I turned.
Darren was jogging toward me. For a second, I thought he was going to have his revenge for the way I sucker-punched him in the mouth, and I frantically looked around for any kind of weapon I could use to defend myself. But I was standing on the only patch of grass that must have existed in the state of Arizona, and I didn’t think grass stains were an effective defense, so I prepared myself to get my ass beat.
“You may take my life,” I sputtered at him as he approached, “but you’ll never take my freedom!”
He arched an eyebrow as he stopped a couple of feet away. “Did you just quote Braveheart at me?”
“Of course not,” I scoffed, even though I sort of did. “I’m sorry I punched your face.”
He rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even split my lip, Paul. It wasn’t that bad.”
“I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Now you’re quoting Michael Jackson? What the hell did you smoke on the way over?”
Aha! Another chance! “Your dad’s pole,” I snarled at him. Then I winced. “That doesn’t work anymore considering your dad is Vince’s dad and the mayor of Tucson and has conservative evil running through his veins. No offense.”
“None taken? I think?”
“But, man, that must have really stuck in his craw to find out he had two gay sons.”
“Stuck in his craw? What are you, a steamboat captain?”
I grinned, forgetting for a moment that Vince was shut up in his apartment and that I was in the presence of the Homo Jock King. “No, but wouldn’t that be awesome? I’d wear a bow tie and have fancy facial hair and everything.”
“Andrew Taylor doesn’t know about me,” Darren said evenly.
My eyes widened. “He doesn’t even know you exist?” I whispered, feeling awful. “That… sucks.” In my head, I had this image of Darren’s mother being a young secretary who used to work for Andrew Taylor’s construction company and thought she was in love with a powerful man, only to get cast aside after a rough tryst in the bathroom of a Denny’s after a business meeting where they talked about different types of concrete. Saddened that she could never have the love of the man she needed, she quit her job, only to find out two months later that she was with child. Instead of blackmailing Andrew Taylor with it, she kept it to herself, wanting to have a connection to the only man that ever made her feel alive. To complete her sad, sad story, she must have died during childbirth just as Darren was born, and the last words on her lips would have been professing her love for Andrew. And then she died.
“You’ve been hanging around Vince too much,” he said with a scowl. “I don’t think you were this dense yesterday. He doesn’t know that I’m gay.”
“And your mom died giving birth to you,” I said knowingly. “It’s almost romantic.”
“What? My mom lives in Phoenix. She’s a nurse. Seriously, I never thought Vince’s brain could be contagious, but you should really go get yourself checked out.”
“Why doesn’t he know you’re gay?”
Darren snorted. “He doesn’t know a damn thing about me. I’ve talked to him a handful of times in the past few years. The last time he said anything to me was to remind me to keep my mouth shut around election time. Something about having a bastard child as the result of an affair not looking good to his constituents.”
“You should have told him you were gay, too,” I said, “just to see the reaction on his face. He should probably know that since homosexuality is hereditary, then he’s the common factor here and his spunk causes gayness.”
“I really don’t want to think about his spunk,” Darren groaned. “Why are you walking away right now?”
I was startled at the abrupt change in conversation. “Vince didn’t want me there. My turn. Why were you pressing him against the wall and making me think you were macking on each other when in actuality you’re brothers?”
He eyed me warily. “Vince was upset. I was trying to calm him down. This is harder on him than you realize.”
“Yeah, obviously I don’t know how hard this is on him because he hasn’t told me a thing.” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but it didn’t work very well.
Darren sighed again. “Paul… it’s not like… look. I’ve known who Vince was practically my whole life. We didn’t actually meet until a couple of years ago, but that’s still a couple of years I have on you. I know him, or at least I think I do. He hasn’t been able to find the words to tell you that he compartmentalizes everything about his life. Everything is cordoned off into its own section, and while they do converge, it makes him uncomfortable. But none more so when it comes to Lori and Andrew. They’ve given him shit all his life, or at least their indifference, and he doesn’t deal with that well. And then you came along and….”
“And what?”
He shook his head. “How can you not see it? Paul, whether you know it or not, you’ve changed everything about him. The way he sees things. The w
ay he reacts to them. He wants to make you proud, but he doesn’t want you to see his past.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, only because I didn’t think breaking down in front of the Homo Jock King was the best course of action. “Everyone comes with a past,” I told him gruffly. “It helps make you who you are.”