Eric behaved like a perfect gentleman, and I was a basket case. Back home in Indiana, I was always the person in my family who remained calm through every storm. I was born a decade before my siblings, and, at times I felt like an uncle as much as I did like a brother. I helped raise them, and I was a babysitter when my parents needed to be away. I had to have a clear head.

I couldn’t shake the sensation that somehow Sam was different from the kid that I knew before I got called up to the Yellowjackets. It never occurred to me that he might be gay. Even when I started sleeping with Eric, I didn’t think that my brother might like guys, too.

As soon as I let myself slide down that rabbit hole of thinking that somehow Sam wasn’t the same person, I wanted to kick myself. The logical side of my brain told me that all of that was nonsense, and Eric came down on the rational side. I didn’t know how to put the pieces together in my head so that Sam was a complete puzzle to me again.

We skipped going out with Javier after the game and drove directly to Eric’s apartment. As we walked through the front door, Eric asked, “Can we set Sam aside for tonight? You’re tired, and you need rest. If you need time to wind down from the game, we can watch a movie, or we can cuddle on the couch. My hamstring is sore, so sex wouldn’t be fun tonight unless we help each other with mutual hand jobs.” I loved the chuckling noise Eric made and the sparkle in his eyes when he mentioned hand jobs.

I said, “A cuddle on the couch sounds perfect and maybe some relief before we go to sleep. Do you have any of that peppermint tea?”

Many little things in Eric’s life were slightly exotic to an Indiana boy. Peppermint tea before bedtime was one of those. My parents drank coffee while I was growing up, and we had Lipton tea bags in the cupboard, but peppermint tea was something different. We only had peppermint in Christmas candy canes.

Eric said, “That’s a great idea. It will help you sleep. Grandma Hinsdale highly recommends it.”

Eric sat at one end of the sofa with a large pillow behind his back, and I cuddled up close against his chest. Our mugs of tea sat on the coffee table while I rubbed Eric’s chest through his shirt. He was slim, but his pecs were muscular. I loved rubbing and kneading them, and they made a perfect pillow, too.

Eric asked, “Did you notice Mo in that last half inning? It looked like his jaw was made of steel. When he’s like that, he’s scary. I would hate batting against Mo when he has that fire in his eyes. I’d throw up my hands and say, ‘You win.’”

I said, “It’s awesome that we have a player like Mo on our team. I’ll miss him when he retires, but I try to soak up everything he says about his experience. Grandma Donaldson taught me to respect my elders. Mo knows how to cut up and laugh, but he’s wise, too. Jack’s a lucky guy.”

Eric slowly raked his fingers through my short cropped hair. I loved the sensation. We’d only been a couple for a few weeks, but his fingers running across my head was one of the most comforting feelings I’d ever experienced. It always helped me know that he was there, and he wanted to touch me.

Unfortunately, after we climbed into bed, my thoughts began to race again. I rolled over onto my side and reached out to slide my hand down over Eric’s belly to his already stiff cock. I was distracted, and he whispered, “I know you’re thinking.”

Eric rolled back over and took control of the situation. I howled when I came, and it was like a massive portion of the tension escaped with the sound. Eric rested his head on my chest. Soon, his breathing slowed, and he was sound asleep.

Unfortunately, when Eric fell asleep, I started thinking about Sam again. My thoughts began rolling in odd, vicious circles. I tried to think of ways that Sam might have indicated he was gay by his mannerisms or the subjects of conversations. I couldn’t stop myself from drifting toward stereotypes. That led to questions about my own behavior chasing thoughts about Sam in a self-defeating spiral downward.

I’d heard that many people thought homosexuality could be genetic and ran in families. I wondered who else in the family might be gay. No one that I knew was out, but how many of us might be in the closet? I speculated about my grandfathers and my uncles. Was it possible my dad was gay, too, but living in southern Indiana stopped him from coming out?

I pulled Eric tighter and listened to him moan lightly in response. I marveled at his ability to take it all in stride, but for me admitting that I wanted to be with another man wasn’t so easy. I tried to make it appear that way because I didn’t want Eric to have any doubts, but inside my emotions were like a lake on a cloudy, windy day. The water was choppy and rough.

I didn’t speak to my dad on the phone. The conversation was entirely with my mom. She sounded okay about everything, and she insisted Sam was fine, but she was quiet and dodged the questions when I asked about Dad.

I asked, “Did he tell Sam that it’s okay? Did he make sure Sam knows that?”

She paused for a long time and finally said, “Sam is doing fine. He has friends that are very supportive, and I told him to let me know if there’s anything I can or should do.”

I wanted to say, “Well, just so you all know, I’m gay, too,” but I needed to have a long talk with Eric before I did something like that. Beyond Aaron and Chase, we suspected that anyone else might leak our story to the press, and then we’d have to confront the swarm of reporters.

I pushed Eric over onto his back. He didn’t wake up. I pushed further until he lay on his side, and I spooned up behind him. I rubbed his chest and kissed the back of his neck while I listened to him breathe. He was one of the best people I’d ever known. Even before we became a couple, I knew that he’d give anyone that he counted as a friend the shirt off his back if they asked. At least twenty times a day I thought about how lucky I was to go to bed at night with Eric. I whispered into the darkness, “I think I love you.”

Eric woke up cheerful and rested the next morning. I was exhausted. Although I fell asleep at some point in the middle of the night, I woke up tired. As soon as I climbed out of bed, I wanted to crawl back under the covers.

While we sat across from each other at the little table in Eric’s kitchen, I nursed my coffee. The caffeine slowly began to turn the lights on in the darkened corridors of my mind.

Eric smiled and said, “I’ve got a way to think about Sam. Of course, I’m not telling you how to think. I’m offering it as an option. Maybe it will help.”

A corner of my mouth turned upward into a half smile. I said, “I’m trying not to think about it this morning. I thought about it way too much last night, and I had trouble sleeping, but if you have good advice, sure, let’s hear it.”

“Did I ever tell you about my Uncle Leon?”

I tried to scour my brain to come up with Eric mentioning Leon. He told a lot of stories about his family and growing up. I wanted to keep them all straight. I hated to forget the information when someone shared that kind of personal detail. Finally, I shook my head and said, “No, I don’t think you’ve mentioned an uncle with that name.”

Eric grinned. “It’s probably because Uncle Leon doesn’t exist anymore.”

“He died? That’s horrible. If he was an uncle, he couldn’t have been very old when he passed away. What happened?”

Eric held up a hand. “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t have an Uncle Leon anymore because I’ve got an Aunt Lou.”

My addled early morning brain was confused. I sipped the coffee and said, “I don’t think I’m following you. Say that again.”

“I think I should have thought of this last night. She’s my mom’s sister. She grew up as Leon, and I knew her as Uncle Leon until I was twelve years old. Then Uncle Leon became Aunt Lou. I was confused, and it threw me for a loop for a little while.”

“Wow, yeah, I guess so, but it happens. Lily knows a girl at her high school that was born a boy genetically.”

“I could tell you more about Aunt Lou, but what I most want to share is what my mom said to me about it. She saw that it was causing me trouble thinking about it. I wondered why it was such a surprise. I wondered how it could be that I didn’t notice anything different about my uncle.”

“What did she say?”

She laughed when she asked her first question. She asked, “Did you get stuck on what you should have noticed in the past when I told you that your grandmother was a blonde before her hair turned gray? I saw you were confused for a moment because almost everyone in the family has dark hair like you.”

I remember what I said. I was in sixth grade. I said, “I just decided it’s more stuff that I know about Grandma. It was weird at first, but it’s not a big deal.”

Then my mom nodded with that thoughtful look on her face that only moms have. She said, “Now you know more about Aunt Lou.”

I smiled. “I think I understand your point. I hope I can get there. It makes sense, but my emotions won’t land there quite as fast as I might want. My story’s more complicated than that.”