Page 55 of Two for Charging

The mom and two kids moved out of his line of sight. “Matty, growing up…were we a happy family?”

Matty laughed. The sound was so sudden and jarring Chris had to hold his phone away from his ear.

“Chris, we were fucking miserable.”

That didn’t sound right. “But nothing bad happened. I mean, Mom and Dad stayed married, and none of us got sick or anything. And I mean, you turned out fine. You’re in university and everything.”

“You’re a literal millionaire. We both turned out fine. You don’t need to be sick or—or in danger to be unhappy. Sometimes people just are.”

“But why?”

“Mom and Dad never sorted their shit out, and no matter how hard you tried to keep the peace, you couldn’t fix their relationship.”

Chris mulled his words over. “So you don’t think it was my fault?”

“What? No! If you hadn’t been there, it would have been so much worse. I would have been a teenage runaway or something.”

“You would not.”

“Okay, but with no one to get in between me and Dad, I would have ended up hating him and Mom as much as they hate each other.”

“They don’t hate each other.” Even as he said it, Chris wondered if it was true.

Matty didn’t have to say anything for Chris to picture his skeptical expression. “What brought this on? Usually you pretend everything’s fine.”

Chris swallowed around nothing. “I think I’m getting tired of that.”

“Okay. Hey, you know Anna Karenina?”

Frowning, Chris tried to parse the abrupt change of subject. “Uh, no. Is she a Russian chick? How many girls are you meeting?”

“It’s a book, numbnuts. There’s this famous opening line where it’s like, ‘all happy families are the same, but unhappy families are cool and different.’”

“What a downer.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s a Russian book. But the point stands.”

Chris wished he was in Montreal to hug his brother. Matty hadn’t accepted hugs outside of greetings and goodbyes for years, but Chris was bigger and stronger. He could hug his little brother if he wanted to no matter what Matty said about it. “Thanks for talking to me.”

“Hey, anytime. Love you, bro.”

Chris pulled his phone away from his ear to make sure the call was connected. Had he heard that right? Wow. “You too, Matty.”

They hung up, and then there was nothing left for Chris to do but drive into the garage and go home.

He did not feel like having sex.

He wasn’t sure he ever had.

Sure, he got hard sometimes, but it didn’t occur with any regularity. Some guys on his Juniors team talked about masturbating daily, which shocked Chris both because they described it as an urgent issue, which it had never been to him, and because he didn’t understand why they would want to tell other people about it. For him, it was more of a bodily maintenance thing. Masturbating helped him relax when he got wound up. The idea occurred to him when he was already frustrated and irritated and couldn’t figure out why. Then he would get cozy in his bed and have a long, leisurely jerk-off session, followed by a nap, and then he felt better.

Sex had never been a relief in the same way. It involved too much buildup with too little payoff. And if what Michelle said was true, maybe it was okay for Chris to feel that way. Maybe he was allowed to just…not bother.

The thought caused panic to rise sharply in his chest. If he didn’t figure out how to start wanting it, if he allowed himself to keep avoiding this perfectly normal human experience he was supposed to want, he’d be weird and alone forever. No matter what Michelle said, no one wanted to do all the good parts of dating without the sex.

Luca had been kind enough to offer his help, and Chris desperately needed it.

With his heart in his throat, he unlocked the front door.