Snowed In... With My Best Friend's Dad - Seth King Page 0,1

something your dad can’t even help about himself, when you wanted – and received! – total acceptance from him when you came out, yourself…”

He blinks. “And? What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not ‘defending’ anyone by saying you’re being unfair about this. I know it’s not my place, but-”

“Like that has ever stopped you before,” he mutters.

“True. But I don’t know, I just think you’ve punished your dad for long enough, and it’s time you deal with it. He’s been ‘out’ for over a year. I know it might not be what you expected or anything, but he didn’t choose to be gay any more than you did.”

Benny crosses his arms. “Fine. But it’s still the reason my parents aren’t married anymore.”

“Ha! Coming from someone whose parents spent years too long shackled to a bad marriage because they were afraid of the shame of divorce, I think we both know this needed to happen. I mean, come on. He was gay. And they weren’t even compatible, either. Every visit to your house was like a trip back in time to my own childhood – the awkward silences, the bickering, the long pauses…”

“Fine,” Benny says again, taking out his phone and getting lost in Twitter. “He didn’t choose to be gay. But he did choose to marry my mother and stay with her for twenty years. I mean, I’m glad they had me, and that I exist, but come on – you can’t blame me for taking her side.”

I throw him a look. “Like you weren’t dating girls in high school before you knew you were a big ole homosexual, too?”

Benny picks up the bottle, then slams it down just as quickly. “Look, Alex. Fucking listen, for once in your life. I want my dad to live his life, and I’m glad he came out. I am, I really am. I wouldn’t wish the closet on anyone. But, bottom line…he can live his life. He can just live it far away from me, with people who aren’t my best friend, because it’s weird. So keep your eyes away, got it?”

Just then, the devil himself walks up to us.

God, why do I always get so nervous around him?

I look away to avoid any more accusations, but God, it’s so hard…

“Hey Benny,” Dr. Torres says in that gruff voice. “And Alexander…”

Neither of us respond, so Dr. Torres plows through.

“Well, okay then. Say, Benny, were you guys gonna hit the slopes with me later? I’d really like to help you learn how to snowboard, and-”

“Because I can’t learn, myself?” Benny interrupts, and I try not to cringe.

“Um – it’s just that you said you’re sick of skiing every winter,” Dr. Torres says, “and you wanted to try something new…”

“Oh,” Benny says dismissively. “I don’t know. We’re fine on our own. We’ll probably just go out to the slopes whenever Liz and all of them go. I’d rather hang with people my own age, unlike some people. So…sorry about that. Thanks, though!”

The silence that follows is more awkward that when I farted in seventh grade history class.

“Uh, sure,” Dr. Torres finally says. “Well, have fun…”

Benny grunts. And with that, I hear Dr. Torres sigh and disappear through the side door.

“God,” I say when we’re alone.

“What?” he asks, and I shrug.

“You’re just so mean to him.”

“Stay out of it,” Benny spits. “You weren’t there last year, when he came out. You didn’t have to watch your mom learn how to live alone again. You don’t know what it was like to walk into a gay bar on a date and see your own father sitting there with a vodka soda, with a date who was my age. You don’t know how it feels. Just stay out of it, okay?”

I bite my tongue. Like I said, Benny is a little delusional to just think I could just completely ignore his father, like he’s not even here. But…

For one, I’ve always liked daddies, and Hunter Torres is a daddy in every sense of the word. He maintains that perfect amount of aloofness where he has a mysterious level of removal without seeming like an arrogant asshole, he has a banging career as head of anesthesiology at Atlanta’s biggest hospital, and his eyes are somehow brown and piercing at the same time, like a glass of brandy in front of a fire.

In the five years since I’ve known Benny, I’ve admired Dr. Torres from the across the room countless times during visits to their home and at school events