peppermint to be // bronnie

ix

I suppose it was exciting that I was finally advancing somewhere with Brandon, but waiting for his call wasn't anything less than awful. I felt like I was a teenager again -- except gayer. Oh, so much gayer.

I've never been the type to flaunt around my sexuality. You'd catch me dead before you'd catch me talking about my amount of gayness; however, on the night of Brandon's awaited call, I was so homosexual I couldn't believe it. I swear I was thinking of Brandon's fast-growing stubble for at least 30 minutes. I have a whole fucking beard and I'm enchanted by some stupid man's stubble. I almost smacked myself when I started smirking at the concept of what sound our facial hair would make if it met. Extreme Homo.

That's about when my phone started buzzing rapidly on my chest. It was only then that it occurred to me how embarrassing Brandon's name in my phone was. It was just "Flowers"  with all the hearts after it. After that moment of embarrassment, I was never going to tell myself that there aren't levels of gayness.

I shakily answered the phone. "Hey," I managed.

"Hi! Is this Ronnie?" Brandon giggled.

"Maybe," I said, grinning like a fucking fool. If Dave was there with me, he'd literally gag.

"I'll take that as a yes! How are you?"

I couldn't believe it, his voice was even more gentle on the phone. "I'm good, very good. How about you?"

"I'm great! I just finished working on the project with Mark, he just left."

Did he really call me immediately after they were done?

"Cool --I wanna hear it someday, play it for the whole shop to hear. I bet it sounds wonderful." I was really pushing our friendship limit.

"One of these days."

There was a silence between us, all I heard was the tiniest sound of Brandon breathing. "I can't believe I called you with nothing to talk to you about."

"We can talk about my sharpie that you stole."

"Oh my God! I almost forgot about that! I'll bring it back to you, I swear."

"You don't have to..."

"I'm going to anyway."

I fucking  love him, what the hell?

"Alright. I could get a new one for a dollar, but alright." More silence. More gentle breathing. Then I could hear him softly giggled. I wanted to roll off my bed and fall into a dark, dark pit. "What?" I mumbled.

"This is still weird for me."

I snickered, "what's weird about it?"

"Just how we met, I didn't think the guy serving me coffee could make me feel--"

He stopped. I was suddenly very panicked and shaken. Was he going to finish his sentence with something that could let everything fall into place? My head kept repeating, "this way, this way, this way," over and over again. It just seemed like the only thing that could do the trick. "F-feel?" I stammered.

"Like I have friends," he laughed sheepishly.

I returned to my less-panicked state. "Ha, I'm sure Mark appreciates that."

"Don't get me wrong, Mark's great, but I like knowing there are other people in my life too."

"What -- don't you have family?"

A pause even more uncomfortable than the one before rushed over our call. I had made a drastic mistake.

"Well..." he breathed out a bit shakily. "Not really -- i-it's not like anything too terrible happened -- it could have been worse."

"Did you want to talk about it?"

More silence.

"Yeah, okay. I think that would help me."

I gulped. It didn't sound like he had ever talked about this with someone else. 

"Okay, well, um...let's start out with the fact that I'm not exactly straight and that my family's not exactly, ah, progressive, I guess. There wasn't this big 'I came out and now they hate me'  fiasco -- I just haven't come out. There it is. There's the problem. I'm just so scared that they'd hate me. I don't this makes sense."

"Oh -- no, no, it makes perfect sense. Er -- I'm gay and I've had the same fears."

There I was, coming out to the guy I've fancied for months. A strange thing. It became even stranger when he began laughing.

"What?" I snorted. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, it's not funny at all -- I just would have never guessed..."

"Oh yeah, the beard typically hides the fact that I like me some good man."

He began laughing again, "oh man, I'm awful about assuming things."

It was official, Brandon was a pure baby-gay. I wanted to hold him and tell him that everything will be alright. "It's okay, enough about me, continue your little story."

"Oh right -- my mom passed away last year, which, obviously, was so awful for my family and me. I just couldn't come out to them after it, it would just be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

"Gosh Brandon -- I'm so sorry."

"I think she was probably the only one to sense it. She never asked me about girlfriends."

I really wanted to physically do something. Maybe crawl through the phone and comfort him, tell him that everything will be okay.

"But yeah," he continued, "that's it, I haven't talked to my family since her death because I couldn't bear holding in this big secret around them."

I whispered, "I want to hug you," not loud enough that he could definitely hear it, but just enough so that I could hear the words ring around me.

"What?" He asked, confused.

I took a deep breath. "I want to hug you," I said, definitely loud enough. 

He chuckled softly. "I could use a hug -- maybe you could hug me tomorrow."

I didn't want to seem desperate, but I quickly spat, "come in early tomorrow -- if you can -- if you want to."

"Just for a hug?"

"A hug and a free hot chocolate."

"I picked the right person to be friends with."