Chapter 2

“You’d finally get to meet your nieces and nephews,” Daniel said.

“I’ve Skyped with them before,” Cole said, not looking up.

“That’s not the same as seeing them in person. What if one of them is in the closet like you were at that age? You could help them.”

Cole snorted. Evelyn’s oldest son, Brad, was around the age Cole had been when he came to terms with the fact that he never wanted to be with a girl, and Jamison’s son Emmett wasn’t far behind. Evelyn’s two other kids, Kendra and Martin, were both young enough to find members of the opposite sex repulsive on principle, and Owen’s daughter Sarah was…three? Maybe four by now? Evelyn would have told him if she’d had a birthday, as she kept him up-to-date with all family news. To him, those kids were images on a screen, digital people who shared his blood but could belong to anyone else. To them, he was Uncle Cole, the queer who lived in Wyoming because Grandpa Jim thought he was a blight, but whom their mama/aunt Evelyn said was nice.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Daniel said. He was using his calm and rational voice, the one that Cole trusted above all else, even though he knew from personal experience that Daniel could be a reckless idiot. Sisu, he called it, a word passed down from Finnish ancestors to the inhabitants of the Upper Peninsula, which could mean stalwart bravery or stubborn foolishness depending on the circumstance. Hero or fool, Cole loved Daniel, and he knew Daniel would follow his decision regardless of whether he agreed with it.

“I’ll sleep on it.”

* * * *

It wasn’t a restful night. When Daniel’s dad had died, Daniel worried he hadn’t visited his old home enough. Cole was more worried about what he would be going “home” to. Owen clearly didn’t want to talk to him, and even though Jamison and Evelyn had accepted his attempt to reconnect, the last time they had seen one another in person was when Evelyn helped him pack up a backpack and canvas bag with all his essentials while Jamison stood, their dad’s enforcer, making sure Cole was actually leaving. If Cole remembered correctly, Owen had been out with friends at the time or something like that. Either way, the two had never properly said goodbye.

Cole struggled to sleep as he imagined the conversations that would await him at a family gathering, especially a funeral. The questions and answers whirled through his dreams, though by morning all he could remember was a single phrase: “I never hated him the way he hated me.” He didn’t know the question to that answer or even what it fully meant. He lay awake turning it over in his mind.

Of course I hate the things he said and the way he treated me, but he hated me for who I was. His words and actions were part of who he was though, so doesn’t that mean I hate himtoo? Or is it different because he assumed I was something to be hated but I’m justified in hating him since I knew exactly what he was? Was it even me he hated or was he afraid of the humiliation from having a queer son?

Daniel curled around him as he usually did before moving on to the rest of his morning routine. Cole settled back into his partner’s dozy warmth. He was greeted by a familiar bulge against his hip, but he definitely wasn’t in the mood to stoke that fire. What he felt above all else was pity for his teenage self. If someone had told him, that day he left home, that he would eventually find a man whom he loved so much that sometimes their cabin seemed like the only place on Earth, he would have thought it was some kind of joke. It wasn’t until Jake had taken him in that Cole stopped seeing himself as an abomination who didn’t deserve that kind of future.

“Whajathinkinbou?” Daniel murmured.

“Hm?”

Daniel stretched and propped himself up enough to look at Cole with his cobalt blue eyes. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?” he repeated, somewhat more enunciated but still slurred with early morning lethargy.

“Nothing.”

Daniel cocked one eyebrow with a blink. “Then why are you lying there like you’re afraid to move?”

“I’m not,” Cole said. He shifted onto his side to face Daniel. “See?”

“Mhm, I definitely see. It’s all over your face.” Daniel pointed with one languid finger. “You’ve got that line in your forehead you get when you’re trying to be stoic.”

Damn it, he knows me too well.“Thinking about my dad.”

Daniel nodded. “I thought so.”

Words filled Cole’s mouth and weighed on his tongue, words about his dad and the meaning of hatred. He swallowed most of them down. They were so thick it made his stomach curdle. “I think I’m glad he’s gone.”

The confession didn’t alleviate Cole’s discomfort. Daniel’s silence wasn’t helping either. It was an awful thing to say. If Cole had said that about anyone else he knew, he would have been appalled at himself and immediately apologized to whatever spirit might be watching him. However, in this case, a bitter voice in his heart told Cole that his dad wouldn’t be able to hear him from Hell.