If This Gets Out(52)

I press a kiss to the top of his shoulder. “Not like that. It just feels natural. How does it feel to you?”

“Ah, yeah, pretty sure I’m fine right now. I have Zach Knight in my bed. You know how many people would kill to be in my spot right now?”

“This bodes well for me.” I start kissing toward his neck. “Be careful, I might decide to play the field. What’s that Grindr thing everyone is always talking about?”

“Shut up,” he says, kissing me, his hand going lower down my chest. “Besides. I can think of a reason why you shouldn’t get Grindr.”

The world falls away.



* * *



I sit up and go into the bathroom. As I go inside, I see myself in the mirror. My hair is messy and my cheeks are flushed.

I just had sex with a guy.

I know it was just hands, but I’d say it still counts. Ruben comes in and presses himself up against my back. Then he spins me around and kisses me.

“I should go,” I say. “So nobody is suspicious.”

“No, stay.”

“I want to … I just…”

“I get it,” he says, bowing his head. “Go.”

I press a kiss to his lips, and then leave the bathroom to get dressed. I make sure I have my keys and wallet.

Then I leave the room, flush with joy.

Oh no.

Outside, down the hall, is Keegan, doing a routine sweep. Seriously, again? Somehow, I’ve managed to run into either him or Pauline every time I’ve snuck out of Ruben’s room. I’m starting to think it’s the universe playing some sort of cruel joke.

Keegan is staring at me.

I make my way back to my room as nonchalantly as possible.

“Ruben was showing me a … thing,” I say, as I reach my door.

“Again?” says Keegan in a voice that’s a little too casual to really be casual. “I’m surprised you two are functioning at all during the daytime.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my voice squeaky. It always betrays me. I shouldn’t have spoken. I should’ve just nodded, and left, and— “This is, what, the third time Ruben’s showed you something in his room at one a.m. in as many days? Don’t you all get up with the sun?”

I should ignore him, I should ignore him, “I—What do you mean?”

“Oh, I don’t mean a thing. Just that I don’t know where you kids get your endless energy from. The two of you have barely slept a wink lately. If you’re not in his room all hours of the night, he’s in yours.”

I stare at him, and he shrugs. “Bet you’re glad you’ve worked out whatever you were fighting over, at least?”

I shouldn’t be trusted with anything.

I’m just going to make this worse if I stick around, so I go into my room and close the door behind me.

Fuck. He knows. I just gave us away. And now he’s going to tell Geoff and everything is going to suck.

I flick my light off, and fall back onto my bed. Everything crashes down around me.

What have I done?

I’m experiencing a lot of clarity right now, and with this clear-mindedness has come the fear. I just had sex with my best friend, but also a guy who is effectively my coworker. This is going smoothly now, but if things change, it could be catastrophic. And I was caught.

Someone other than us knows now.

I start messaging Ruben.

Hey. Keegan knows. He seemed really suspicious when I ran into him just now.

Wait, what??

Yeah. He said we’ve been spending every night together, basically.

Shit.

Okay.

Shit.

So what do we do?????

I don’t know. Do you think he’ll out us?



I chew my lip while I wait for a reply.

My phone lights up.

If he’s caught on, it’s not going to be long before the others do. I guess we were optimistic to think we can hide it forever.

I have a bad feeling they’re going to find out sooner or later. The question is do we want to take control of how they find out?



I know what he’s getting at. My hands shake as I type out: I’d rather they hear it from us. If they find out in any other way we’ll be in so much trouble. Maybe we tell them tomorrow?

I don’t send it, though. If I do this, people will know about me, just like they know about Ruben. But also, not a single part of me is ashamed about what I’m doing with him, and thinking of myself as bi is getting more comfortable with every passing day.

And Chorus has made it very clear what they think about secrets. They need to be told about everything going on in our lives, so that they can plan accordingly, and our narrative can never get wrenched away from us. If I want to keep hooking up with Ruben, it can’t remain a secret. Otherwise someone will out us and it will blow up into a massive thing. We need to be ahead of it.

Plus, Angel and Jon are two of my closest friends. I want them to know about me. I just thought I had more time than this to come out.

But … I guess I don’t.

I hit send.

Are you sure??

Yeah. I wish we had more time, but you’re right. I don’t want them finding out from anyone else but us.

Right. Well maybe sleep on it, and if you still want to, we can tell them at breakfast tomorrow.