The Favorites: A Novel(55)

Now all I could see was darkness. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, giving off only enough light to make out the jagged crest of the breakwater at the end of the beach. I left my shoes next to an Adirondack chair and wandered toward the sound of the waves, clutching the champagne bottle by the neck. When cold water surged over my feet, soaking the hem of my dress, I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was back home by the lake.

It didn’t work. The sand was too smooth, the wind too warm. The spray tasted of salt.

I opened my eyes. My vision had adjusted now, well enough to see the waves crashing against the breakwater.

Well enough too that I could no longer miss the two figures intertwined in the cove.

Garrett. And Ellis Dean.





Kirk Lockwood: Figure skating has this reputation as a super gay sport.

Ellis Dean: So many sports are gayer than figure skating.

Kirk Lockwood: The truth is, it’s heteronormative as hell.

Ellis Dean: Two-man luge, American football, beach volleyball. Fucking wrestling, hello?

Kirk Lockwood: Back in my day, there was pressure to stay closeted—officially, at least. It was a very do what you want in private as long as you don’t talk about it in public atmosphere. Fortunately, the sport has become much more open and accepting.

Ellis Dean: Even now, plenty of male skaters—more than you might think, I could name names if I weren’t such a gentleman—get away with hiding in the closet. That wasn’t an option for me. I might as well have been wearing a big-ass neon rainbow sign.

Garrett Lin: My mother never told me to hide my sexuality. She never mentioned it at all. I’m not even sure whether or not she knew I was gay.

Kirk Lockwood: Sheila knew about Garrett, of course. A mother always knows.

Garrett Lin: I always got this…sense. That I had to carry myself a certain way. Be a certain type of man, on the ice and off. I wanted to be perfect.

Ellis Dean: The shit I had to put up with, being out and proud back then. I don’t want to say Garrett Lin was a coward. But yeah, if he’d come out—with his status in the sport, and all that straight-passing hot guy privilege? It would’ve made things a hell of a lot easier.

Garrett Lin: If I could go back, I’d do things differently. But I wasn’t being truthful with myself at that age, so how could I tell other people the truth?

Ellis Dean: I’m glad the sport is catching up with the times. Then again, I wouldn’t be where I am today without the pathetic self-loathing of my elders. It’s like I always say: suck a man’s dick, and he’ll be satisfied for a night. Let him suck your dick in a hotel suite at the World Championships of Figure Skating? Then you’ll have blackmail material to last a lifetime.

Garrett Lin: I think a part of me wanted to be found out, forced to face who I really was. Honestly, I’m surprised it took so long.





Chapter 36





Ellis spotted me first. Garrett was too occupied with kissing the bare skin below Ellis’s undone collar.

I stumbled backward, feet slipping in the wet sand. “Sorry, excuse me, I’ll—”

Garrett turned too.

“Shit,” he said. The first time I’d ever heard him swear.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“No.” Ellis pulled away, tucking in the tails of his shirt. “I’ll go. You two need to talk.” He shot Garrett a look. “Clearly.”

He strode back toward the hotel, leaving Garrett and me alone on the beach.

I had no idea what to say. Realizing Garrett was into guys wasn’t such a shock. It explained a lot, actually. Realizing what a good liar he was, though? That threw me.

“So.” I glanced after Ellis, now nothing but a gangly shadow against the distant glow of the party lights. “You and Ellis Dean.”

“Listen, Kat.” Garrett swallowed. “It’s not what it—”

“I’m not going to tell anyone. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

He sighed, shoulders slumping. “Thank you.”

“I am curious why you never told me, though. This whole time I thought I just wasn’t your type.”

I smiled, trying to make a joke of it. But Garrett took my hand and gazed into my eyes, deadly sincere.

“I wish you were my type, Kat. I can’t tell you how much.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” I told him. “I hope you know that.”

In some ways, it made things a hell of a lot easier. If only I’d known back when Heath and I were together; all of that jealousy over Garrett’s intentions toward me, when in reality there was nothing to worry about.

“Who else knows?” I asked.

“No one.”

“Not even—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Bella wouldn’t have cared. Sheila, I wasn’t so sure about. She wasn’t homophobic. She and Kirk had remained close since their retirement, and she’d done plenty of fundraising for AIDS patients in the ’80s and ’90s. But she’d spent decades building the Lin family brand, packaging Garrett as a handsome prince for all the young female fans to fantasize over. Being gay wasn’t part of the business plan.

“At first I was scared,” he said. “I felt like I needed to figure it out on my own, before I shared it with anyone. But now…” He scrubbed a hand over his neck. “Maybe I like having a part of myself that’s not public.”