Cast Off by KC Burn Read Free Book Online Page A

backyard. He’d like nothing better than to leave, but he was certain his car would be boxed in by at least three others. And they were probably pissed enough to make him stay here all night.
    He shouldn’t have said it. Why had he said it like that? None of his carefully prepared speeches involved him blurting out his secret while yelling at his aggravating pregnant sister. Ian kicked at a clump of grass before digging the toe of his shoe in the dirt. He stared at the yard, the far end overgrown with trees and bushes that had been a lot sparser when he and his brothers played in it as kids. He was only a year and half older than Kurt, Dylan the same again older than Ian. Being so close in age made the three of them much closer than the other siblings. Mike had been a great older brother but distant, partly by nature, partly by years. Erin as eldest was just too difficult to relate to most of the time. The twins in between Dylan and Mike were more like a single entity growing up than two sisters, and rarely needed the rest of them. Yet, Ian loved them all. He just hadn’t trusted them with his innermost secret. Not even the brothers who had been his closest friends growing up.
    He hadn’t wanted any of them to figure out the truth, and distancing himself when he felt vulnerable had been the easiest solution. He’d done the same thing with his friends, none of whom knew the truth either.
    Ian picked up a deadfall branch and tossed it into the foliage at the back of the yard. It made a satisfying thunk as it hit a tree trunk well camouflaged with ivy.
    Kurt’s coming out had been seriously anticlimactic as far as his family was concerned. No one had noticed how much turmoil it had created within Ian, just searching for a way to break free.
    The small pinhole he’d made in his protective shield when he’d admitted his orientation to his brother had provided such a break. Instead of calmly outing himself to his family, his anger, fear, and all those years of repression had exploded all over them.
    The back door opened and shut behind him. His shoulders slumped. Normally, his parents wouldn’t come after him to yell. They were big on admitting your own mistakes. Maybe because in a family with seven kids, someone always knew something and hiding things was so impossible you might as well come clean. Did Mike still get in trouble with the parental units? His brother had always seemed so grown-up and perfect, even when he was young, that Ian assumed he’d stopped feeling like a stupid kid long before he’d hit his twenties. Ian was thirty-three and dreading his parents yelling at him.
    In many ways, he’d be surprised if his parents hadn’t known about him long before this. His parents were intelligent and savvy business people, for all that neither of them had more than a high-school education.
    He turned around, ready to face the firing range. Instead of his parents, though, Kurt and Dylan stood there, looking at him with love and concern. Ian’s eyes stung and blurred.
    “C’mon. Sit down.” Dylan gestured to the log bench in the shadow of the enormous maple that marked the southwest corner of his parents’ property.
    Ian sat first, his back to the house. Dylan sat on his left, Kurt on his right.
    They sat there for a few minutes, a warm breeze ruffling the leaves overhead. He sensed both brothers shift as though they were going to speak, but it was like they didn’t know what to say. Ian didn’t either. He just took comfort from his best friends—brothers—next to him.
    Dylan huffed out a breath. No surprise—he was always the most impatient of the three of them.
    “Ian, man, you should have said something.” There was no censure in Dylan’s tone, only regret. “We would have understood. How long have you known?”
    It was a legitimate question. Kurt had been oblivious to his orientation until recently. Ian had always assumed his brother was a prude or had a low sex drive. Possibly Kurt had thought the