Messy Love (Stumbling into Love 3)

That’s why I wasn’t paying attention.

That’s why I didn’t hear Dad come out.

Didn’t hear him on the ladder or when he opened the door until it was too late.

He didn’t yell. Didn’t curse. “Get out,” Dad said, his voice icy.

Bill jerked off me, and I scrambled away. “Dad, I wasn’t… I’m not… We weren’t…” Please don’t hate me. Please don’t stop wanting to play football with me and going to all my games. Still love me, still want me to be just like you.

Dad climbed all the way in, stood tall, towering over us. “Get. Out,” he said again.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Carson.” Bill hurried to the latch door, paused, took one more look at me…goodbye, and climbed down.

“Dad, it was just once. I’m not…I’m not a fag.” God, I hated that word. What was wrong with liking Bill?

“Stand up.”

“Yes, sir.” I stood.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m disappointed in you. You’re better than that, Jonathan. Maybe your…” His words trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say. Maybe your little brother Will, but not you. “I thought you were better than that.” This time, he didn’t say I was better, but that he’d thought I was.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” Tell me it’s okay. Tell me you love me.

“I always thought that kid was a pussy,” Dad said. “You won’t see him, ever again. I won’t tell your mother about this. I don’t want to disappoint her. Get out of here. Go mow the front lawn.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, waited, hoped.

“Go.”

I went out and did as told.

I was just finishing when I heard noise in the backyard. I went through the house. Will was inside as usual, painting, and I asked him, “What’s Dad doing?”

“Asked Brad and Nolan to help him tear down the treehouse.”

Nausea twisted in my gut. “What? Why?”

“Don’t know. Not like he ever wants to spend time with me.”

My footsteps were quick as I went for the back. Dad had his hand on Nolan’s shoulder, squeezing it. “Damn, you got an arm on you, kid. You ripped that board clean off.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

I knew what Dad had been telling Nolan. He was a man. He was what I was supposed to be. What I didn’t get was why I couldn’t be strong and masculine and like kissing Bill. Did it have to be one or the other? And what was wrong with someone who wasn’t masculine in the way he thought you had to be?

“What are you doing?” I asked, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Getting rid of this. Me and your brothers are going to build a new one.”

Him, Brad, and Nolan. Not me. Not Will, who he’d always told Mom he thought was a little soft.

“You guys wanna go throw the football around at the park?” Dad asked them.

“Yeah, sure, Dad,” Brad replied.

“You gonna go?” Nolan asked. I shook my head. Dad hadn’t invited me. He was disgusted by me.

They left and went to play together. Dad never built another treehouse. He just made excuses. I never saw Bill again either. He was homeschooled after that. Dad must have said something to his father.

I’d catch Dad watching me, trying to figure me out. When I was drawing with Will once, he told me to stop and go work in the garage with him, gave me the look that said he was remembering what happened with Bill. When he found a sketch I’d made of Bill, he said I was a sissy, so I stopped drawing. I wanted him to love me, to be his favorite again. When he watched me, I knew he was looking for signs in me, and I decided then to prove him wrong.

I wouldn’t let myself be gay. I’d show Dad I was the kind of son, the kind of man he always wanted me to be.

Eventually I did, and he loved me again.

CHAPTER ONE

Jonathan

I watched my brothers Nolan and Brad laugh. We had just finished a job, the two of them sitting in the bed of my truck, a large Carson Construction magnet on the side. I was leaning against the door, only half listening. I had no idea what they were chuckling about, but that wasn’t anything new nowadays. The three of us used to be close. I should have been sitting with them instead of standing off on my own, but ever since I came out last year, things have been different between us.

We pretended it wasn’t because that’s what Carson men did best—pretend shit didn’t exist until we believed it. That’s what I’d done with my sexuality most of my life, except for those few times when I’d let loose, find a guy on an app to hook up with, and then hate myself for it. Pretending was what my dad had done when he’d caught me in the treehouse with my best friend, then afterward tore down said treehouse, and I lost said friend.