Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a complete douche, but he didn’t like me because I was in the gifted track for after-school enrichment stuff, and he and his buddies weren’t. And he liked to say, Look, I can rhyme now too.”
“What lovely lines did the wanker devise?”
“All sorts of catchy phrases like It’s Terry Jerry the Cherry. Which was just dumb, so I didn’t care. Then it was It’s Terry Jerry Who’s So Hairy, which felt more personal because I was starting to get a baby beard,” I say, touching my chin. “I had to shave when I was twelve.”
Jude’s eyes pop. “That’s young.”
“It was. I don’t mind the beardability now, though.”
Jude gestures to my stubble and lets out an appreciative sigh. “I bet you’d grow a fantastic beard.”
“I bet I would too.” It’s a little cocky, but I don’t care—I earned this bit of cockiness the hard way. “But the name that bugged me the most was when they said Terry Jerry the Fairy.”
Jude frowns. “Fucking pricks. Did they know?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t out, and I don’t think they knew, especially since I didn’t even really know I was gay till I was fourteen. But I was figuring it out in my head, and that’s why it stung—not least because Robby’s best friend was this really cute guy named Liam,” I say, then slump back in the booth.
“That’s such a classic cute-guy name,” Jude says.
“Right? Anyway, even though I knew on an intellectual level that they weren’t using a slur personally, I hated it.”
Jude takes a long pull of his beer, then sets it down. “So what happened? How did it stop?”
“Research,” I say, a small note of pride in my voice. “I knew the biggest advantage I had over Robby was my brain. So, I researched online how to deal with bullies. Most of the solutions—bring in an adult, tell the bully to stop, weren’t my style. But act bored—I was really good at that. When Robby would start up, I’d just roll my eyes, open a book, do something else.”
“Don’t feed a fire,” Jude says, delighted. “And it worked?”
“Over time. But the biggest thing that worked was me realizing eventually they didn’t have any real power over me since I’d already renamed myself. Their stupid rhymes weren’t going to last forever, but I had a name I finally liked. I had something that mattered to me.”
“You did. You really did.” Jude’s eyes hold mine, and there’s a new look in his—gratitude, maybe? A touch more vulnerability? It’s hard to say, but whatever the emotion is, it brings that tingly feeling back to my chest for all new reasons.
Reasons that have nothing to do with my dick and everything to do with the organ in my rib cage—with what I’m feeling for the man across from me.
I might be more than slightly infatuated.
“Thank you for telling me, TJ,” Jude says. “I couldn’t figure out why you’d hate a name so much. I thought maybe it was that you simply wanted a cool name. But I get it now. I get you.”
“I don’t think I’ve told that story to a lot of people,” I say, but that’s not true. I know I haven’t told anyone besides my brother. I didn’t even tell him till middle school ended and I’d escaped the line of fire.
Jude gives a soft smile like he’s glad he earned the tale. “Were you out in high school, then? Or did the name thing make it hard for you?”
“I came out to my brother when I was fifteen, then to our parents a little while later. They’d just gotten a divorce.” Even though I poured out way more of myself to Jude than I thought I would, he’s not getting the story of my parents’ divorce. No one is. That goes to the grave. “I waited till the dust settled from that. And then I was pretty much out from my junior year of high school and onward. And no one gave a shit what my initials stood for. Everything else was more interesting, you know?”
“It ran its course,” he says. “But it stayed with you. It shaped you in unexpected ways.”
That’s one way of looking at it. “It did.”
Jude lifts his beer, clinks it to mine. “Cheers.”
“For what?” I ask, confused.
“For saying something hard. I know you didn’t want to tell me that.”
Funny how a week ago I wanted him to work my name out of me in the bedroom. I should keep that secret too, but fuck it. He’s easy to talk to. “Honestly, I’d been hoping you’d get my name out of me with your tongue. But now that I’ve given you the whole sorry story, I think I’m glad I didn’t say it in bed,” I tell him with a smile.