Winter's Gamble by Mechele Armstrong Page B

and honest about what you were. I was attracted to you. And I realized something about myself. That I like men. I always had, but I had no prior reference point.” Phil ran a hand through his well-gelled hair. “I came to the edge of the closet. I was on the brink of the threshold the night we had sex. I was ready to storm out.” He’d been so idealistic, thinking if he were happy in a relationship, that people who loved him would have to accept him.
    “But you got shoved back in? Because you never came out. And you left me fucking high and dry in the process.” Bitterness laced the words.
    This was where things got less simple and murkier. “The morning after we…well, you know…we…”
    “Fucked.”
    “Yeah, fucked.” Phil would have put it in less crude terms, but that was what had happened. He couldn’t deny that. “I got a call from my brother. My mother had passed out.”
    “While you were with me?”
    “You were dead to the world snoozing.” Phil had been watching him sleep. He’d been so close to having what he wanted. He’d made so many plans as he’d watched his lover sleep. The call had shattered that. “You didn’t even hear the phone ring.”
    “So you booked to the hospital but couldn’t leave me a note about your mother? Really?” Neo arched a brow. “Like I wouldn’t understand family and how you needed to go to them?”
    Phil leaned heavily on his hand. “My brother didn’t only tell me she passed out. He told me what she’d kept from the family until they got to the ER.” His voice caught, but he kept going. “Inoperable brain tumor. Big. She was dying. He laid it all out on me on the phone that morning.” He took a deep breath. “And he knew where I was. A friend of his had seen me with you. He told me it would kill our mother, so unless I wanted her funeral tomorrow, to grow some balls and hide it.”
    “Oh wow.” Neo sounded horrified. His mouth drew up into a pucker. “I can’t imagine.”
    “Yeah. Neo, I couldn’t… I knew it would devastate my family if I admitted what I knew I was now that my mother was dying.”
    “They wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”
    “No. They wouldn’t have been. And I wasn’t ready to take a stand to lose them over this, especially with my mother’s condition.”
    Neo looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything.
    “And I didn’t tell you, which probably was another mistake. I mean I’d found out this terrible news. I didn’t know how to handle that myself. I bottled it up inside. I didn’t tell anyone.”
    “You went through this alone?”
    “Yeah.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t know you well enough to know how you’d react, and I couldn’t figure out how to handle things. I’d only recently accepted what I was. I knew if I told you, we’d continue to see each other, and my mother would eventually find out. I’m not that good at hiding things.”
    “So you ran away from me?”
    “Yeah. Not one of my better moments, I know.” Phil looked up at the ceiling for a brief second. If he could go back and change it, he would. He would tell Neo everything from the start. “By the time I’d come to grips with what was happening to my family, you weren’t ready to hear any explanations, and I thought…my mother would pass on, and then I’d get to lead my life. Maybe even come back to you and explain what had happened. I thought if I were patient, I’d get what I wanted in the end and not hurt my mother.”
    “But you never did that.”
    “My mother died a year ago.” His voice didn’t break. It wanted to, and he almost heard the crack. By the end, he’d been ready to lose her because of all the pain and the changes the tumor had caused. It didn’t make it hurt any less. “She hung on, even when they thought it was the last time she’d pull through. The doctors were amazed. And…I was stuck. Knowing I was gay would have killed her. She was old-school. She wanted grandchildren and a