Emma’s brows furrowed and she moved in to squeeze my shoulder. “You know I love Cindy, and the joy it gives me to have an out and proud District Attorney who is the boss of my brilliant and out and proud big brother—”
I knew a “but” was coming.
“But, Cindy fought long and hard for that office, I mean she was in the trenches for years.” She frowned, and I could tell sharing this was not easy for her. “I don’t know if she’s going to take up arms for this too. And someone has to, East. No matter how many good people we have in this town, and we have plenty, problematic things will continue to happen until they are dealt with head-on. That’s why you need to think about running for DA. You’re ready and this town needs some shaking up.”
I looked at her for a moment, really looked at her, and felt so much pride in my litter sister, always the truth teller. And because my brain could not help itself, the thought just appeared, she’d get along great with the other truth-teller in my life.
I ruthlessly stamped that foolishness out of my head and wondered how to respond to the advice my sister was giving me. Even when at the same time I felt totally unprepared to take it. The more time that passed without any real action from anyone in town, the more it seemed like it might come down to me. I also had the sinking feeling that my best would not come close to enough.
People like Patrice and Ari were looking to me to find the answers and all I had were bad questions.
Still, Emma was right. “I’m going to see Day tomorrow, and I won’t leave until he gives me a better answer than ‘I’ll deal with it.’ Because clearly he hasn’t. As far as running for DA, I’m considering it. I know you think I’m ready, but I’m still wondering about the politics side of it.” Cindy’s waffling in this situation had been disappointing in ways I hadn’t wanted to explore too closely, and I was not going to willingly go into a job where I had to choose “saving face” to acting on something.
Emma came in for a hug as she snagged the glass of champagne from my hand and took a sip. “I’m not going to get pushy, but I know you can handle this. Now let’s talk about your hot professor moving into the building.” Emma had a little house in town, but that did not keep her from being in my business.
But she and I were not new at this and I could hold her off for days. “You look great, sis, that green suits you.” Her expression at my comment said, “I know what you’re doing,” but she still looked down at herself, feigning like she didn’t even realize what she was wearing.
Emma was petite like my mom, but after years of struggling with never living up to my father’s exacting standards, she’d finally arrived at a place where she loved herself exactly like she was. She ran a hand over the front of her dress and smiled. “Thanks, bro, grandpa helped me pick it out.”
I cracked up at that image, as Emma and my grandfather looked very pleased with themselves. “You let her convince you to go shopping?”
This time it was grandpa who was a loss for words, then shook his head and pointed at the iPad I’d gotten him for Father’s Day. “We did it all on the tablet. She got me this sweater too.”
My chest warmed looking at them, preening for compliments. “You both look great,” I said with a smile, as the thought from earlier flooded my mind again.
Would I ever get a chance to introduce Patrice to Emma and Grandpa? Probably not. Not by how things went this morning.
“Boy trouble?” my grandpa asked, completely serious.
Emma and I both laughed at his question. But he didn’t look like he was letting it go. My grandfather, unlike my father, hadn’t batted an eye when I came out in high school. He’d also proved to be a surprisingly good relationship advisor on the rare occasion when it had come to that.
I played with some kind of salmon mousse and toast canapé I’d snagged from a tray, as I came up with an answer. “I wouldn’t say trouble, more like self-imposed angst. I’ve been trying too hard with someone who doesn’t seem to be very interested in me.”
Despite the pile of evidence I had to support my statement, the words sounded like lies. I thought about this morning and the intensity with which Patrice had touched me. His eyes and hands so focused on my body. It hadn’t felt like disinterest. It felt like need.
I turned to Emma, who was examining my face as if figuring out a math problem. “What’s with the face?” I asked.
“I just haven’t seen you this wistful in a long time. Now I really do need to meet him.” Emma and I were only two years apart, so we had a lot of the same friends and knew a lot, too much really, of each other’s dating history.
I lifted a shoulder and was about to say something to redirect the conversation when I saw my mother headed for us. She was looking picture-perfect in a navy knit dress and Gucci boots, her hair and make-up immaculate. We exchanged air kisses and she did the compulsory rundown of what I was wearing, in case I had missed the mark on the dress code indicated in her invitation. She seemed to approve of my semi-formal ensemble.
“Easton, darling. Your dad didn’t say if you confirmed. I was so busy this morning with last-minute fires to put out I didn’t have time to check. And yesterday we barely had any chance to talk.” I’d ended up bailing on her after only thirty minutes at the Fall Wine Festival. I’d felt bad, but left after some work stuff came up. My mother didn’t have the same degree of loathing for my job my father did, but she wasn’t throwing the DA’s office any fundraisers either. The only time she’d come to my office, the seventies wall paper and bad carpeting had her practically in tears.
“Sorry I left you hanging, Mom.” She gave me a tight smile, then looked down at my grandpa with a fond one. “I made do. I only stayed for a few more minutes and came home and watched a movie with Grandpa. Your dad is always so busy at those things, it’s best to let him work without interfering.”
I swallowed hard on the words that wanted to come out of my mouth about my dad making it his life mission to ignore all of us whenever possible. I was about to comment on her outfit to just find something to say when my father walked up.
“Glad you could join us, Easton. I can’t imagine they make you work on Sundays at that place.” You’d think I was working for the mob, the way my father talked about my job.
“No, they don’t.” I kept my answers short with my father. With him anything you said, could be (and usually was) used against you.
I’d also been with the DA’s office for years, so nothing about my job or my schedule was news. That didn’t stop him from acting like it was some random thing that I’d started doing overnight just to piss them off. It always caught me by surprise that my father’s unrelenting disapproval of everything I did still managed to hurt. I should be used to it by now, since my entire life he’d acted like everything about me from my sexuality to my job were somehow personal affronts.
My mother’s face had that tight expression she usually sported whenever my father was being particularly assholic, but I knew she wouldn’t challenge him. That would just give him a reason to say something shitty to her too. My grandfather, on the other hand, had no such qualms.
“Leave him alone, Junior. He works too hard to have to put up with your bullshit whenever he’s here.” The way he said “Junior” made my dad squirm, and it almost made putting up with his shit worth it.
The gasp from my mom at my grandfather’s language was almost comical. “Father! Language.”
My dad just huffed and turned to talk to someone else. It seemed he was done being an ass, at least for now.
Grandpa just rolled his eyes and turned to me again while Emma distracted my mother with some questions about the catering.
“What’s going on, son? You don’t seem like yourself,” he asked me, concern clear in his eyes.
I hesitated, trying to find the words. I wasn’t so sure even I knew what was happening with me. Other than I was beginning to realize some of the thin
gs that Patrice had been saying. What Emma had been trying to tell me. That to be a good guy, it wasn’t enough to not be bad. I couldn’t take shortcuts with that if I wanted a real shot at being with Patrice.
I remembered my grandfather was waiting for an answer and I sat in a chair next to his wheeled one so we could be eye to eye, taking the hand he gave me. His skin felt papery and delicate these days, a little more frail each time, but those eyes told me he was well aware there was something I needed to get off my chest.
“I’m just asking more questions, I guess. Not taking things as a given, making myself see what I don’t want to see.” I tried to pull the words out, because that was sort of the rub of it all, not voicing the things that bothered me. “It’s new for me to feel like I’m inconvenient.”
Grandpa made a sound of understanding and gripped my hand tighter. “You really are tangled up. You’re usually on the other side of this conundrum and you certainly don’t pine.”
My grandfather, as always, saw too much, and soon I had Emma as an audience too. What he said was true: I was so past my usual playbook when it came to Patrice I had no clue where I was. If I had any sense, I’d just give up on things.
Except I hadn’t imagined how his hands trembled on my face as he kissed me.
“I’m not sure if this is the right person for me. Being with me is complicated for him. I think it feels like he’s compromising his ideals.”
“Are these ideals worth sacrificing yourself for?”
“Yes.” I thought about Tyren, Ari, Ron and the fact that, to me, what was happening in town was a concern, even an inconvenience, but to them it was a real threat. No, Patrice’s inner struggle about us was not completely unwarranted. Still, I looked at my grandfather, hoping he had some magical solution to my problem.
“Then don’t make him.” The tightening in my gut at the finality in his words confirmed I’d been lying to myself all morning. I had not given up on having something with Patrice.
My grandpa’s strong grip snatched me back to his attention. “It’s not about giving up, son, it’s about you letting him know that his ideals are valuable to you too.” He held up a hand as I was about to refute his solution. “I know that you’ve probably said so to him, but you can’t just say it, you need to figure out a way to actually let him see it. Meet him halfway, just make sure he and you both know that keeping you is worthwhile too.”
Emma chimed in, of course. “I wish you could see what we see, East. You’re not just good at your job, you’re an amazing guy and I’m sure Professor Hottie knows that too. He keeps coming back, doesn’t he?” I smiled at her nickname for Patrice, but stayed quiet, figuring myself out.
The truth was, no matter how much I wanted to take what they were saying and run with it, things kept getting more complicated, and this morning hurt. If there really was any chance of us moving forward, I couldn’t keep making the first move, or letting Patrice act like whatever happened was him not thinking. No, I agreed with Grandpa. I could meet Patrice halfway, but for any of this to work, he would have to step up too.
Chapter Eleven
Patrice
I walked up to Easton’s apartment feeling all kinds of inadequate. He’d left my house this morning looking defeated and shamed. I’d done that with my shitty behavior, and I had to fix it, or I could at least try to make amends. I knocked on the door twice and then remembered there was a buzzer. But before I could press the button, the door opened.
I’d been prepared for pajamas or sweats, but Easton in denim cutoffs and an oversized University of Buffalo sweatshirt, wearing adorable woolly socks, had an intense effect on me.
I sucked in a breath as I held up the bag of Vietnamese takeout I’d picked up from a place Nesto kept raving about. There was a bite in the air, and I thought some pho might be a decent peace offering.
“I brought you dinner.” I shuffled my feet some, and felt awkward as hell as I made myself say the rest of what I’d come here to do. “And an apology.”
For a second Easton hesitated, his eyebrows furrowed like this turn of events had completely thrown him off. He turned his head to the side and looked behind himself, as if the food had to be for an imaginary roommate, then he stepped out into the hallway.
I was not being invited in. Okay, I deserved that.
I backed up to give him space and his eyes were giving me no quarter. “You don’t owe me anything.” The finality in his tone was not easy to hear.
I hoped he could see how fucked up I felt about how things had ended with us this morning. I hoped he knew what to do about this, about us, because I was lost.
I was about to try and tell him that when he sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked tired. “I’m really tired, Patrice.”
I didn’t know how the rest of his day had gone, but I sure as shit knew I had not made it any better. Groveling or apologizing for fuckboy behavior was not exactly in my wheelhouse either. I usually got out before shit got anywhere near complicated. But I was doing this, because if anything I wasn’t going to let Easton think that he deserved to be treated like he didn’t matter.
“I’m not sure why I thought showing up at your house with two tubs full of soup was a great idea, but I figured I at least owed you some dinner,” I said in a friendly tone that didn’t get me more of a reaction. If his intention was to make me squirm, things were certainly going as planned.
His expression still gave me nothing, and the desperation I felt made me think of something Nesto told me. I had to stop pretending, because right now, all I could think of was that I would do anything to make him smile again. To have him talk to me like he wanted me here. The urge to plead for another chance was on the tip of my tongue, I didn’t even know what I’d ask for. I just knew I wanted more time with him.
We stood there in silence. Easton’s eyes on me, and his gaze completely serious. “Why are you really here, Patrice?”
I squirmed under his scrutiny, the way his entire body seemed to be asking the question.
Tonight I was getting the full treatment from Assistant District Attorney Easton Archer. He just stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall by his door, patiently waiting for me to crumble under his stare.
He didn’t have to make this easier for me. So far, he’d spent every minute we’d been together accommodating my hang-ups. Smiling through all the mixed signals I kept sending his way, unrelenting in his honesty about how he felt about me. He told me again and again that he wanted me. That the rest we could figure out as we went. Not tonight.
He was going to make me say it, and really I owed both of us that much. If I’d gotten anything from Ari’s words today, it was that I needed to stop acting like what I felt for Easton was something that was just happening to me.
I opened my mouth to say some other asinine reason for why I was standing here, but before I started I closed my mouth. He deserved better than this, than me making shit up just to keep from admitting to why I was here. I was deliberate in every other part of my life. I had to stop acting like my heart didn’t deserve the same intention.
“That’s not true.” I shook my head as he stared at me. “I mean, it’s true I thought you might be hungry. I’m not here just because of that though. I wanted to see you. And apologize for acting like an asshole...again.”
This finally got me a reaction in the form or a slightly raised eyebrow, but still his lips were sealed. But now I was committed, so I finally told the truth.
“I always want to see you. I always want you.” Admitting it was like a dam broke inside me because suddenly I could not stop talking. “It sort of freaks me out how much.” Easton parted his lips like he was about to say something, but I had to get all of this out. No matter what happened between the two of us, I needed to make sure that Easton heard this. “I’m tired of fighting myself about wanting you, Easton.”
He gave an exasperated sigh as he peeled his back off the wall and moved toward me, one hand raised, palm up, as if to stop me from talking.
Resigned to the fact that I had fucked this up, feeling like there was a hole in my chest, I handed him the food.
“Have a good night, Easton.”
I was about to turn around and walk down to my apartment when he grabbed my wrist with his other hand.
“Oh no, no, no.” When I turned to look at him, those green eyes were blazing, but there was just a little bit of humor in his voice. “No, Professor Denis, you’re not leaving now. I was going to say that it sounded like a conversation you’d rather have inside my place.”
The relief at those words was enough to make me lightheaded, and when I looked at him, a much smaller but no less heartening version of the smile I’d been desperate to see was firmly in place.
“Come on.” He ushered me in and I didn’t give him a chance to change his mind, quickly stepping into his penthouse. I pointed at the glass of wine on the coffee table next to a mountain of papers.
“You were working.”
He waved at the pile of papers dismissively. “I was supposed to be working, but I was sulking instead,” he said matter-of-factly as he took the food to the kitchen.
I never again wanted to be the reason for Easton to feel unimportant. Because even if I wasn’t ready to say that out loud, with every passing day he was becoming almost essential for me. If I’d been brave enough, I’d tell him exactly that. Instead I walked over to where he’d been pulling takeout containers out of the bag.
I came to where he was, just inches away. We were so close I felt his heat, I wanted to wrap my arms around him, envelop him with my body, but I knew there was more I needed to say. I whispered into the space between us. “I’m sorry,” I said as I ran my thumb over his lips. They were perfect, red and fleshy.
Easton swallowed hard and I could almost see his pulse racing. There it was again, that pull. In so many ways I felt like with Easton and I, words sometimes were unnecessary. I bent my head and he lifted up to meet me. He clasped both hands behind my neck and kissed me like his life depended on it.
American Love Story (Dreamers) Page 14