Fragile Threads [boyxboy]

Chapter 21

“Okay,” his dad drawled it out longer this time. “So, um, you have a boyfriend?”

“His name is Ari,” Ethan stated flatly. “We’re both seniors.”

“And no one at school harasses you about it?”

“No, not really.” Ethan shrugged again, frowning in thought. “Ari’s a really intimidating guy, and then so is our friend Brent, and… pretty much everyone we hang out with.”

“That’s good. Are you—do you have any pictures?” he asked. “Your mom wouldn’t agree to send me any unless you said it was okay, and I don’t have any pictures of you.”

That was a weird question, but Ethan didn’t see the harm in it. “Mom got extra homecoming dance pictures,” he said. “But Ari’s in them too.”

“All the better then,” his dad informed. “I can show him off too.”

Ethan frowned to himself. This was a really weird conversation. Was his dad actually okay with it? He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “Text me your address and I’ll get mom to mail them or something,” Ethan said.

“I’ll do that. Is it okay if I call or text you every once and a while, or do you just want to call the shots on that?”

He was being all considerate about it and everything. “I’ll think about it.” Ethan had really just wanted to know how his dad would react, and he had gotten that much. He didn’t know what to do from there. “Look, I think it’s almost dinner time, so I have to go.”

“Okay. It was good to talk to you, Ethan. Call me whenever you want.”

Ethan hung up quickly then, and was half way downstairs when he got a text message with an address. Right. Ethan made it into the kitchen and stopped up behind June. “You still have some extra prints of my homecoming pictures, right?” Ethan asked. “Dad wants one.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You talked to him?”

“Just now.”

“How did that go?” She asked carefully.

“Fine. I told him about Ari, and he said he still wanted a picture. I figure those are pretty recent, so… we can mail him one, right?”

“Of course,” she agreed quickly. “I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow. Forward me his address.”

They left the conversation there, and Ethan waited around until dinner was actually ready. Afterwards he went back to his room and texted Ari, asking if they could somehow meet for a bit.

Ari agreed to come pick him up, so Ethan made sure he had his hoody and his phone. “Mom, I’m going out with Ari for a bit,” he told her when he got back downstairs.