“You have a job here and—”
“I quit.” This wasn’t what I wanted anyway. I just did it because I didn’t have anything else to do, because I was good at it and it was what Mom did.
“You’ve never lived more than two floors away from me. Even when you went to Franklin University, you stayed home with me. I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, Milo, but—”
“No,” I cut her off. “You don’t.” I’d always known it but had never said it out loud. She knew I was smart, but she didn’t think I could take care of myself. Mom expected everyone else to know she didn’t need anyone, that she was strong and independent, but she had never seen it in me.
“Little Beach has nothing to offer you, Milo. It’s small and small-minded. I was never happy there, even when my parents were alive. I never felt like I fit. I don’t want that for you.”
I don’t fit here either. I might never fit anywhere.
Almost every decision in my life had been made for me by my mom—going to Franklin U because it was close and she knew the dean. My career. My apartment. She was a good mom. When my dad said there was something wrong with me, when he was hateful about it, she chose me. But she’d never let me have my own wings either. And as much as I loved her, I knew I would never have them while we were close. And maybe it took inheriting a building to realize how much I wanted that. “I have to go. To see what it’s like. You left, didn’t you? To figure out who you are?”
Because in San Diego, I was just Beverly Copeland’s weird son, the one everyone tolerated because my mom mattered and she lined their wallets.
“And you think you’ll find yourself there? You don’t know anything about it. It’s a small island where everyone is expected to be just like everyone else.”
And I wasn’t. We both knew that. But I didn’t really care. I still wanted to try something of my own. “Maybe things have changed. It’s been a long time. I’m going to go. And I’m sorry about your mom.”
“She wasn’t my mom.”
While her distance bothered other people, it didn’t bother me. I understood it in my own way, so I just said, “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
It was there, in her eyes—Mom wanted to ask me to stay. She wanted to demand it. But she wouldn’t. That wasn’t how she was built.
Mom nodded, and I walked out.
CHAPTER TWO
Gideon
“What’s up, buttface?” my brother, Orlando, said as he walked through the door of my tattoo parlor, Conflicting Ink. We were complete opposites, he and I. He was blond, I had dark hair. His skin was untouched, mine was tattooed across my chest, arms, and stomach. I had my right daith pierced, as well as my nipples, left eyebrow, and a labret beneath my lower lip; Orlando had none.
He’d played sports in high school and dated cheerleaders. I’d been in the closet and then secretly hooking up with my bi best friend who I’d been in love with. Orlando had married the girl he’d been dating since he was sixteen, only left home to go play college baseball and get his degree, then go to law school, while I’d run away from here with my tail between my legs after telling Kris how I felt at our high school graduation party, only to find out it was all just a little fun for him. He’d thought I felt the same—bros secretly getting each other off. It had killed him to hurt me. The guy couldn’t help it if he hadn’t loved me, but it had been enough to get me off Little Beach Island for what I’d thought was for good.
I was out as fuck now, even though I was one of the only out queer men on Little Beach. I was still best friends with Kris and still the odd one in my family. Dad and Orlando were spitting images of each other. Mom was closer to them than to me, and I was just…Gideon—the only one who hadn’t gone to college and who liked to put holes in his body and ink in his skin.
Still, we were all close, even if I never felt like I totally fit with them.
But Orlando was also the kind of guy who called me buttface while looking all prim and proper in his suit. “Has anyone ever told you you’re ridiculous?” I asked, finally responding.
“Nearly every day, brother. I can always call you Snacks if you’d prefer.”
I rolled my eyes while I continued to clean up the supplies from the ink I’d finished not long before he’d come in. “Don’t call me Snacks.”