He's Just a Skater Boy (boyxboyxboy)

Chapter 164: The Calm

[A/N] Sorry I'm delayed. I had another bout of fatigue, a lot of sleeping, all day all night. I'm not sure if it's medical or I'm possibly just making up for lost sleep somehow. In any case. Here we go!  (꜆꜄ •̀⤙•́)૭꜆꜄꜆

[Atlas's POV]

It had been a while since I'd been that uncomfortable around my family, but last night had surprised me, it felt as though I'd argued with them. And this time it wasn't even Lily's fault. 

I wasn't paying much attention as I slugged more sausages onto my plate and piled on the mash, carefully avoiding the Brussel sprouts my mother kept nudging in my direction. With a snort.

Everyone was gathered around. Her husband and her daughter let her put the food on their plates but I preferred to pick what I was eating. She skimped on the sausages.

My father was trying to multitask pouring himself orange juice while reading a newspaper that sat to his left folded on the table, and my sister was on her new phone, doing whatever.

"How would you guys feel if I was dating a guy?" I asked them.

It wasn't like I was considering it a grand coming out. I'd maintained a certain amount of typical homophobia around my friends but I never actually cared. When gay couples appeared on the TV no one in my family gave it any thought.

So when the question came to mind it didn't feel like there was any reason not to ask it.

The table went silent so quickly that I didn't notice it at first. Somehow they weren't speaking before so it didn't register that it was getting even more quiet until I was finished serving myself. Then I realised that my sister was staring at me, her phone forgotten, my mother had stopped putting food on her husbands plate and my father was looking up slowly to blink at me, the glass in front of him now full.

I frowned at them. "What?"

My mother cocked her head slightly, fairly expressionless for a moment, not empty but not reacting at all. "What?" 

I looked around the room.

"Why would you ask that? You're not gay..." Lily asked me quietly.

My father leaned in, I couldn't read the expression on his face either. He furrowed his brows and stared at me.

"Are you?" Her voice was getting even quieter.

"I don't know." I shrugged. I wasn't feeling self conscious. I was feeling fine. Normal. 

I looked around the room, trying to figure out what everyone was thinking.

My neck felt kinda itchy.

I'd plated too much food, it was starting to look like a mountain in front of me.

"But you're... Are you gay?" Lily asked again, fully turned to look at me. "Because- Because- What- How- That's not..."

"Atlas is just asking a question, don't make any assumptions..." Her mother smiled at her suddenly, as if breaking out of her stupor, blinking at the room around her and passing the plate to her husband. 

She then beamed at me. And I couldn't tell if it was forced. "Of course we would be fine with that. Provided he's a nice boy." She smiled wider so that each one of her normally invisible dimples came to greet us.

Was that a fake smile? Was it a tense smile? She didn't smile like that normally.

Maybe this was one of those situations where it mattered if it was one of their own. I didn't know what I was supposed to do about that.