Chapter 23 Definitely not a Rebound
When I was sixteen, I came out to my mom.
She was surprised.
Not in a dramatic, throw-a-Bible-at-me kind of way. Just stunned for a second. Mostly because, up until that point, I’d been pretty popular with girls. Not by design. I just got along with them easily. I’d gone to dances, had girlfriends, done the whole high school dating thing well enough that nobody, including my own mother, had reason to question it.
But she recovered quickly.
She sat down across from me at the kitchen table, held both my hands, and did the whole speech parents practice in their heads.
She loved me no matter what.
Nothing would ever change that.
And I believed her. But then she added something else. Very gently. Very carefully.
“Just... don’t let Matty find out Kaden, please.”
Matty was her husband, not my dad. She married him fifteen years ago, when I was nine. A year later she had my sister, Talia. Matty’s pride and joy.
I knew she wasn’t saying it to hurt me. She was looking out for me. Because growing up in a small town in east Texas, the kind where everybody knows your truck before they know your name... being different tends to come with an audience.
And Matty was one of those guys. The loud, chest-puffing, beer-in-hand type who thought the world ran better when everyone stayed in their assigned lane. The kind who treated opinions like blunt weapons and didn’t bother lowering his voice when he talked about people he didn’t approve of. Which included, very clearly, gay men.
I never understood why my mom stayed with him....Still don’t. But I kept quiet about who I was because it made her life easier. And I wanted that.
Then one afternoon, when I was seventeen, Matty came home early. He caught me behind the garage kissing a boy from the track team, and the world didn't just end, it shattered. All hell broke loose. There was yelling, a lot of it. Doors slamming...my mom crying.
Matty made it crystal clear he wasn’t going to share a roof with someone who, in his words, “went around screwing other guys.”
So eventually, I left.
I was sitting in the back corner of a Walmart parking lot at 2:00 AM, my entire life shoved into the backseat of my new used sedan. I’d decided right then, staring at the flickering neon of the ‘Pharmacy’ sign, that I was never going back.
Then came the tap on the glass.
It was Josie. Even back then, she was a walking mood board....all mismatched thrift-store layers. She was clutching a roll of floral fabric and a plastic bag, looking like she’d just finished a late-night supply run for some DIY project. She’d seen the blowout at my place, in a town that small, a shouting match with a man like Matty was the local evening news.
"What'd that asshole of a 'dad' of yours do this time?" she asked when I rolled down the window. And I immediately corrected that Matty wasn't my dad.
We talked for two hours. It was the first time we’d ever said more than 'hey' in passing. I told her about my shifts at the burger joint and the money I’d been hoarding in a shoebox, even though I had no clue where I was headed. Josie just leaned against my car door and painted a picture of Los Angeles....a place she’d visited a few times that she swore was the only city built for people like us. She jokingly told me that with my face and her eye for style, we’d own the place.
I spent the next two weeks living on a spare mattress in her house. Her family was large, loud, and intimately acquainted with the struggle of not fitting into a town that demanded clones. They were some of the kindest people I’d ever met. I eventually went back home after my mom spent three days calling and weeping into the receiver, but the damage was done. Matty and I existed in a state of cold, mutual ignoring, and the map to LA was already burned into my brain.
The shoot takes forever.
By the time we’re done, the sun has started dropping lower over the water and Josie flops down onto the sheet she packed earlier, groaning as she reaches into the cooler bag.
We’re sitting in a small, sandy circle. We’ve already been interrupted twice by fans who recognize Josie from her social media. They always want a photo with her, and usually one with the "hot best friend" who occasionally haunts her feed.
"I have six hours of editing ahead of me," Josie groans, leaning back against her elbows. "My eyes are going to be vibrating by midnight."
"I'll handle the rough cuts," Dante says, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "You just do the color grading and the captions."
"Thanks babe," she murmurs, sitting up just enough to cup his jaw and pull him into a kiss that’s a little too intense for a public beach. Dante laughs against her mouth. I’ve long since accepted my role as their third wheel.
Josie pulls away and pulls out a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips, my absolute vice, and holds them out. When I reach to take them, her hand doesn't let go. Instead, her fingers snap shut around my wrist like a velvet handcuff.
"Hey," I say, my voice wary as I lift my gaze to hers.
She isn't smiling anymore. Her brows are arched, her expression a mix of "I'm your best friend" and "I will end you if you lie to me again." She doesn't even look at the chips. She just jerks her chin toward the dark, undeniable marks on my neck.
“Spit,” she says.
I look at her, really look at her. We’ve been through the trenches together, I can’t keep this from her. Not when my skin is literally purple with the evidence.
I let out a long, ragged sigh, the kind that feels like it’s pulling air from my very toes. "Do you remember the guy I told you about? The one from Orphic who tipped really well?"
Her eyes narrow, "Yeah?"
I swallow hard, the movement pulling at the bruised skin. I gesture vaguely toward my neck, the motion feeling clumsy and weighted. "It’s him. He’s the one who..."
Josie’s eyes go wide, her grip on my wrist momentarily slackening. "Oh." She blinks, the gears grinding. Then her gaze sharpens, and she leans in slightly. “Wait, that’s who you went out to meet? And you lied about the retirement home? Because you definitely didn’t have those last night.”
I shake my head, running a hand through my hair, frustration bubbling. “It’s complicated. Or fucked up. I don’t even know anymore.”
"Is this a rebound thing?" she asks, her voice softening but still sharp. "Because of Aaron? Because if you're letting some guy chew on your neck just to forget–"
“No,” I say immediately, mentally shoving that name into a locked box somewhere deep in my brain. Don’t even want to think about it.
I clear my throat, the sound dry and hollow against the crashing of the waves. Dante has stopped scrolling through his camera, he’s leaned in now, his expression a mix of genuine curiosity and intrigue.
"There’s more," I mutter, looking away from them both, staring out at the whitecaps until my eyes sting. "That huge brand deal? He’s the one who set it up....He owns the company."
Josie’s mouth literally falls open. "He owns...Wait what? Kaden, that's like a billion-dollar company. Why would he..."
"And," I interject, my voice dropping an octave. I clear my throat again, the silence of the beach feeling suddenly deafening. "He’s also my new boss at Orphic. He kinda bought the place.”
Which means he owns the club, the brand, and apparently, he thinks he owns me too.