Taking the Leap

Chapter 11

~Achilles~

Sunny was still snickering as Xander went off to the bathroom. "Did you see the look on his face? He went grey!"

I added in a couple packets of chocolate powder, mixing everything in with a spoon. "Are you going to tell me what happened with your parents?"

She frowned, all the mirth disappearing as she fiddled with her eye patch. "They found my  stories. The...mature ones. I left my USB plugged in and..."

I stopped stirring. "What do you mean by that?" We'd never talked about this before but Sunny could be so impossibly random, I'd learned to roll with the punches. Most of the time.

She pushed her long hair behind her ears and fidgeted with the band of her eye patch, an old habit she'd developed years ago. "I write these romance stories...on this dumb online site." Sunny fixed her eye on the pot, watching the milk turn into a dark shade of brown, the sweet aroma filling the space between us. God, she really was sixteen. I'd been careful at that age, deleting everything if I ever did anything. It would've been traumatizing if my mom or Jim or even Anders saw what I googled. Outing myself like that would've been a catastrophe.

Sunny stepped closer to me, still worrying her eyepatch. "We had a big argument. Not just cause of the stories, but what I was writing about cause...The stories are kinda gay." She cleared her throat, speaking slowly. "They realized I'm gay."

With the strength and will of everything in me I continued stirring like she hadn't just completely and utterly thrown me. "Oh." I breathed out. I turned off the burner and started pouring the  steaming liquid into one mug and then another. I scooped out a few marshmallows, focused on my task. I sighed, putting down the bag and looking at her, really looking.

Sunny stared hard at the marshmallow bag, barely breathing.

My voice was low. "That doesn't make me love you any less. If that's what you're worried about, Sunny."

She exhaled, finally looking at me. "Of course I'm worried about that. You're always there for me, no matter how many times I fuck things up. You're the only one who doesn't flinch when I take off my patch or take out my eye. Thanks, I guess." Sunny dropped her hand off of her patch and gave me a hug, squeezing me hard and tight. "I love you, and you won't catch me saying this tomorrow so just hug me back and tell me everything will be okay."

I hugged her back, holding her as she shook through sobs. "Everything will be okay."

#

Sunny's eye wasn't too red later on as we sat in Xander's movie room to watch Galatrickiton: Into the Galaxy. It was the first of the saga. The light in the room was low and Xander played with the old VCR player. The VCR was at the front of larger room and Xander's silk pants hugged his ass as he was bent over in a really nice way. I should have been focused on the fact Xander had a mini movie theatre room with a dozen or so seats and a screen that took up the most of one wall.

I just wanted to cuddle with him during the movie but Sunny was there and sat between Xander and myself. As soon as she found out he played the trumpet, her eye had gone wide as a saucer.

Sunny attended a performing arts school where her focus was on instrumental studies and her primary instruments were the trumpet and piano. Just like Xander. They hit it off exceptionally well and Sunny seemed to get more comfortable with him when he'd mentioned off hand that he was gay. She didn't even care that he was a vampire.