Page 7 of Uncharted

“A little,” I said, closing my notebook and tucking away my pencil. “I mean, I grew up with a gay brother. A gay identical twin brother at that. Him and I share so much, anyway.”

“Ya know,” he began, looking thoughtfully toward the trees as sunlight danced through the leaves. “I never asked, have ya ever⁠—”

“Been with a guy?” I asked with a laugh, and when he nodded, I snorted. “I mean, I always wondered if there might be something to it. That if my twin brother was gay and yeah, we know genetics is part of that, and a whole lot of everything else but other than a couple of kisses, no.”

“Ya kissed a guy?” he asked, not surprised, just curious.

“College is the time to experiment, right?” I asked with a laugh. “Figured I might as well start small and see if it worked.”

“Guessin’ it didn’t,” Jake chuckled. “But twice?”

I got to my feet. “I’m a scientist, Jake. You have to check your hypothesis more than once.”

“I’ve seen ya test things dozens of times.”

“Yeah, well, after kissing two guys, once sober, once drunk, I figured that was a good enough test. Plus, how embarrassing would it be if I tried to go further? What if I was the kind to scrape a dick to hell and back with my teeth? Or hell, what if I was just like…soft the whole time? Then I’d be feeling like shit and probably making someone else feel like shit all because I couldn’t take a hint, ya know?”

“I don’t know,” he said, getting to his feet and taking hold of my arm to help when my foot slipped on a patch of moss hidden in the shadows of the roots.

“I guess that’s your way of telling me you’ve never experimented.”

“With a guy? Nah,” he said with a shrug and turned away as though to catch sight of the family one more time before we headed back to the outpost. “Had some offers, though.”

“I bet,” I said. Straight I might be, but I wasn’t blind. I also wasn’t so attached to my sexuality that I couldn’t see the truth when it was right in front of me either. Jake was a good-looking man, probably an exceptionally good-looking one to most people into men. “I bet you were also the first one a lot of guys told they were gay.”

He gave me a funny look. “I…yeah, actually. There were quite a few; I was the first one they told. How’d ya know?”

“Because,” I said in an airy tone, “I know things sometimes.”

He snorted, wrapping an arm around my neck and yanking me close so I was stumbling to keep up as he walked, and I was half dragged along. “You’re not mysterious enough to pull that off. And ya know what?”

“What?” I asked as I fought to get free from his grip, even though I knew it was as pointless as demanding that he let me go. The smell of the forest was eclipsed by the smell of Jake’s chest that I was squeezed against. It was soap, dirt, faint sweat, and something that wasn’t as easily defined but, for whatever reason, made me think of a warm day at a lakeside beach.

“Ya said ya didn’t know if you could give guys a chance because ya might be soft the whole time.”

“That is not the reason I gave. I said it was one possibility that was horrifying,” I said, giving up in my fight to get free and focusing on trying to keep up until he finally let me go. “I mean, just because I wasn’t into those guys doesn’t mean they should have to deal with some weird guy who doesn’t know how to suck a dick and stays soft the whole time. That would just do a number on someone’s self-esteem.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” Jake said, his grip tightening, and I knew I needed to brace for whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “The whole time, you were talking like it was going to be you that was doin’ the fuckin’.”

“I mean,” I said, wondering if I should get free or wait until he said something stupid so I was close enough to hurt him. “So what?”

“C’mon, Reno, I bet if ya asked everyone, they’d definitely say you’d be the bottom,” he snickered.

“That’s it,” I said, shoving my knee into the back of his. I shifted my grip so I could twist and bring him down to take advantage of his imbalance. With a grunt, his grip on me loosened as his back hit the ground.

He looked up at me as I wisely stepped back, knowing that if he really wanted to, he could be off the ground and taking me down before I even realized he was moving. “Well, shit, I keep forgettin’ I’ve been teachin’ ya a few tricks.”

“I learn,” I said.

“Ya know,” he said as he sat up. “Those two guys⁠—”

“What now?” I wondered.

“What’d they look like?”

It wasn’t what I expected him to say, but I was still wary. “Why?”

“Just tell me.”