“Well, I’m not happy,” Bruno admitted. “And it was an idiot mistake. But I could have added it to your tab.”

“And that’s exactly what I didn’t want. I owe you too much as it is.” Fumbling with my pocket, I withdrew the check I’d stashed there earlier and handed it to him. “Here. I told you, I’m done making mistakes like that and I’m trying my best to make up for past ones.”

“What the hell?” Bruno held the check like it might burst into flames at any second. “Did you sell a kidney? You’re not making this kind of money at your job.”

“No. I’m not.” I had to pause, let my pulse slow and tell my roiling stomach to deal. I couldn’t hurl. Not now. “I sold my car.”

“No.” Bruno tried to hand the check back to me. “You’re not doing that. Dad wanted you to have it.”

“He wanted a lot of things.” I let that hang between us.

Bruno’s expression hardened further. “He wasn’t that bad.”

“For you, maybe. You were the perfect son.” An edge crept into my voice that wasn’t there before. I’d tried not to think about that too much, but Bruno being so freaking perfect hadn’t made it any easier to be myself.

“Maybe he was a little…rough on you. I’ll grant you that.” Retrieving a beer from the fridge, Bruno cracked it open. Apparently we were done with the solidarity part of the evening. “But was he bad enough for you to spit on his legacy like this? You can repay me eventually. It’s just money.”

“It’s just a car,” I countered. And it was. I’d been sad, saying goodbye to it the day before. I’d gotten choked up and had to look away as the new owner drove it away. He was a friend of Professor Tuttle who’d only tried to shave a little off the asking price and who’d looked at the car like Jasper did double chocolate doughnuts. Nice guy. And a weight had rolled off me as he left, even through my tears. I’d been free. It wasn’t simply the money, but rather everything that car represented. And in the end, it was a car. Only a car. Like how Dad had been a man. Not a giant. Not a guardian angel. Just a flawed, human man, and it had been time to say goodbye to him and the car both.

“Why couldn’t you tell me? About the cards and now this. You say you want to stop messing up, but you’re not stopping to think, and that’s a problem.”

“I’m gay.” The words had been there the whole conversation and now they flew out, another level of freedom reached. Not holding them in any longer had me weirdly giddy.