In the privacy of his bathroom, Jake couldn’t really hear the music downstairs so much as he felt it pounding the floor beneath his feet. The door rattled in the frame, and inside the bottle on the counter, whiskey rippled with the bass. Jake stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor, then took a swig from the bottle and studied his bare chest in the mirror. He could see shiny spots where the beer had drenched through the shirt and onto his skin. “God,” he muttered, taking another swallow. It’d been years since he got into a fight with someone over his sexuality. Wasn’t he too old to deal with that s**t yet?
In high school, everyone knew he liked guys, even though no one ever said it out loud. He just didn’t date any girls, and in a small school like his, word got around. But he’d
