Gemini - 12. Dangerous Secrets

Jacob

“Hey, how was your day so far?” Josh asked as he pulled me into a brotherly hug.

“It’s okay, I guess,” I replied. I considered telling him what had happened between me and Parker, but decided against it. He seemed happy and I didn’t want to ruin his mood by talking about that asshole. I’d tell him some other time. “How about yours?”

He grinned at me as we sat down. “Awesome. I’m really liking your life.”

I smiled. It was good to hear that he enjoyed his time. He seemed different somehow; more self-confident, happier. It seemed that my plan to make things easier for him had worked well. I had fixed things with Philip and Parker and now he just needed to come out of his shell.

“Any problems,” I asked.

His smile faded a bit. “Yeah. You could have warned me about taking showers after PE,” he said, but then his smile lit back up. “It worked out well, though. I survived it, so it’s okay, I guess.”

“Warned you about what?” I asked confused.

“You know, that you take a shower after PE. I don’t, nobody in my class does, as you might have noticed, because it’s in the last period and so far I have always been able to dodge that one,” he explained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said earnestly. That must have been a shock to him, considering how shy and withdrawn he usually was. He just grinned, though. “Don’t worry. It was scary at first, but I went through with it and I actually feel good about that now. It’s not that bad, I guess. It will still take me some getting used to, though.”

I chuckled. “I know what you mean. It’s not a big deal to me now, but back when I took my first shower at school, I was kind of scared, too.” But then I thought for a moment. “Aren’t you supposed to enjoy taking a shower with a bunch of guys? You’re gay!”

He gave me a sour look. “Seriously? I didn’t look at anyone. I was way too scared that I’d pop a boner or something. It was just really embarrassing, nothing else.”

“Well, I guess that’s normal, though,” I said. I conspicuously leaned over to him and all but whispered. “It’s hard to believe, but even Ethan was scared about getting undressed that first time back when we were Freshmen. He was kind of a late bloomer. Don’t tell anyone I told you, though. He’d never forgive me.” I winked at him.

“It really is hard to imagine,” he chuckled, and then he fell silent and stared at the ground in front of his feet, blushing.

“What?” I asked him.

“Uhm, nothing really,” he replied hastily. “Oh, by the way, do you remember Cody?”

“The new guy? What about him?” I asked.

“He’s kinda cool. We talked at lunch, Ethan, Sarah, him and me that is, and he invited us over to hang at his place some time this week”, he said excitedly. He hesitated for a moment. “He’s gay, though. I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t know until we were already eating lunch together and then I couldn’t just get up and leave. Ethan didn’t mind, so I just went along with it. I’m just worried that there will be a problem with your brothers.”

I thought about that for a moment. If Ethan liked that guy, I could hardly not hang out with him, just because he was gay. “They will have to deal with it. In case they ask you about it, just blame it on Ethan, alright?”

“Okay, great,” he said and seemed relieved.

“You like him?” I asked suspiciously.

“Huh, Cody? I don’t know, he seems okay,” he said, but then frowned. “Oh, you mean that way. No, he’s not my type, don’t worry.”

“Good,” I sighed. “It’s one thing to tell Ian and Conrad that it’s not their business who I hang out with, it’s another if you start flirting with that guy or something.”

He frowned at me and when he spoke his voice was almost a little bitter. “It’s not like I don’t know how to hide I’m gay, okay? I have more experience with that than you can possibly imagine.”

I didn’t know how to reply. He did have a point. Instead of continuing our conversation, I stared off into the distance. After a minute or two he spoke again. “I got Ethan to help me on the farm this afternoon. I’m too exhausted from yesterday and PE to survive that alone.”

I nodded. “Good idea. My aunt really likes him. She’ll be happy to see him again.”

For the next hour or so, we enjoyed the sunshine and made some smalltalk. I told Josh a little more about the farm and he listened interestedly. When we didn’t know what to talk about anymore, we just laid back and closed our eyes to relax.

“I’ve gotta get going,” Josh said after checking the time on his phone. He yawned and got up. “What do we do about French?”

“We swap back tomorrow during lunch, so I can go to French at my school. Then we meet again after school and hang out for the afternoon,” I suggested. “Unless you have changed your mind about going to the farm today?”

He shrugged. “Sounds good, and don’t worry about the farm. I’ll be okay.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow then,” I said, as we bumped fists.

I smiled as I looked after him. The way he was walking had changed, too. It looked more confident. I wondered what life would have been like if we had grown up together. My parents sure didn’t know that he existed. They would have adopted both of us if they had known. Things could have been so different. I really hoped that someday we could close this gap, like we had never been separated.

After another ten minutes, I got up, too, and walked into the other direction, towards Josh’s home. I was just leaving the park when I saw Parker walking down the street in the opposite direction, surrounded by a couple of his buddies. He spotted me only seconds after I had noticed him, and shot me an evil glare. He was intimidating, but showing fear wasn’t going to help me, so I forced myself to respond with a gentle smile.

The closer he and his friends came the more nervous I became, but when he was about 15 feet away from me, he broke the eye contact and passed without doing anything. I let out a sigh of relief. He could be scary indeed, but apparently my tactic had worked.

Still lost in thought about Parker, I entered Josh’s home and went to his room. I had barely dropped the backpack next to his desk when there was a knock at the door. I waited for a few seconds, but nobody came in. Finally I realized why that was. “Come in,” I called.

Philip opened the door. “How are you, Josh? You’re a bit early.”

I shrugged. “Dunno, I’m alright. We got out of PE a bit early.”

He looked at me for a moment, like he was lost in thoughts. I decided to interrupt that, before he could actually notice anything unusual about me, or think through whatever was going on in his head. “Uhm, I was going to take a shower, so like, is there anything else?”

“Oh, no,” Philip said quickly. “Or actually, yes. Your father has a meeting in an hour. He needs me to join him, to play his personal assistant or something. We will be back for dinner, though. Do you need anything until then?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied. “I’ll see you later.”

He made to leave, but I stopped him. “Oh, and Philip? Thanks for, you know… not just coming in and all.”

He smiled at me. “No problem.”

♊

I leaned back and yawned. Satisfied, I looked over all the numbers and letters on the papers in front of me. Doing Josh’s homework was tough, but I had a feeling that I was starting to understand what was going on in his math class. I had spent all afternoon and a part of the evening to do all of his homework and learn a bit for my own finals.

Dinner had been not much different from the night before, but I was getting used to Mr. Adams and this time I had just tuned him out and nodded to everything he said. The things he said were still ugly and I really disliked him as a person, but I was able to pretend that it didn’t bother me. I went on YouTube to chill out a bit before going to sleep.

After listening to a few songs, I heard a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I called out, and Philip entered my room.

“Hey, I’m about to leave,” he informed me. “I just wanted to check on you before I go. What’s up? You seem different lately.”

“Huh, different? What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know… you seem more confident, friendlier,” he replied.

“Uhm, no idea,” I lied. “I just felt like it, I guess.”

“You were away a lot during the last week. Have you found some friends? Met a girl?” He asked with a grin.

“Uhm,” I said. How the hell was I going to get out of this?

“Or a boy maybe?” He asked and winked at me.

I stared at him in shock. “Why would you think that? I’m... I’m straight, so definitely not.”

He laughed. “No worries, I was just teasing you. Really freaked you out, huh?”

I frowned at him. I had a bad feeling about the way he was looking at me. If I said nothing, I would probably do more harm than good. Philip’s suggestion about me having met a boy was dangerous. “Well, I made a few friends at the pool, but that’s it really.”

For some reason, Philip seemed happy about that and he smiled at me. “That’s really nice to hear.”

The whole gay thing wouldn’t let me go, so I decided to add a little white lie. I hesitated for a moment and then I put on my best dreamy smile. “There is this girl though. She’s really cute, but I doubt that I will have any chance with her.”

Philip raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Yeah, she’s really nice,” I said. “And beautiful.”

“Well, good luck then, I guess,” he said and grinned at me, but somehow it sounded off. As if he was disappointed… or as if he knew that something was wrong. Before I could analyze it any further, the moment was over and he opened the door to leave.

“Well, good night, Josh. See you tomorrow,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

Had Philip any suspicions? If he did, then it rooted back to way before I had even met Josh. He wouldn’t throw something like that out there just because of my reaction during dinner the day before, or would he? Was he testing me? If so, then I had apparently given him a reason to doubt me even further. It seemed like he knew something. He wouldn’t just risk his job over nothing. His comment about Mr. Adams’ views being outdated the night before… that was a risky thing to do in his position.

The next hour or so, I spent on YouTube, watching a few more videos and thinking about Philip. Suddenly there was a loud knock and at the same moment the door started to swing open and Mr. Adams entered.

“Hey Josh, I see you are still up,” he commented.

“Oh yeah, I was about to go to sleep,” I replied.

“Anyway,” he said. “This weekend we will go to Washington to visit your grandparents. Be ready to leave Friday right after school.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure how to react. Josh hadn’t said much about his grandparents, other than that they lived in Washington.

Mr. Adams left the room and I quickly called Josh.

“Hey, hold on?” he said when he picked up. “Uhm, give me a second to get out of here, ok?”

I heard some voices and noise in the background and then the sound of a door being shut.

“Alright, I’m outside. What’s new?”

Should I tell him about Parker or Philip? I assumed that it would completely freak him out, so I decided against mentioning it.

“Uhm,” I said. “Your parents are planning a trip to Washington to visit your grandparents this weekend. They want to take you with them”

“Ugh! I don’t really feel like going there this weekend. I mean it’s a cool city, but I’ve done all the sight-seeing, so it’s kinda boring. I’ve been there a lot when I was younger. Not so much lately though. Have you ever been there?” He asked.

“I’ve never been much further away from this city than aunt Mary’s farm. Why do you ask?”

“Well, why don’t you go then?” he suggested excitedly. “My parents won’t be around much, the only reason for them to go there is business and politics. You could see the city and if you’re lucky my grandmother will take you out shopping. Just pretend to be a nice, sweet little grandson who is still five years old and she’ll be at your feet.”

“Uhm…” I started, trying to say something, but he rambled on: “They are a bit annoying but you’ll get used to it, and you could keep whatever my grandmother buys for you. You could get a whole new wardrobe if you play it right, well maybe no new undies, I wouldn’t try that with her,” he laughed. “but, maybe a few nice polo shirts and a new pair of shoes, or two, and...”

“Could you breathe already?” I interrupted him. “Won’t they notice? I mean, I don’t know the city at all.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he told me. “I don’t know the area all that well either, I can never remember what way I went when I follow someone else. They will always have someone go with you when you go out, for safety and all. My grandparents don’t want me to be alone in the city. They are scared I could get lost or something.”

“Well, it does sound cool,” I told him. That might actually be an interesting trip. “So our role reversal goes on until Monday morning, except for the French lessons, and then we swap back?”

I was really hoping he would accept. It would give him more time to get mentally away from his family. Even though being with his parents definitely wasn’t fun, I wanted to do this. If he had done this for almost sixteen years, I could survive it for a week.

“Sounds cool,” he said happily. “I kind of like it here. I really miss my computer and having my own room, but dinners are fun and your family is like… warm, cordially, you know? I just feel really bad about deceiving them, you know? They believe that I’m you, so they love me, but what would happen when they find out that I am not you? I hope they won’t hate me.”

He sounded so sad when he said that. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I really understand what you mean. Thinking about what the dinners with your parents are like… well, you really deserve something like this. They will be understanding. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Thanks,” he said softly.

I cleared my throat, trying to get rid of the mushy feelings in my chest. “Anyway, how are you feeling? I take it school was crazy? How was the work on the farm?”

“Ugh. I’m totally beat,” he groaned. “Just descending the stairs hurts like hell and now that I have taken a shower, I’m just tired and want to go to sleep.”

“Alright, let’s call it a night, then. The longer you sleep the better for your body,” I told him. “I’m really tired, too. Learning for my finals and trying to do your homework is way exhausting.”

“Alright, have a good night, sleep well,” he told me.

“Night, you too,” I said, and hung up.

I put the phone aside and went to brush my teeth. Once I had stripped and slipped under the covers, sleep claimed me quickly, and the rest of the night I dreamed about my unexpected trip to Washington.

It was quite a nightmare, actually. I was at the mall with an old lady, apparently Josh’s grandmother. I wanted to buy a pair of SpongeBob boxers, but she kept dragging me back to the section where the suits were and tried to force me into a ridiculously expensive suit. I refused to wear it though, and tried to escape from her. It ended up with her chasing me through the store and then out to the streets, me only in a SpongeBob boxers and her with the suit in her hands.