Cast Off (6 page)

He stood up and threw the roll back at her. “I haven’t gotten anyone pregnant and I don’t want a fucking girl to stick around. I’m gay, dammit.”

The second the words flew from his mouth, he wished he could claw them back, prevent everyone from hearing them. Kurt smothered a snort of laughter.

Awesome. Kurt found his marvelous confession amusing. Once again, something he hadn’t been able to do as well as the baby of the family.

“Ian Seamus O’Donnell.” Shit. His mother was truly pissed if she was trotting out his full name.

He spun on his heel and headed for the backyard. He’d like nothing better than to leave, but he was certain his car would be boxed in by at least three others. And they were probably pissed enough to make him stay here all night.

He shouldn’t have said it. Why had he said it like that? None of his carefully prepared speeches involved him blurting out his secret while yelling at his aggravating pregnant sister. Ian kicked at a clump of grass before digging the toe of his shoe in the dirt. He stared at the yard, the far end overgrown with trees and bushes that had been a lot sparser when he and his brothers played in it as kids. He was only a year and half older than Kurt, Dylan the same again older than Ian. Being so close in age made the three of them much closer than the other siblings. Mike had been a great older brother but distant, partly by nature, partly by years. Erin as eldest was just too difficult to relate to most of the time. The twins in between Dylan and Mike were more like a single entity growing up than two sisters, and rarely needed the rest of them. Yet, Ian loved them all. He just hadn’t trusted them with his innermost secret. Not even the brothers who had been his closest friends growing up.

He hadn’t wanted any of them to figure out the truth, and distancing himself when he felt vulnerable had been the easiest solution. He’d done the same thing with his friends, none of whom knew the truth either.

Ian picked up a deadfall branch and tossed it into the foliage at the back of the yard. It made a satisfying
thunk
as it hit a tree trunk well camouflaged with ivy.

Kurt’s coming out had been seriously anticlimactic as far as his family was concerned. No one had noticed how much turmoil it had created within Ian, just searching for a way to break free.

The small pinhole he’d made in his protective shield when he’d admitted his orientation to his brother had provided such a break. Instead of calmly outing himself to his family, his anger, fear, and all those years of repression had exploded all over them.

The back door opened and shut behind him. His shoulders slumped. Normally, his parents wouldn’t come after him to yell. They were big on admitting your own mistakes. Maybe because in a family with seven kids,
someone
always knew something and hiding things was so impossible you might as well come clean. Did Mike still get in trouble with the parental units? His brother had always seemed so grown-up and perfect, even when he was young, that Ian assumed he’d stopped feeling like a stupid kid long before he’d hit his twenties. Ian was thirty-three and dreading his parents yelling at him.

In many ways, he’d be surprised if his parents hadn’t known about him long before this. His parents were intelligent and savvy business people, for all that neither of them had more than a high-school education.

He turned around, ready to face the firing range. Instead of his parents, though, Kurt and Dylan stood there, looking at him with love and concern. Ian’s eyes stung and blurred.

“C’mon. Sit down.” Dylan gestured to the log bench in the shadow of the enormous maple that marked the southwest corner of his parents’ property.

Ian sat first, his back to the house. Dylan sat on his left, Kurt on his right.

They sat there for a few minutes, a warm breeze ruffling the leaves overhead. He sensed both brothers shift as though they were going to speak, but it was like they didn’t know what to say. Ian didn’t either. He just took comfort from his best friends—brothers—next to him.

Dylan huffed out a breath. No surprise—he was always the most impatient of the three of them.

“Ian, man, you should have said something.” There was no censure in Dylan’s tone, only regret. “We would have understood. How long have you known?”

It was a legitimate question. Kurt had been oblivious to his orientation until recently. Ian had always assumed his brother was a prude or had a low sex drive. Possibly Kurt had thought the same thing about himself until he’d met Davy.

“Since I was fifteen.”

“Fifteen? Ian, why?” Ian knew what Dylan meant. Why had he kept it secret so long? Kurt already knew Ian had been hiding it for years, but he hadn’t told him everything.

Ian scrubbed his cheeks with the back of his hand. “You remember that weekend camping trip we took at Wasaga Beach?”

“Yeah, sure.” Dylan laughed. “We got into so much trouble.”

Kurt grunted. It was one of the few times they’d left Kurt out, only because they were sure no one would believe their baby-faced brother was legal, no matter how tall he was or what their fake IDs said. He and Dylan and a couple of Dylan’s friends escaped one weekend to drink themselves silly at Wasaga.

“I still hate you guys for leaving me behind.” Kurt pouted.

“Whatever.” Dylan reached behind Ian’s back to punch Kurt in the shoulder. “You got even by squealing on us.”

“Ow.” Kurt grunted.

“Wuss,” Dylan replied.

“I got shot!”

Dylan breathed in sharply. “Sorry. Forgot.”

Ian had too, almost. They had so easily slipped into their threesome camaraderie. But he’d had a reason for bringing up the incident that had nothing to do with reminiscing.

“Anyway… your friend from the swim team was there.”

“Oh, yeah. God, lost touch with that guy ages ago. What was his name again?” Dylan’s question was mostly rhetorical.

“Niels.”

“Right, Niels. Oh my God, you had a crush on my friend, didn’t you? No wonder you were so damned insistent about coming to all the swim meets, when you could never be bothered to wake up that early before.”

“Yes, well, I saw Niels naked in that communal shower at the campground. And it was an epiphany.”

“But you chased after cheerleaders all year after that!” Dylan’s shock was tinged with disbelief.

Ian let out a bitter laugh. “Because you were. Remember Paul Jenkins? I don’t think anyone ever gay bashed him, but he got a lot of shit from the athletes in the school. I don’t even know if he was gay, but he was small, clumsy, smart as anything, and pretty as a girl. And I learned I didn’t want to be different, not if it brought me attention like Paul got. I didn’t want anyone to treat me like that.”

“Jeez, Ian.” Dylan gave his shoulder a squeeze. “I wouldn’t have let you get bashed.”

“Nor I,” Kurt said. Funny in a way, because even in high school, Kurt was bigger and more muscular than either him or Dylan. He might have been the youngest, but Kurt was far from the runt of the O’Donnell litter.

“It was so fucking easy for you guys.” Ian continued to speak over their weak protestations. “I mean it. Dylan was a fucking hound dog, after every breathing object with tits. Everyone seemed to applaud your behavior—except for our sisters. So I mimicked you.”

“What about Kurt? He didn’t act like that.”

Ian shrugged. “I kinda thought he was a bit of a prude. Saving himself for marriage or something. I guess no one gave him shit because he was so big, but it wasn’t something I could copy.”

“Huh. And I always assumed he just had a low sex drive.” Dylan winked across Ian at Kurt, whose face went ruddy in the late evening sunlight.

“Shut up! Ian, you should have talked to me.”

“Kurt, you were younger. Not even fourteen when I first saw Niels. How was I supposed to know you’d understand? Would you have?”

His wounded brother patted him on the knee. “Probably not. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t into girls like you and Dylan seemed to be, and by the time I got to high school I figured I just wasn’t that into sex. It never seemed that important. Until Davy, it never even occurred to me to look at guys that way.”

“Oblivious little shit,” Dylan teased.

Ian hadn’t found much about today humorous at all, but this was. “Some detective you are. Is this your way of saying your sex drive
isn’t
low?”

He and Dylan both laughed at Kurt’s renewed blush. Ian needed to get to know Davy better because he seemed so good for his brother. But Kurt’s words confirmed that Ian had been the only one hiding his true self all those years. Instead of focusing on that, he finished his story.

“By the time we left high school, I was known as a player and it seemed like my role in life had been set. At university I fell into a cycle of hitting clubs, finding guys to screw, no strings, no names, no feelings. It was safer and easier to keep pretending.”

Kurt sucked in a breath. “You were… careful, weren’t you?”

Ian pressed his lips together and nodded. He’d had a scare, just after he’d turned twenty. A scare that he’d not been able to talk to anyone about except the guy at the free clinic. He’d never felt so lonely in his life, especially since he didn’t even know the real name of the guy he’d been with. After that, he’d been the king of condoms.

“Well, shit, bro, that sucks. I wish….” Dylan paused. “I wish you’d met someone like Davy earlier.”

“You’ll find someone.” Kurt wrapped an arm around Ian’s shoulder. “You’re a great catch.”

Until that moment, Ian hadn’t let himself truly hope there was someone out there for him. But how was he going to break the habit of years? The image of Rick, slim and blond, writhing in his bed, flared hot in his mind. Rick couldn’t be the one, but wow. The night had been incredible. But thinking about excellent sex with his brothers seated on either side was just plain weird, and he let the image disperse.

The three of them sat there, letting the wind swirl around, content in their silent companionship.

He wasn’t alone. After Kurt came out, he should have realized his own orientation wouldn’t be an issue, but knowing something in your head didn’t always relieve the anxiety in your heart, and Ian had been playing a part for a long time. A part Kurt apparently hadn’t even been playing until he met Davy.

Drawing in a deep breath, he straightened his spine. “How mad are they?” Ian didn’t have to specify his parents. They were the ones he’d have to deal with first. Then the sibs.

“Dunno,” Dylan replied. “But they were content to wait until you were ready to come back inside.”

“Guess I’d better get to it.”

“Caitlyn and Mark left already, so it’s only Stephanie and the units inside,” Kurt offered.

Ian stood. His outburst wasn’t any less humiliating, but at least he didn’t have to face his sister’s sharp tongue. Yet.

S
EAN
and Deirdre sat at the kitchen table, their soft conversation ceasing as Ian came in the door. The unwelcome sensation of being a kid about to get grounded swamped him.

He slunk into his chair and waited. His parents shared a glance before his mother reached out and placed a gentle hand on his arm.

“Honey. Can we talk about this? Calmly?”

“I’m sorry. I just….” Ian didn’t know what to say. Not exactly. No matter how it had come out, he’d really already said the most important bits. Hashing it to death with his parents, when they were mad at him for being an asshole, didn’t seem like any fun at all. He was thirty-three years old, not thirteen. When he noticed his lip beginning to pouch out in a pout, he sucked it back in. Because he
wasn’t
thirteen anymore. Sulking was pointless.

“Talk to us. It’s okay. We love you. No matter what.”

Ian’s eyes began to burn at his mother’s declaration, but hearing it eased something inside.

“I’ve known for a long time. Since I was a teen. But I never felt I could tell anyone. And then, Kurt just blurted it all out at his party and… and everything was okay. For him. No one cared. And that’s as it should be, but….”

His mother smiled. “But you felt cheated, maybe? You’d built it up in your head as this enormous, black secret and suddenly you realized admitting it wasn’t as… I don’t want to say earth-shattering, because I know it is for you. One day, no one will care whether a person is gay or straight, but until that day comes, you just never know, eh, boyo? But you spent so long wondering about how we’d take it that your baby brother came in and stole your thunder. Not having any negative repercussions just kicked that competitive streak of yours into overdrive.”

Ian blinked at his mother. So, he wasn’t a sulky bitch, he was a drama llama. Lovely.

His mother wasn’t done. “I wish you’d trusted us enough to tell us earlier. I hate that you spent so long worried that our love was conditional. But it’s not and never will be.”

“C’mere.” His father stood and pulled Ian into a crushing bear hug. “What your mother said.”

His mother was waiting right after to administer her own brand of hugs. Ian’s eyes burned again, but this time he couldn’t stop a few tears from trickling down his face.

Pulling back, his mother sniffed and wiped at his cheeks like she’d done every time he’d been hurt.

“You know you owe Caitlyn an apology, right?” His father still had his stern look on, but there was no disapproval or disgust. Nothing was different, and Ian let out a shaky breath.

“I know.”

“And Kurt too.”

Ian frowned. “I spoke to him last night. I apologized for avoiding him. We’re good.”

“No, Ian. Not for that. Even though he didn’t come to his realization until recently, you are truly mistaken if you believe it was easy for him. It wasn’t. Maybe you didn’t see it because you were so busy protecting yourself, and that’s okay. But talk to him. I think you need to know what he went through. I think you’d be surprised how similar you two are.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“You’re on dish duty.” His mother stretched up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “But you probably guessed that.”

Ian let out a watery laugh. “Yeah, I did.”

They left the kitchen and Ian began to run the hot water. His mom had a dishwasher—thank heavens—but she preferred pots, serving dishes, and glasses to be washed by hand.