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Hiding from your family that you're in love is not at all easy. Especially not when your boyfriend keeps making you laugh all the time. That's part of how you know, right? When it's not all about romance or sex or even holding hands: it's all the stupid shit you find funny that nobody else does. Then you think about it when he's not there and you wish he was. Even at your family's dinner table, and when someone asks you what you're smiling about, you say something like 'Oh, I just had a good run this morning that's all.'

Colton's latest thing was the best yet. Back before he hit rock bottom in his life and ended up offloading his most personal and troublesome secrets to me, he'd made a show of hating me, and with that came the names. He could call me a trash panda now and it was kinda fun, and I could laugh about how he'd once pressed my buttons. It had never occurred to me that he might have an equivalent.

'Let's get one thing straight, raccoon. I am a fox. Never, ever a kitsune. Got it? I _never_wanna hear you call me that again.'

We were fooling around with each other on his bed, and just as he'd been pinning me down and growling at me with a great grin on his face, I'd called him that. He'd gone from looking madly in lust with me to wearing the same face that him calling my family trailer trash had probably bought out on me. He let me go and sat up straight.

'I wanna kill whoever started that shit with Japanese species names. All those foxes who think they're cool with the whole "I identify as a 'sune" bullshit don't know you have to work to be cool. This,' he gestured to himself, 'was made in NYC. Not Japan. Not fuckin' Toyko. And how would you like it if I called you a...' He'd ruined the act, and I was mercifully thankful it actually was one. 'Shit, was is the word for you guys?'

'Tanuki's the only one I know,' I said. 'But that's a raccoon-dog, not a raccoon raccoon like me.'

Colton smiled and licked his lips. 'I was only kidding around, Todd-coon,' he said. 'Did I scare you? Tell me the truth, that get a bit too real?'

'You do that face a little bit too well.' I said.

Colton pulled himself up to the head board and sat next to me, an arm behind my back and his fingers stroking the nape of my neck. 'I'd never hurt you for real. You know that, right? If I'm too good at that act then maybe we've found our first boundary. That's cool. And I know I've got a bit of a temper sometimes. But I'm working on it. And being with you helps. When I'm with you I feel calm. Like so calm I almost started believing in all that hippy karma trantric crap. If I stopped taking my hyper-sexuality meds, I bet I could even do without them. Having you just...kinda balances me out. I've gone two whole weeks without a migraine. And...I've stopped worrying so much about my amnesia thing. I'm starting to feel like maybe the whole I might never come back thing was just in my head.'

I was happy for him. Since he'd told me about all his problems, brought on by a near-fatal head injury as a twelve year old, I'd seen a version of him I thought I'd only ever fantasize about. He was actually nice underneath. In the space of two weeks, he'd made my eighteenth year alive my best yet.

'Well, that's cool,' I said. 'Therapy-raccoon right here. Long as he doesn't call you a kitsune.'

Colton growled at me, this time with a smile.

'Seriously though, that one's a no-go?'

'I'm not that bothered,' Colton said. 'But yeah, I don't think it's cool. I'm a fox. I guess it's a fox's thing. Only good-boy foxes wanna be kitsune. They think it gives them some kind of mythical powers crap. I don't need mythical powers to turn my special person on. And you like the bad-boy fox better. He's naughtier.' He put his nose in the top of my hoody the way I loved and took a deep breath of my scent.

'Still diggin' the peanut butter and burnt marshmallows?' I said.

'I don't know how you do it, raccoon. Seriously. My nose just goes nuts for the smell of you. It's nothing you use in the shower. It actually is just you.'

I loved him sniffing me. Always with my hoody or t-shirt on and his head under it, or nose poking in the head-hole, as if he didn't want a single molecule of my scene to escape his nose. He'd get an almost hypnotic high from me, like he was huffing raccoon-scented glue from a bag, and I'd laugh at how it tickled when his wet nose got right under my fur. When he did it and I got hold of his tail and kept tension on it, tugging at his tailbone, it was always an instant turn on, and now I had something else to add to it: 'Tell me you're not a kitsune again. Tell me you're a fox. My fox.'

I was thinking about that morning all the freakin' time now, like I'd discovered what Colton's hyper-sexuality condition felt like. I spent even more time in my room listening to music, and more time going out running, just so I didn't have to be around my family when I was thinking about Colton.

The worst part was, I wanted them all to know. All except one of them.

Too bad though. A phone call was going to change everything.

* * *

'I'll get it then,' my father said after the damn thing just wouldn't stop ringing. Mum was out, and all eight of us were around the TV, watching Lucy and Felix beat me at Mariokart, not realising I was letting them.

It should have been just another ordinary, boring phone call to the Aldrington household. But no. Not this morning. For a moment, I thought my father's silence was him just listening to another phone salesman, always followed by him wasting time pretending to be interested and then hanging up just as the deal looked close.

'Woah woah, wait, just hold on a minute,' my father said after not taking for a minute, or maybe even two. 'You're saying your boy saw my boy doing what?'

All that was being sold here was my train-wrecked life, and I knew it now. Any other time before what had happened the morning after I first lay with Colton, I'd have thought it was about Alfie, and the next thing my father would have said was 'He doesn't live here anymore, what do you want me to do?' The Alfie card wasn't coming up for me this time.

'Listen, Howard, there's been a mistake here,' my father said. 'My boy Todd is not who Andrew saw that day. Oh, how do I know?' My father laughed, the wrong kind of nervous laughter. 'Howie, have you got any idea how shy that kid is? I doubt he's ever even kissed a girl, let alone got caught with...well what exactly do you mean by "That's not surprising?" Listen asshole, I know the boy I raised, so you just go on and tell yours he's made a mistake. Because I didn't raise no faggot. Quit wasting my time with this already.' He slammed down the phone.

The whole family had been watching me play Lucy and Felix, and waiting for their turn. They'd all completely forgotten what game we were playing, let alone whose turn it was. All eyes were on our father.

'Get out, all of you,' he said, and then looked right at me. 'Not you. You're staying right there.'

He didn't looked pissed, he just looked serious. The kind where you know that disappointed is worse than shocked, and then there's a level beyond that: what your own parent thinks of you might just have changed for good if you handle the next few minutes wrong.

Which was exactly what I knew I was going to do. Because Dad knew what he was doing too: sending everyone out of the room was just asking for them to line up by the door and listen, nobody daring to move nor speak, like it could make them invisible.

'Todd, tell me what I've just heard can't possibly be true.'

'My hearing's not that good, Dad. I can't hear through a phone you've got against your ear.'

'Don't get smart with me, boy. You know what this is about.'

'Then you've already got your answer, haven't you? Because how else would I know?' I took a deep breath, my father standing there with a rattlesnake stare on him that I knew meant exactly the kind of judgement nobody ever wanted from a parent. 'What are you really mad about, Dad? That it happened or that this is how you found out? I never wanted you to find out like this. I was going to tell you when the time was right. When I could do it without you getting...like I thought you might get.'

'Oh Jesus,' my father looked away from me, then turned his back. 'I really didn't think it could be you. But the description they gave of that fox? I don't know why I was surprised. Sure, that was the same morning you brought him here for breakfast but I just thought...I don't even know what I thought.'

'That I spent the night at his place but he wasn't there, because he went and hooked up with another raccoon and spent the night in that barn? And then somehow ended up coming here for breakfast with me? What a co-incidence.'

'Yeah, okay, go ahead and find this funny.' my father turned on me, and I knew I was probably less than a minute away from being homeless. 'You brought that fox in my house. Right after he spent the night doing...I don't even want to think about what he was doing to you. And you let him play all that nice guy act. You let him do that in front of our entire family?'

'What was wrong with him, Dad? He was cool. You know it. All that stuff with him helping us make breakfast together, when have our family ever been like that with someone they only just met? He's amazing. And I love him. And I brought him here because I wanted him to meet everyone else I love.'

It nearly worked. I didn't know how I was doing this, or even what I was saying before it was out of my mouth, but for a moment my father softened, and I felt like I was getting it right. Then whatever else was under his surface boiled right back up.

'I don't believe this. The whole thing with you never having a girlfriend was...this?'

'Oh for God's sake!' I said, raising my voice to what I knew now meant a full on row with him. 'You can't even say it? Fine, Dad. I'm gay. There. Happy now? I lost my virginity to Colton and then I brought him home for breakfast. Happier? Oh, and I've just got the icing on the cake for you: I've known about this for two years already. Maybe even longer. And before you even think about asking why I never said anything, look at this. Right now. This is that conversation where you know that "I didn't raise no faggot" isn't true anymore. Oh sure, Alfie could behave however he wanted and you never said anything. He was the one always getting brought home by the cops. He was the one you always got these calls about. But it was okay, because at least he was straight.'

'So you're seeing fit to judge me as a parent now? This isn't you thinking. You got tricked into this by that fox, didn't you? He filled your head with all this shit. I should have known. That night you went out to make up your differences. He told you a bunch of sympathetic bullshit designed to make you feel sorry for him and then he manipulated you into being a...'

'Can't find the words, Dad?' he looked like he knew them all but simply struggled to find the worst one. 'Want me to list them for you? Because I've already heard them all.'

'I'm going to string that fox cocksucker up by his balls for this. You don't realise what he's doing to you.'

'Wrong,' I said. 'And if you touch him I swear to God I'll never talk to you again.'

Holy shit. Where had that come from? It was meant to be the father who disowned the son in a row like this, not the other way around. Despite running on the biggest adrenaline dump of my life, I was still facing him down.

'You're not going to do anything to him, Dad. There's nothing you can do. This is who I am and I'm an adult. Deal with it. Or _don't_deal with it. I don't give a shit. Nothing's changing about me.'

'I don't believe this!' My father shouted. 'You talking to me like this, after everything I've done for you? For this family?'

'Oh here we go! Bring on the emotional blackmail because you've got nothing else' I matched him shout for shout. 'You do not get to do this to me! I don't care how scary you think you are, how much power you think you've got over me. You want it like this? You got it like this! Read my lips, Dad: I don't owe you my life! You think just because you raised me you get to tell me who I am? Fuck...you!' I looked at the door. 'And I know you're all listening. There! Got what you wanted now?'

My father clenched up and raised his hands like he could hit me, then he came down to the same kind of angry calm he's started with. He'd always told Alfie violence wasn't the answer to anything, and now it looked like he was struggling to keep to his own principles. 'You know what else Howard just told me? After his son saw you and that fox together he found a pair of soaking wet underpants, left in that barn. You think I haven't forgotten how you pretended not wearing underpants was just a trend, when you sat down at our breakfast table with that fox here? Tell me you were _not_that disgusting. Tell me they were his pants and you at least didn't play female for him.'

'Oh, this is rich, right here,' I said, ready to bolt for my life. 'First you can't stand that I had sex with Colton and now you want the details? Okay, sure, why not? He made me come in my pants. I never enjoyed it so much in my life! Then I took them off and just left them there. Would you rather I came home and ate breakfast still wearing them? Felix only noticed I'd gone commando. What would you rather he'd said? "Why can I smell c-"

'You can shut your smart little mouth right this second!' My father bellowed.

'Or what, you're going to shut it for me? Go on, do that. See if Mum still lets you live in this house after you've done that. You lay a finger on any of us, she'll put you in fucking jail.' It was my last line of defence, and I knew it had worked. And that I was thinking the thought that I knew could only lead to a hurricane after the storm: what would Colton do right now?

Stick it to the motherfucker. Make it personal. Hit with the hardest thing he had.

'And just so you know, Dad, she already knew. Why do you think she never said anything either? Because she knew it was my business. And she understood. The night I told her, she told me to go out with Colton and have a good time. Why can't you just be happy for me? I actually got to be with the person I fell in love with. Isn't that what you always wanted for all of us? For us to just be happy?'

Oh shit, I was crying. I hadn't been going for weaponised tears. I was never that sort of kid, or teenager, and I didn't want to be crying right now, because it wouldn't soften him. He'd only think he'd broken me himself, and maybe this was the start of the repair. Sure enough:

'Todd, come on. You know this isn't right. This isn't you. Whatever's going on, we can talk about it. Without shouting like this.' He tried to put a hand on my shoulder. 'But you've just to accept that-'

'Don't touch me. I already accepted who I am. I'm not the one who has to accept anything.'

'Alright, fine.' He stood up straighter and tipped his chin up at me. 'You know it all. The way boys always do. So tell me one thing. Just something I've gotta know. Did that fox use a condom?'

Oh boy. I'd already answered it, and I knew it. The only hope I had was defence. 'What business is it of yours did that fox use a condom? Anyone would think it was your ass.'

'Get out!' my father exploded. 'You're a total fucking idiot! I don't want you in this house ever again! Get out!'

I threw all the doors open and ran out into the street. In all the races I'd ever started and finished, I'd never done it so fast. I could still hear him shouting all the way down the block.