The Art of Faking Straight

Chapter Twenty-seven

         “Yeah I know I can talk about it, but that doesn’t mean I actually want to.”

         I cannot even begin to fathom how a straight male would ever want to discuss his gay best friend’s sex life. I get that he thinks we are ‘drifting apart’ but honestly, it’s just because he’s been spending every possible moment with Callie while I’ve been doing the exact same thing with Connor. It’s like Jack has some weird feeling that Connor and I are getting closer to that. But even if we are, why is he thinking about it? 

          That’s just weird.

         Jack groans and tosses his – my ­­­– game controller on the ground. He sounds more frustrated than I am, but I know that is not really the case. He’s the one that keeps interrupting the game to ask stupid freaking questions. “You expect me to actually believe that nonsense?”

         “You’ve believed a heck of a lot of other irrational things,” I mutter under my breath.

         Jack will not stop staring at me with an incredulous look that makes me feel as if he is literally trying to see into my soul. I don’t even know why he has suddenly taken an interest in my sex life. I mean sure I get it, a tiny bit, but there’s no real reason he should ever want a real account of what I have or haven’t done. He can’t even get all hot and bothered from it considering how the object of my teenage lust happens to have very similar anatomy to the both of us.

         “Don’t you find this sort of, um, weird?” I finally ask. I’ve been trying to spare his feelings, but he’s Jack, he’ll pester me endlessly anyway.

         Jack just shakes his head.

         “Really? ‘Cause I’m going to be perfectly honest here and say that even I’m beginning to think this is going far beyond the usual boundaries of friendship…”

         He furrows his eyebrows and tilts his head to the side, which is his signature confused face. “Guys talk about sex all the time, Liam. C’mon, stop being such a prude.”

         I roll my eyes halfheartedly; there really isn’t any way to get through to Jack without bashing his skull in. “Yeah, but they don’t nonchalantly talk about gay sex. Do they?”

         Jack makes a face, as if he is actually thinking about it, and then slaps me hard on the arm. “’Course not, but sex is sex…a human desire and need. So, I don’t see the big difference here. We used to talk about girls all the time, why not guys?”

         I think I’m okay with talking about girls with Jack because although I’ve messed around some with them, it’s always been sort of impersonal. If I were ever lucky, we’d do the deed – very few girls will willingly do anal – and then neither of us would really ever want to face one another again. I don’t know if girls were embarrassed by what they’d done with me or if I just somehow got the type of girls that just knew it wouldn’t progress any further than the bedroom. Either way, what I had with girls in the past and what I have now with Connor are two entirely different things.

         And some things are best kept to ourselves.

         The look on Jack’s face is grim, but I’m still waiting for him to crack a smile and begin to laugh. Only, he doesn’t. He just continues to stare at me as if I’m some new found specimen on a lab table.

         “Um, you’re not kidding, are you?”

         “No?” he answers dimly, but it comes out more like a question. “Why would I be?”