in the emotional shell shock I was experiencing, I knew her words were about to change my world forever.
“I promised him and I owed him so much. I swore on my life I would never tell anyone.” She let her gaze skip around the table and land on all of us. “But he would want his family healthy and whole more than he would want me to keep his secret.” She took a deep breath. “Remy was gay. He was my best friend, my surrogate family, but he was a homosexual. He was involved in a serious relationship with a guy named Orlando Fredrick that he met his last year playing ball. That was the real reason he moved to Denver after school. Lando goes to DU as well.”
Disbelief, foreign and cold, snaked up my spine. Rome let out a string of nasty words and my mom started bawling in earnest. Shaw turned sad eyes in my direction and I looked at her like I had never seen her before.
“No way. He would have told me.”
She shook her head, sending white and black hair sliding across