“Of course you do,” he purported, gaining confidence from my loss. “Tell me you don’t love him. Lie to me or lie to yourself and tell me.”

“Fuck off.”

“There it is.”

“There it is?” I cried, “I didn’t say anything different than I always say to you and you say, ‘there it is’ like you proved something?”

“Because I did,” he confirmed, “because you couldn’t say it.”

I could feel my hackles rising, my defenses firing up once again.

“Was I not supposed to see the way you looked at him at the Cubs game?” Maks continued. “Did you think you were hiding it from me?”

“Hiding what from you?” I asked, exasperated by his insistence.

“The wonder, the love, I don’t know, whatever it was you felt compelled to hide that you weren’t able to,” he sighed. “How long do you want to keep up this aghast bushwa, pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about? It’s tired already. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. I was ready to finish the phrase with another statement of denial, but I decided against it. Instead, I chugged the remainder of my beer and let out a deep, cleansing belch.

“Are you better now? Did you rid yourself of the poison that was making you a pussy? Can we have a real conversation now?”

“Can you shut the hell up?”

“I’ve been quiet for too long.”

“You’re never quiet,” I corrected, cracking a smile in spite of myself. “Fuck,” I rubbed the grin off my face with the back of my hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

We sat there in silence for a few moments, but it wasn’t uncomfortable though it could have been.

“I love you,” Maks said, his eyes soft as they stared into mine.

I looked away, unable to handle the intimacy, the exposure. Focusing on the stains stretching along the baseboards of my living room, I muttered, “I loved him, okay?”

“Past tense?”

“Loved, having loved, will love, loving, still love … you son of a bitch,” I sighed, catching my cousin’s smile in my peripheral vision. A chuckle escaped my mouth as I turned to him. “You’re loving this.”

“I am,” he promised. “I really, really am. You look different now.”

“Like a faggot?” I asked, preparing to punch him in the mouth if I needed to.

“Don’t talk about my cousin that way. I’ll have to pop you.” Maks chided, tussling my hair. “I don’t know how you look different, you just do. I would say happier but you still kind of look sad.”

“More than usual?”

“The same as since Cal left. Why did you let him go?”

“Was I supposed to grab onto his ankles and make him stay?”