Maggie took turns paying attention to the casserole she was constructing, putting the filling in the large square dish, then spreading the mashed potatoes over it. She carved the top with a fork, then threw the whole thing in the oven. Having her walk over and sit next to him at the table was comforting and daunting at the same time.
“You said that was when it started,” Maggie said. “I assume you two got together later? What happened in the meantime?”
“I was heartbroken when we broke up, but I couldn’t afford to go out of state to college. My parents weren’t even sure they wanted me to go to Spokane. Anyway, I was single for most of freshman year. Then I had a relationship in college. Jordan.”
This was the tough part. The part he didn’t talk about. Malcolm knew about it, because he’d been there to pick up the pieces, the disastrous fallout.
Could he talk about this? His heart started beating, hard and fast, and he swallowed against the lump in his throat.
“I wasn’t really expecting Jordan either,” he said.
“How’d you meet?”
He took a deep breath. Then another. He felt his heart hammering in his chest like he was going to have a panic attack.
“He was my roommate.”
“Ah.”
He studied her, looking for any scrap of disappointment, or disgust.
Instead, she looked . . . well, more like his computer, when the wheel went around as it worked on something. Then she nodded. “So you’re . . . bi? Pan? Sorry. If this is uncomfortable, let me know. You don’t have to label, obviously.”
He felt his body release tension like a wave. “You’re taking this well,” he rasped.
“What’s to take? It’s not my business. And so what?” She shrugged. “I didn’t always live in the Falls, Aiden. I went to Berkeley, I lived in Napa, and we moved around the west side for a while when we first moved to Washington. My best friend from middle school, although married to a guy, is bi. Granted, I don’t think her parents know, and sometimes she feels like she doesn’t represent it well since she’s married to a guy and has several kids, but I tell her that’s total bullshit. It’s not like you have to get verified like Twitter, for fuck’s sake.”
He found himself heartened by her stubborn and profane vehemence. It made it that much easier to keep telling his story.
“Anyway. Jordan was amazing. Handsome, charming . . . everything I wasn’t.”
“Hey,” she said, lightly tapping his forearm until he looked back at her stern expression. “Don’t insult my friend.”
He grinned, surprised. “Well, I was awkward and lonely and felt completely out of my depth. Most of my high school friends hadn’t gone on to college, or they’d just gone to Falls Community or gotten certified. Hell, most of them had jobs. I’d never met anybody like Jordan. He seemed to know everybody. He went to parties and dragged me along. He took me to clubs. And by the end of freshman year, he hit on me.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’d ever been so turned on in my life. It was mind blowing.”
“Big change from Sheryl, I imagine.” There was a hint of a question in her tone, but again, no judgment.
“I loved Sheryl, and I loved being with her . . . that way,” he said. “Being with Jordan was different, but also sort of the same? It was ridiculously hot, and he knew so much more than I did—I mean, Sheryl and I were virgins, and Jordan really wasn’t. I fell totally, uncontrollably, passionately in love with him.” He felt his lips curve in a bittersweet smile.
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
“One problem,” he admitted. “Jordan was in the closet at home. And I didn’t mind staying there, myself, especially then. My parents—my father would have lost his damned mind if I came home as a freshman and said I was gay, which I figured I must be at that point. I didn’t want to deal with that. We were having fun, and as far as either of our parents were concerned, we were just really good friends and roomies.”
“Parents, right?” She grinned, shaking her head. “I’m sure there are things about Kit’s life that I am oblivious about that will seem totally obvious in retrospect.”
“By the time I was a junior, I was so in love, I didn’t care if other people knew about us. We’d been together over two years. I wanted other people to know about us, and I couldn’t understand how he could keep up the pretense of us just being roommates. I started pushing him.”
She was hanging on every word. His throat got scratchy.
“It . . . went bad. Especially when his parents came to visit. We’d had a fight. Then they mentioned how he might want to bring his girlfriend around.” Aiden still felt that stab of betrayal. “I thought he’d been lying to them. Turns out, he’d also been lying to me.”
Maggie gasped. “He was cheating on you? With a woman?”
“Someone his parents liked, in fact,” he said. “She wasn’t even his beard. As far as she knew, she was actually his girlfriend back home. It was a mess.”
“That asshole,” Maggie hissed, looking like she was ready to hop in her car and beat his ass. Weirdly, that helped.
“Obviously we broke up. I couldn’t handle bumping into him on campus. I couldn’t handle anything. So I dropped out,” Aiden said. “My best friend, Malcolm—you know, Mouse, from the guild? Well, I wound up telling him everything, sure that he was going to shun me but not even caring. But he didn’t. He told me to come out to the west side. He was going to U Dub, and I crashed with him in his apartment. My parents were pissed, and they didn’t even know about my whole thing with Jordan. They just thought I was a quitter. And when I said I didn’t want to be a doctor, I wanted to be a nurse? They didn’t talk to me for a few years.”
She shook her head. “I am so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I mean, it wasn’t at the time, but . . .”
“No. I get it. Unsupportive family is the absolute worst.” Again, she looked ready to go vigilante.
He smiled. “Anyway. I got my nursing degree, and I was working at some care facilities, focusing on elder care and hospice. And you won’t believe it, but I ran into Sheryl again.”
“Sheryl from high school?”
“The same,” he said. “She was just as sweet and just as kind, and we wound up having dinner. A couple of times.” He sighed. “I told her about having a bad breakup—not all the details, obviously, because Jordan was still in the closet and I wouldn’t do that to him.”
“I should hope not,” Maggie murmured. “I mean, the guy’s a dick, but that wouldn’t have made it better.”
“Anyway, I told her that I had a broken heart. And she wanted to make it better. So we got to know each other, hung out a lot. Next thing I knew, we were dating. I was still attracted to her, and I knew how rare that was. To my shock, I found myself falling in love with her. Again.” He frowned, still puzzled. “So . . . yeah, bi? I guess? Although . . .”
“You want a drink?” she asked. “I mean, I don’t have much, but . . . um . . .”