Hailey was looking between us. “Huh.” She turned to Bryce. “Angela wasn’t kidding. Austin, you’re gay?”
The word froze him. I didn’t want him to deny it, but I didn’t want him to be completely put off from coming out. His eyes shot to mine, and then back to Hailey and he swallowed.
“Yes, but please—”
She held up a hand. “No further than your front door. But, Austin, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Don’t be offended, Hail,” Bryce said. “He doesn’t tell anyone. He only told the five of us under duress. Poppy helped him keep up the straight appearance.”
“Being gay has been a problem for years,” I said. “Only in the past ten years has it started to be a real option to come out. But there are still enough homophobes that it’s frightening to admit you’re anything but cishet. Believe me, gay identical twins is a curse, not a blessing.”
“I was scared. We were young and we had a lot of young fans who might not have been fans if their parents objected to the gay guy as lead singer.”
Hailey nodded and stepped up to him. She threw her arms around him and hugged him. He was shocked for a moment, then hugged her back. “You don’t have to hide with me, Austin. I love you guys, you’re amazing. I’m from the love is love school of philosophy. When you’re really ready to let the world know, we will spin this into an amazing positive. How’s that?”
“Perfect,” he whispered.
Bryce lifted an eyebrow. “I’d be jealous of this hug. But…”
Austin flipped him off and stepped back from Hailey.
“So, we have a damage control situation here. We can get everyone out there to sign an NDA about this, and we’ll be covered.Notthat I don’t trust them, but it’s better to cover our asses legally.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Can I use your computer? I can have a quick simple NDA drawn up by the time the eggs are out of the oven.”
He motioned to the computer set up in the corner. “Have at it. I think you can get guess the password.”
She sat down and typed in a word, then laughed. “Of course. Only where we want the albums to go. Top of the charts.”
* * *
True to her word,as we were all grabbing the food from the trays, Hailey was back out with a handful of papers.
“All right, everyone, listen up. It’s not that we don’t trust you, but we don’t trust you. I have a little NDA for you all to sign. There was a lot of stuff that went down in here last night and this morning that we just don’t need escaping right now. So, to make it all legal and sticky, we’re just going to sign these.”
“I don’t like NDAs,” Holland said.
“Mm, and I don’t like you all telling the world that Bryce brought me to a screaming orgasm,” she said. “I’m quite sure that Nels and Jace don’t need some gossip rag up in their faces—” Nelson gave her a thumbs up “—and Austin doesn’t need you reporting on his sexuality. So. We sign.”
She walked around and handed everyone a sheet of paper and a pen, and as soon as Angela, Maddox, and I had them, we quickly filled them out as a sign of solidarity.
“They are good for one year from the date on the top unless one of the aforementioned people break the silence themselves on their part in the matter. The other parts will remain intact,” Hailey explained. “Get it? Just because Bryce and I decide to go public in two months doesn’t mean you get to talk about Austin or Nelson.”
Rand held a thumb up and signed with a flourish at the bottom.
“This kind of brings down the whole night,” Grig said. “I mean, we weren’t going to go out and talk to anyone. We were all pretty trashed last night.”
“Not worried about last night,” Bryce said. “We’re worried about this morning. A lot of personal stuff went down. This is Austin’s safe space and we need to keep it that way.Capisce?”
“Certo,” Ora said. “Lo so.”
“Grazie,” Bryce said.
“And on that note, our Broadway star needs time to shower and rest before he had to be at the theater,” Angela said, gathering up the NDAs. “So you’re all gone by noon, please and thank you.” She leaned into my ear. “You can stay, but don’t wear him out.”
I laughed and watched him turn bright red. I loved how protective everyone was of Austin.
Slowly, but surely, everyone started trickling out of the apartment. Most of Robot Servant went first, and a large majority of my friends funneled out as well. Noah leaned against the door, and watched as Nelson and Jace walked out.
“What the hell is going on there?” he asked. “Do we need to watch out for the kid? I mean, he’s a baby twink and Nelson is a big, powerful Hollywood actor producer who could probably swallow him whole.”
