Ben glanced over at the passenger seat. “What? My driving not good enough for you now?”

There was a look of suspicion on Charlie’s face as he slumped at an awkward angle, balled up like a wad of paper in the corner of the truck in his big winter coat. He’d done the same thing since he was a little kid. It looked to most people like he was tired and looking to nap. But Ben knew better. Knew a thing or two himself about staying out of reach. “You’re whistling.”

Ben shrugged. “So?” The lights ahead changed and he slowed to a stop before looking over again. “What? I’m not allowed to whistle in my own truck now?”

Charlie looked back out the windshield and yawned. “I guess I’d just gotten used to you being a sourpuss in the mornings. And the afternoons. Oh, wait, and the evenings too.” He looked around, his eyes wide and a look of comic surprise on his face that made Ben laugh and slap playfully at his head.

He missed, of course, and then the lights were green again and the traffic eased its way along once more.

Ben couldn’t deny it. He was feeling much better than he had done in a long time. A few weeks ago, if they had hit this patch of slow traffic, Ben knew that he would have been cursing and blinding and making Charlie’s life a misery; not whistling a merry fucking tune.

“I take it you got laid.”

Ben’s lungs stopped working for a second and he had to swallow before he could answer. “None of your business.”

“Which is a yes,” There was amusement in Charlie’s voice. “So, what’s she like then?”

Six foot, green eyes, not quite a six pack but not far off, cut, with mouth like a vacuum and charges $250 an hour. “It’s nobody special.”

Charlie frowned. “Yeah, right.”

Ben was almost offended. “What the fuck is that suppose to mean?”

Charlie shrugged. “It’s just—I can’t see you, of all people, doing the casual sex thing. If you’re fucking someone it’s gonna be serious.”

Ben tried to think of a come back that didn’t make him sound like he was protesting too much but had nothing. Instead, he just scoffed and braked a little harder than he should have, making his brother tip forward in his seat.

“I mean,” Charlie carried on like he hadn’t noticed a thing. “You’ve dated three women in your entire life and never even once looked at anybody else when you’ve been with them.”

“So what? Adam married his high school sweetheart.”

Charlie laughed. “Are you kidding me? You know he’s doing that chick from accounting, right?”

Ben’s jaw dropped and he chanced a glance over. “The fuck he is.”

“No. I’m telling you! For two years now. And before that, he had some bartender on the side.”

“Oh shit. Not the redhead from O’Brian’s?”

Charlie nodded. “Exactly. And those are just the regular side chicks. I love the guy but he is hound when it comes to women. And you are just not like that. At all.” Charlie sniffed and wiped at his nose with the heel of his hand. “Which is why if you tell me you got laid I can only imagine it’s someone special. Tell me I’m lying.”

Ben didn’t know what to tell him. He wasn’t sure what would be worse; telling Charlie he was banging a hooker or admitting that he was gay. The latter was out of the question. Ben needed to get used to the fact himself before he admitted it to anyone else. And even then. he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to face it.

He didn’t ever remember realizing he was gay like some people talk about. His moment of clarity was listening to his father and his friends watching a football game while he was doing his homework at the kitchen table and getting a sinking, sick feeling in the pit off his stomach when he understood for the first time that when they were talking about the people they hated—the fags and the queers, people who would burn in hell and deserved to get killed or worse—they were talking about him. And if they knew, maybe they would kill him—or worse.

So he stopped thinking about Alan Belcher and the way his shirt would ride up when they played basketball and how good he smelled when Ben got to sit next to him on the school bus. Instead, he tried to think about the other things that boys his age seemed to be interested in, like boobs and panty lines. He didn’t like it much, but he didn’t mind.

And when other kids got called fag or queer and got pushed around in the lunch line—or worse—he never joined in. But he never spoke up either. He kept his mouth shut and never told a soul. Not until a month ago. When those green eyes asked him what he wanted and he said, “I think I’m gay but I don’t know for sure. I just want to know.”

Ben cleared his throat. “To be honest, I’m mostly kinda shocked that you said ‘side chicks’. Who the hell talks like that? I thought Ellen had you all trained up and wearing one of those pink hats already.” Charlie laughed and Ben hoped he gotten away with the change in subject.

“I’ll have you know I rock the pussy hat. Maybe you should try it.” Charlie’s smile faded pretty quickly. “I’m not saying it would be a bad thing. I think—” He sighed and winced in that way he had like he didn’t want to say something in case he got a slap for it. “I mean, I know things are bad between you and Karen right now, but they could get better right?” Ben didn’t say a word, just flipped his turn signal and started to change lanes. “So, if you’ve found someone you can blow off a bit of steam with for a couple of weeks while you and Karen work things out, that’s not so bad?”

“Is that what she’s doing right now? Blowing off steam with Ralph?”

Charlie shrugged. “I’m just saying that you’ve had bad patches before. Just don’t go gaga over some chippy when you have a wife at home, okay?”

Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Charlie had always been the same. Ever the optimist. When their folks had split, he was convinced until the very end—until his father dropped dead of a heart attack at fifty-five—that they would live happily ever after eventually. Didn’t matter that the man was an abusive asshole, or that their mother was happily living the single life, Charlie was still acting like it was the Parent Trap and he could fix everything.

Even now, when Karen had been banging some guy for four months, he still had it in his head that they could talk it out. Ben didn’t have the heart to tell him that in many ways, Ben didn’t want to take her back, even if she wanted him to.

When he pulled into a parking spot and switched off the engine, Charlie looked over sheepishly. “I shoulda just keep my mouth shut, shouldn’t I?”

Ben didn’t say anything, just pulled out a twenty from his wallet and held it up. Charlie snatched it from his fingers and jumped out of the car without saying a word. Ben sighed as he watched his baby brother walk over to the breakfast place they’d been coming to for as long as he could remember and wondered how in the hell he was going to break it to him—any of it, all of it—without breaking the poor kid’s heart.