Hadn’t Skyler always known, deep down, that a man who would never be okay with coming out was going to be a bad investment? But he had gone against his better judgment. No matter how much Craig said that he loved Skyler, he had still walked away. Skyler had been right all along.
He would have much rather not be.
Wyatt, however, did turn around. He and Skyler had become somewhat unlikely friends, and Skyler fancied that he knew the man better than most. No one really trusted Wyatt, but Skyler had seen a change in him.
And he should know. He wasn’t the sort of person who just blindly jumped into trusting people, far from it. But Wyatt had slowly convinced him that he really had changed, which was saying something, because Skyler had been the one that Wyatt had tried to get to betray his best friend, Kyle. Of course, that had all worked out for the best, since Kyle had ended up with Malcolm, so that made the whole thing easier to forgive.
So when Wyatt came to sit beside him on the steps which led up to the patio, Skyler sighed softly. He would rather be alone right now, but Wyatt’s company, he decided, he could take.
“You have to try again, Skyler.”
Skyler looked at Wyatt, so utterly exhausted. He had never felt this way before, like his whole body had been dipped in concrete, and it was slowly hardening, trapping him right here on this porch forever.
“I can’t. He said no,” Skyler replied, and Wyatt sighed and shook his head.
“He’s angry. He’s always been like that, stubborn and angry. And he thinks that you don’t put enough into the relationship. That’s what he told me.”
Skyler stared at him, not so much angry as he was incredulous. Had Craig talked about him openly with Wyatt? Had admitted that there was, or had been a relationship? That seemed impossible to him.
“I can’t try. I tried. I went after him,” Skyler replied, but his mind was racing, and the shackles of concrete that he had just envisioned around himself were falling away. He could stand now, could run, if there was anywhere to go. But there wasn’t. Craig was gone.
Wyatt sighed and shook his head, and he was obviously going to say something else. But then they heard the rumble of a vehicle, and somehow, Skyler let himself hope that it would be Craig returning. It wouldn’t be, of course, but …
It wasn’t. Skyler watched as Derrick and Logan pulled up in their pickup, secret smiles on their faces.
“We gotta talk to everyone,” Logan announced as he swung out of the truck with that easy grace that Skyler had always envied. Logan was a man who knew his own mind, and who wasn’t afraid of the power of his charisma and his good looks. Or, as far as Skyler could tell, much of anything.
“Craig’s not here, but everyone else should be inside still,” Wyatt replied. And they probably would be. Everyone had been pretty shaken up by what Craig had said about John being so sick. Other than Derrick and Logan, Skyler hadn’t seen anyone else leave.
It didn’t take long to gather everyone. Actually, they were all mostly there in the living room, making polite conversation with Matthew and Hannah and probably wondering why they were there at all. In all the excitement, Skyler had almost forgotten that he was going to have to do something about them.
“We’re getting married,” Derrick announced, and he seemed pretty calm about the whole thing, but there was this smile on his face and a sense of satisfaction in his eyes.
Logan, however, was having a harder time holding his emotions back, and he was grinning like an idiot as he slung his arm around his boyfriend. Or, apparently, his fiancé.
The whole thing didn’t surprise Skyler at all. He had known that they were together before most people had made that connection even while Derrick and Logan themselves were still debating it.
“I know it’s a weird time for us to announce it,” Logan admitted. “But with everything that’s going on, we thought it was time.”
Everyone turned to look at John, and Skyler wondered how the older man would react. He had, after all, just been told that he was dying and that he would die sooner than anyone could have hoped. But the man was grinning, and there was a real sense of satisfaction written on his face.
And this was the family, Skyler couldn’t help but think, that Craig was so worried about coming out to. This man who was so clearly thrilled that this was happening. Skyler didn’t know much about how these boys had grown up, of course, but right now, with John as he was, he legitimately seemed just to want his sons to be happy.
Before John could say anything, there was a flurry of movement from the couch. Everyone turned to watch as Matthew, unbelievably, rose to his feet. Right there in the middle of a bunch of strangers, during a time that was clearly about other people, not about him, Matthew dared to impose his presence.
“Well that’s great news,” he said heartily, but there was a sort of insincerity behind his voice that Skyler heard. He didn’t know if anyone else heard it, but he most definitely did. “Because we have some news, too.”
“Matthew!” Hannah hissed, and it was actually a bit reassuring to Skyler to see that his sister was clearly horrified by Matthew’s behavior, too. Why she had been taken in by him at all, Skyler didn’t know. Not fully. It had something to do with Matthew being so charismatic, so easy to fall for. But once you had seen past all of that, you could never turn back.
Or, at least, Skyler hadn’t been able to. He could only hope that his sister was the same. Despite having grown up with her, he barely knew who she was as an adult.
“Skyler and I are also getting married,” Matthew announced. He walked over to Skyler and draped his arm around his shoulders, then actually turned and pressed a kiss to Skyler’s cheek.
He thought he might actually literally vomit.
“No, we aren’t,” Skyler contradicted, though he wasn’t usually one to speak in big gatherings. “If I marry anyone, it’s not going to be you.”
He didn’t say Craig’s name, of course. Even now, he respected the other man far too much, and anyway, it wasn’t his job to come out for Craig. He needed to do that for himself, or not, as he saw fit. But it was, and should be, and had to be, Craig’s decision, not Skyler’s.
