Gavin's Big Gay Checklist Read online

  Gavin’s Big

  Gay Checklist

  Chase Connor

  Chase Connor Books

  The Lion Fish Press

  www.chaseconnor.com

  www.thelionfishpress.com

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters feature in the book.

  Cover models are not intended to illustrate specific people and the content does not refer to models' actual acts, identity, history, beliefs or behavior. No characters depicted in this ebook are intended to represent real people. Models are used for illustrative purposes only.

  CHASE CONNOR BOOKS are published by

  The Lion Fish Press

  539 W. Commerce St #227

  Dallas, TX 75208

  © Copyright 2018, 2019, 2020 by Chase Connor

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  AUTHORS’ NOTE:

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. None of this is real. This is all fiction.

  As always:

  To my beta-readers and “feedback crew”: I am so glad you are all here. And I am so glad you are all so blunt with me—even if I do what I want most of the time.

  To all of the readers: It has been quite a journey. I’ve loved every second of it. Let’s get to the end together, shall we?

  Also by Chase Connor

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude: A Gay Coming-of-Age Tale

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 2: For the Love of Logan

  Just a Dumb Surfer Dude 3: Summer Hearts

  Gavin’s Big Gay Checklist

  A Surplus of Light

  The Guy Gets Teddy

  GINJUH

  A Tremendous Amount of Normal

  The Gravity of Nothing

  Between Enzo & the Universe

  A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romances

  Jacob Michaels Is Tired (Book 1)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Crazy (Book 2)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Jacob Michaels (Book 3)

  Jacob Michaels Is Not Here (Book 4)

  Jacob Michaels Is Trouble (Book 5)

  CARNAVAL (A Point Worth LGBTQ Paranormal Romance Story)

  Jacob Michaels Is Dead (Book 6)

  Erotica

  Bully

  Audiobooks

  A Surplus of Light: A Gay Coming-of-Age Tale

  Chapters

  The Checklist

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Life Goes On

  I’m miserable. That’s probably the first thing that you need to know about me. I’m not a happy person. I frequently find myself bitter and angry—even at children’s birthday parties. Not that I actually accept invitations to such events. Even if I did, I wouldn’t bother to actually attend the actual event. Kids’ parties are not exactly the illustration of joy that their parents are perpetually trying to convince us that they are. They’re cesspools of germs and forced frivolity. Does that seem harsh? Did you miss the part where I said that I was miserable?

  Suffice it to say, I’m not exactly everyone’s cup of tea when it comes to social events or other events where pleasantness is considered a virtue. In fact, sometimes I feel that most of my friends are my friends simply because we’ve been friends forever. It’s not because I have an effervescent personality, suggesting activities like tromping through a field of Bluebonnets in order to get the annual spring picture that is de rigueur in Texas. Nor is it because I have a lot to offer in the way of favors—my family’s not exactly rich or well connected.

  What I lack in effervescence, I don’t make up for in snark, however. Maybe I dabble a little in self-deprecation, but I’m neither all that sarcastic nor do I even have an Oscar Wilde-esque slicing wit. In fact, I’m not outwardly miserable in a way that compels me to insult or be cruel to others—unless it’s my very best friends and family members. I’m not that miserable. Besides, Oscar Wilde said, “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.” My goal in life is not to set out each day, planning the barbs that I will shove in others’ sides, just to see their despair drip forth for my amusement. And I could never be that witty, anyway.

  Misery. It loves company. That’s my problem. I’ve yet to find the other miserable human being that matches my brand of misery. Sure, I have plenty of friends, as I’ve mentioned, and there are plenty of them. Even if they don’t enjoy my frequent bouts of melancholy. They’re still there for me. They’re good friends. But they aren’t the same brand of miserable as me. Sure, they’re teenagers and go to high school, so they’re miserable in their own special ways.

  Some of them are female and deal with misogyny and inequality. Some of them are black or Latino or Native American—or other races and ethnicities—and deal with inequality, inequity, racism, and depending on gender, misogyny. Some are just hormonal. Some have bad home lives. Some of them are dirt poor and wonder if their parents will make rent or get dinner on the table. Some of them can’t grasp their lessons and wonder if they’ll even graduate, let alone go to college. And if they go to college, will they, one, be able to afford it, and two, will it even be worth their trouble given the fact that our country is on the highway to economic ruin? Will people—especially their parents—get mad if they don’t go to college and lead the lives that were envisioned on their behalf?

  What if America doesn’t provide them with the future and safety net that they grew up expecting? Everything, when you’re a senior in high school, is foreboding and scary and dangerous and thrilling and sexy and…everything. There’s no one way to categorize every high school senior that is facing the last year before the beginning of their lives. We’re all miserable in our own ways. But for a lot of us, that misery is lessened by discovering what you excel at in life, finding a college you love, getting to drive and feel true freedom for the first time, finding that one true friend that you might keep for the rest of your life, or experimenting with drugs and sex or finding your one true love. Or we just deal with it until something comes along that helps.

  Nothing really helps for me. Not that I’ve tried drugs or sex—at all—but I’ve already discovered what subjects I do well in, I’ve already decided on a college, I’ve driven a car plenty, and I’m pretty sure that I have a few friends that will stay my friends for a long time. But there are plenty of check boxes left on my list. So, I have settled on dealing with the misery. For now. In all honesty—which is the thing people say when they’re lying in some way—I want that one true love. Preferably the one that will last until I’m old, gray, and taking my last breath in a nursing home. But I’ll take one that lasts for senior year. I’m eighteen-years-old, so I don’t feel that I’m wishing for the stars.

  My particular brand of misery has a name. It’s “homosexuality”. And he is a ruthless little piece of shit/misery. No. I’m not miserable because I’m gay. I’m miserable because it’s impossible to tell—my parents, my friends, my teachers, a counselor, the cashier at Walmart. You name a person and I guarantee you that I’ve kept my queer little secret from them. It’s not just that I’m worried about intolerance from society—or being disowned by my parents or cast out by my friends. Okay, a lot of it is that. But, I also worry about what that will mean for me. Coming Out, I mean.

  Will I be forced to attend Gay Pride or wear fancier clothes or attend art galleries or like The Kardashians or say things like “YAS, QUEEN!!”? Because that’s not me. People say that we live in an intolerant society. Don’t tell me. I live in Texas. But we also live in a society where Coming Out is now like a Sweet Sixteen or Quinceanera or Bar/Bat Mitzvah. Or winning an Academy Award. So, even if those around you love and accept you for being gay, they’ll expect you to make an announcement on social media of some kind—or at least Whisper—and become a spokesperson. We all want to represent our communities well…but we don’t necessarily want to be the face of them, either. Even if only for the brief moment of time known as Coming Out.

  So, to add to the list: I’m miserable. And I’m gay. I’m miserable because I’m gay but I’m not gay because I’m miserable. Well, I’m not necessarily miserable because I’m gay. But they’re not mutually exclusive, either. I just want to be gay, have a boyfriend, go to college, have a kiss, have sex, maybe try that drugs thing, and just have it not be a big deal. I want to hold hands with a guy. I want to look into his eyes and give him a big gay kiss. And then, when we feel comfortable and the time is right—we’ll try gay sex. Er, sex. I don’t really need to qualify it with the “gay” tag, do I? Goes without saying.

  But, like millions of gay guys before me, this will prove difficult. I have to find a way to tell my parents, my friends, my not-friends, society, still do the normal teenage things, find a boyfriend, and then start checking off some items on my list. I’m a senior in high
school, eighteen-years-old, a licensed driver…there’s nothing holding me back. Except courage. Courage is the biggest factor in this whole plot.

  There’s no time like the present to start, though. I don’t want to be the guy that goes off to college and doesn’t come home for the holidays and summer and avoids his parents. Then, five years later, my Coming Out is bringing home my new boyfriend that my parents didn’t even know that I had. That just results in screaming and tears and “Dear, Jesus, why???” Not that I would expect my mother or father to be like that, exactly. They’re not even religious. And they don’t really scream all that often. Tears, maybe. Tears are absolutely still on the table as a possibility at my “coming out”. Whether they’re tears of love and acceptance or tears of sadness and disappointment is what is not known.

  But at my age and in the last year of high school, I know that one way or another, I will have to start checking off some boxes. I don’t want to start the rest of my life without doing so. When I step out of my parents’ house to go to college, I want them to watch their grown, gay son heading off to start his new life. And I want them to do so knowing that he’ll come home for holidays and summers because he knows that they still want him as their son. Because they still love him, care about him, and want him to be part of their family. That’s all I want. Wishing for the stars, right? Well, I hope not.

  So, I’ll make a list:

  But this isn’t one of those “boy gets girl” stories. Well, “boy gets boy”. I don’t spend my senior year lusting after the star quarterback on the football team, only to have him profess his love for me at the very last minute, like, in front of everyone at prom. Nor do I moon over my best friend, who is the artsy, misunderstood, emo-type who is deeply in love with the girl who plays the lead in the school play, only for him to have the self-realization that it was me all along. None of that. I don’t get the guy in this one.

  Well…I don’t keep him.

  Elijah was at my bedroom window at midnight on a Friday night yet again. No. It isn’t what you think. Well, I assume that you’re thinking that Eli is some dude that crawls through my window late at night for late-night rendezvous. A little slap-and-tickle action and off he creeps again like some weird perverted cat burglar. Is that label redundant? Regardless, Eli was not crawling through my window to try and slip me the pickle or get the pickle slipped to him. It was just the one time during the day that he could sneak over without his every movement and action being scrutinized.

  In a suburb of Dallas, Texas—Richardson to be exact—my family and Eli’s family live in a gated community. And there is a fence that surrounds the neighborhood, but it’s more for decoration than security. Now, the gates shouldn’t give you an inflated impression of our families’ amount of wealth. The “gates” are really just a ranch-style awning that goes over the entrance to our cul-de-sac’d neighborhood. No one here is poor…but none of the families are CEOs of Fortune-500 companies, either. There’s a couple of families that include doctors and lawyers and local politicians and businessmen, but nothing too extraordinary.

  My family is one of the families with a doctor in the household. That would be my mom. She’s an infectious disease specialist—which sounds really exciting, as if she is dealing with infectious disease outbreaks globally—like the doctors in that movie Outbreak, obviously. Mostly, though, her patients are living and coping with things like HIV/AIDS, pneumonia, Lyme Disease, tuberculosis, meningitis, sepsis, viral infections, stuff like that. She does work as a hospitalist at one of the big hospitals in Dallas and runs her own practice. I guess it is kind of exciting in a way, but mostly it’s just scary. Sometimes I can’t hug her when she comes home until she’s practically autoclaved herself in the shower.

  My dad is an ex-minor league baseball player who now makes computer and phone apps through his own business. Mostly mind-numbing game apps, but he also produces free apps that help students with learning and studying. And others for nonprofits and charities. It’s kind of cool I guess. He does a lot of volunteer work at local schools, including my high school, and with local politicians. He’s a “bleeding heart Liberal” who is always striking up for the cause—and he often harangues my mom and me into helping him. We enjoy it for the most part. Unless it’s some march he insists we have to attend in August. Did I mention we live in Texas? That’s not exactly the best time to attend a march, no matter the cause.

  I was heading off to college in less than a year and my dad was already talking to me about all the volunteer and protest opportunities that I would find at a university. Rolling my eyes was my usual response to his speeches about “service to your community”, but internally, I loved him for it. Honestly, I’d probably end up volunteering and marching and protesting—there was just something about having a parent telling you to do it that made you want to…well, protest. In my limited experience, I find that people are more willing to “rage against the machine” if they come to it on their own.

  Of course, my dad is Latino, so being socially conscious and politically minded is kind of timely for him. Even if he is Catholic. My mom and her family are Jewish—so they know all about suffering, too. I kind of sound like a brat when I say this—but I’m glad that, while I’m of mixed ethnicity, I don’t have to deal with the struggles that my dad did. Well, does. I mean, my dad is very clearly of Hispanic heritage. Today’s political climate makes it so that he doesn’t have it even half as easy as he would if he were white.

  For the most part, I can pass for white, but the fullness of my lips, the slight olive color of my skin, my dark, thick hair, being seen out and about with my dad—it all confirms people’s suspicions. Speaking in Spanish—the bit that I’ve picked up from my dad—really seals the deal. And I know that it’s important for people to speak up with everything going on in the world but dad’s incessant insistence that we be so politically and socially involved can get a little overwhelming at times. People in the neighborhood don’t exactly appreciate how vocal he is about injustice either. Kinda paints a target on our backs at times. Most of the people in our neighborhood are white. Go figure.

  I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.

  That’s what my mom always tells me when I get too vocal about how frustrating my dad’s crusades can be. She says Rabbi A.Y. Kook said that. I don’t know who Rabbi A.Y. Kook was…is?...but I mean, I get it. We’re privileged in a lot of ways, so we have to speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves. Those who are silenced by louder, more powerful voices. I’m a brat, I think. Sometimes, when I’m not with my parents, and I’m just being me with my friends, I blend in. My skin is a little dark. My lips are full. My hair is awfully black and thick. He’s probably white, people tell themselves as they give me a lingering once-over. It’s nice.

  Of course, then I get too comfortable in whatever social situation that I’m in and I accidentally say something in Spanish. Or I mention what my family made for dinner the previous night. Or I talk about how the house was crazy due to celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas essentially concurrently. I can see the fleeting looks I’m given by those that suspected that I’m not quite white. I’m no longer just Gavin—my name also throws people off. Then I’m that “half-Mexican kid with a Jew doctor for a mother”. It really sucks. Of course, no one has a problem with my dad when they want a tech issue resolved—and they love that my mom is a Jewish doctor. How dare they be so socially and politically conscious, though??

  These things don’t bother me as much as they used to, now that I fully understand the history behind the racism and anti-Semitism. People are just awful. They’re biased. And in America, you find a lot of that. Dad hates it when I say something like that aloud, though. He loves this country. I mean, we all do. But my dad’s love affair with America is something you’d see in an epic love-story movie or read about in a languid romance novel. America is his first love, his rock, the place upon which he sets his feet to the ground each morning and declares himself a human being made up of infinite possibilities. I’m first generation, as far as he is concerned.