F***in' Arizona

"Body High" (Chapter 33)

*Author's Note: Listen to the song Body High by Harrison Brome if you want a tune to set the tone for the second half of the chapter.
Also, there is a warning on this chapter for sexual and possibly triggering content.

Maybe if I just close my eyes and think real hard, it'll reverse time and what I just heard will come out sounding like something different.

Ok, now, open. Still here?

Yep.

That definitely just sounded like Ari confessed that he liked me. But I still feel like I couldn't have heard that right.

"You like me?!" Was all I could say to him. This must've been what he was wanting to talk to me about.

He gave me a sincere expression and nodded.

A wide smile spread across my face, but our moment was interrupted by a voice.

"I KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP!" Georgia said excitedly.

"YOU'RE WHAT?!!" Mr. Matthews yelled in astonishment.

"Oh no," Montana said covering her face with her hands. Her exclamation seemed like it was more so in regard to her father rather than finding out her baby brother liked and dated men.

"Oh, Arizona, honey," Mrs. Matthews said covering her face also, but her words were more out of shame.

"Bro," Dakota started saying and getting up from where he sat, "You may want to—"

"Come the fuck again?" Mr. Matthews said in more of an exclamatory tone.

In all my years of knowing this man, I've never once heard him utter a curse word. I was fully aware that he hadn't always been the good guy that stood before me on this day, and it seemed like he was about to revert to his old ways of his youth.

"Honey!" Mrs. Matthews exclaimed, standing up with her husband and putting a trembling hand on his arm to try and calm him.

"No!" He yells, snatching his arm away from his wife, "Arizona, you want to run that statement by me one more time?! The one you made before sounded like it must've been a joke because I know you didn't just say what I think the fuck you just said."

I looked over to Ari and watched as his Adam's Apple bobbed in his throat as he gulped roughly.

"It's no joke, sir," he started saying quietly, "I'm gay. Well, as of recent realization, I may be bisexual. But I've only ever dated men. I'm attracted to guys and have been since the tenth grade when I started dating Charlie," he said timidly as he continued explaining,
"But I recently learned there is something called "homoflexibility" and it may fit me a little better than bisexual even though it's like a subset of it.
Homoflexibility can mean different things for different people but for me it basically means I majority date men but I'm open to the possibility of dating or being intimate with a woman."

Oohh, so that's what that means?

I could see the fear emanating from Ari's body like a foul stench.

I could also see the exasperated and heated fumes steaming from Mr. Matthews like those old cartoons when the steam burst from their ears. Then there was the disappointment coming from Mrs. Matthews as she attempted, but failed, to calm her husband. The rest of the Matthews siblings appeared scared because of their father, however, Dakota, the fearless protector, looked defensive.

I watched as Dakota quickly made his way in between his father and little brother in an attempt to stop anything if it got started. At the same time, I grabbed ahold of Ari to hopefully make a mad dash back to our room if things indeed escalated.