“Probably not for a while. He’s pretty steamed at me right now, too, remember.” Elle joined him in the kitchen, filling the sink to wash up.
They did the dishes and then snuggled on the couch to watch a movie. Halfway through Sahara, Elle was asleep with her head in Andrew’s lap and he was fiddling with his phone. He wanted to call Brian, beg him to come home, and they would sort everything out together. But he needed to talk to James more right then. Set him straight, firmly, and not back down when James tried to accuse him of things he’d never done.
While Matthew McConaughey raced a plane-turned-land yacht across a desert, Andrew tapped out a message to James.
‘I’m sorry for ruining your bach party. That’s the last thing I wanted. I’m honestly happy for you and Elle, always have been, and it was an honour to be asked to be your best man. However you feel about me now, I’ll always be your friend, but we need to talk.’
He read it, edited it, reread it, nearly deleted it, then hit send before he could chicken out completely. Hopefully James would actually read it and do so with more patience than he’d had at the paintball place.
Within a minute, James replied. ‘You didn’t ruin anything. I did. I’d like to blame stress but . . . Yes to talk. Your place tomorrow morning? I’ll bring juice.’
Hoping this was a good sign, Andrew tapped out, ‘Sounds cool. See you then,’ and hit send. He got a thumbs up in response.
When Elle woke up he didn’t tell her about messaging James. It felt promising, but he didn’t want to get her hopes up in case he or James messed up again. Instead, they watched movies for the rest of the day. Andrew didn’t pay much attention, thoughts sliding from the upcoming talk with James, how to get Elle out of the house the following morning so James didn’t run into her, and how he could make sure Brian decided to give him another chance. He was still distracted when his phone rang and he answered without checking the number.
“Andrew, it’s Marie from the office. How are you feeling?”
Andrew immediately muted Jurassic World so she wouldn’t hear the loud dinosaur sounds. “Bit better. Why?”
“We were hoping you would be well enough to come into the Ashmore office tomorrow. A person from HR will be here and they would like to talk to you about the incident at the Palm Beach build the other week.”
Stomach churning, Andrew asked, “How long will it take?”
“Shouldn’t be too long. Maybe an hour or two. I know you’re not well, but the sooner this is sorted out, the sooner we can make sure nothing like this happens again and you can come back to work with us on the coast.”
He agreed to be in at eleven and hung up. A second potentially disastrous talk in one day. If Brian decided to get in touch tomorrow, it would be a pretty big trifecta.
Getting Elle out of the way in the morning took care of itself when she announced she had to go make wedding cancelations in person. On her way out, she very casually asked about Brian’s roster, nodding when Andrew told her he should be on day shifts, then she was gone without further explanation. Half wondering if warning Brian about an in-coming Elle would get him ticks in the pro or con column, Andrew paced the living room, waiting for James and psyching himself up for the coming conversation.
When James showed up he had four different flavours of organic juice in his arms and a very contrite expression on his face. “I’m sorry.”
Fighting the urge to just tell James it was all good, Andrew let him in and they spent a couple of minutes picking which juice to drink. Andrew solved it by making a mix of all of them. They sat in the living room, Andrew on the couch, James in a single chair, and sipped the concoction. It tasted better than Andrew had been expecting.
“Um, so I have to say I’m sorry.” James sat on the very edge of the seat, focused on the glass he was rolling between his hands. “I was a dickhead the other day. Still a bit drunk and really fucking surprised to see you and Brian like that. Elle and I haven’t been clicking as much lately, either. All the stress, you know, and then she wouldn’t tell me why she was crying that day you came out to us at the Spit and I started wondering if she maybe still felt something for you, or . . .” He shrugged. “The way she was being all sad and quiet then was how she was just after she broke up with you and I probably jumped to conclusions.”
“No probably. You did jump to conclusions,” Andrew interjected, determined to speak up and be heard this time. “All the wrong ones.”
James’s cheeks turned pink and he took a big gulp of juice. “I know. But it’s understandable, right? Even a little bit?”
Andrew’s instinct was to say “yes” and get them past this moment. They’d still be friends and James would go on thinking everything was fine and Andrew would . . . well, he’d deal with it, like always.
Instead, he just shook his head.
“Okay.” James drew the word out, then slapped his knee. “Did you really think anyone finding you and Brian grinding on each other, talking about fucking, would just smile and congratulate you on lying to us all this time?”
“Like you and Elle lied to us about not being together for a year?”
“We didn’t lie. We just didn’t tell you. For your sake, actually. Elle didn’t want to hurt you.”
The tension was building, and while Andrew wanted to air it all out between them and make sure James was aware of certain things, he didn’t want it actually turning into a fight.
Calmly, Andrew said, “And Brian and I didn’t lie either. We just didn’t tell you.”
Lips pressed into a thin line, James looked at his drink intently. “But Brian said he wasn’t gay—”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t say anything about it. You just assumed. You, James. You didn’t listen to what Elle was saying and just heard what you wanted to hear. Then you spread it to Troy. And what you saw on the weekend doesn’t erase the fact that you needed to apologise to Brian. You don’t say ‘I’m sorry’ because someone is gay. You say sorry for being a narrow-minded dickhead who makes assumptions about their friend behind their back.”
James twitched in his chair, then leaned over and put his glass on the coffee table before standing up to pace. “I know. I get that. And I am sorry I rushed to the wrong assumptions. All of them! But Andrew, you’re like a brother to me. So is Brian. And you’re banging each other!”
“And you’re banging my ex.”
That pulled James up short. With his hands clenched and shoulders tense, he looked like he was going to explode, but after a moment, his body relaxed and he threw his hands up in defeat. “I thought you were okay with that.”
Andrew snorted. “I am now. I wasn’t back then. I still didn’t know why Elle had left me and then I had to watch you and her be stupidly happy together. That hurt. A lot. Especially when I was going through one of the most terrifying things to ever happen in my life. And I get how selfish that sounds. Just because my life got derailed and fucked over doesn’t mean everyone else’s has to stop, too.”
James plopped back down into his chair. “Man, I’m so sorry.”
“You and Elle did all the right things. You were there for me, gave me everything I needed from my friends, but you couldn’t hide how deliriously happy you were. I was depressed and sick from the chemo and some days . . . some days it was all I could do just to get out of bed to piss. I look back at it now and it scares me just how far gone I was. On top of that, I was sad, too. Jealous of you and Elle, not because I wanted Elle back, but because I wanted what you had found with each other, and yet it had never felt further out of reach.”
Andrew paused and took a deep breath to steady himself. It was hard saying all that, but it had to be said. Not because Brian had blurted out the wrong thing while upset, but because Andrew needed to keep being honest for his own sake. And if that lost him James as a friend, it would be a loss but not one he couldn’t deal with.
“Brian and I weren’t sleeping together while I was with Elle. I did feel things for him that I hadn’t acknowl
edged and therefore never acted on. He didn’t know. Not until I couldn’t handle the sadness anymore and I needed something to reach for. He’s always been there for me, always been my foundation, and I’m not going to lose him. Not over this stupid misunderstanding. I lost a testicle, and a lot of other, more important things, to the cancer. The ball’s gone forever, but the rest of it? That I can get back and I don’t care if you can’t handle me being bi, or me and Brian being together, or if one architect out of hundreds is a sleazy arsehole. I’m going to be an architect, and I’m going to get Brian back, and, even though it was guilt and the cancer that probably made you ask me, I’m going to bloody well stand up there with you as your best man when you and Elle get married. Because god knows what stunt Troy would pull in the middle of the ceremony if it was him.”
James’s laugh was startled and cut short, but the corners of his mouth were turned up as he said, “Right?”
“Right.” Andrew drained his glass, wetting down his dry throat. He definitely felt lighter, getting some of the misery off his chest, but it was scary waiting for James to process it all and decide if he still wanted to be friends or not. And when the silence went on too long, Andrew added, “None of that is your fault. It’s not anything anyone consciously decided to do to hurt anyone else. I just . . . needed to say it. Maybe if I’d spoken up sooner about how I was feeling we all could have been a lot clearer with each other about things.”
“Yeah.” James stretched the word out, ending on a sigh. “I wish you had told us just how bad it was for you. I would have done more. Anything you needed.”
Andrew shrugged and all his reasons for not talking about it swarmed back in. “There wasn’t much you could have done. It would have just made you sad as well, and one party-pooper was enough.” He gave James a reassuring smile.
“Brian got you through it, though.”
A blush warmed Andrew’s cheeks. “Yeah. So, are you okay with us?”
“It took me a bit to wrap my head around it, but yeah, I’m okay with you guys being together. You make each other happy, so that’s all that matters.” He chuckled dryly. “The timing was pretty shit, though. You gotta admit that.”
Andrew huffed in agreement. “We could have been more discrete.”
“Would have been a good start. I was still a dick and I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Andrew stood and motioned James up. He pulled him into a tight hug. “We good?”
“Yeah, mate. All good. And it wasn’t only guilt and the cancer that made me ask you to be best man.” James’s arms tightened. “Love you, bro. Any time you need to unload on me, you have my consent. Just not on the face.”
Andrew pulled back sharply. “Is that a gay sex joke?”
“Get used to them. Troy’s probably been storing them up.”
Seriously not wanting to, Andrew laughed anyway.
“So, have you seen Elle?” James followed Andrew into the kitchen as he took the glasses to the sink.
“She’s staying here.” What was one more truth amongst the many?
“That’s great. I was worried about where she’d gone. Is Brian at work?”
Andrew set the glasses down and shrugged. “I guess so. He’s staying at a friend’s place for a while.” He gave a worried James the same brief explanation he’d given Elle, then said he would be late for his appointment if James hung around much longer.
The look in James’s eyes as he left had Andrew wondering, again, if he should give Brian a heads-up. Deciding against it, again, he instead re-read the draft email that had been sitting on his phone for several days.
Like he’d told Brian, Frank Reynolds of Reynolds Designs was one of Andrew’s favourite architects and had been his second option for a job as a graduate architect after Green Life Homes. Apart from the fact they didn’t have eco-friendly designs as one of their focuses, their office was in Brisbane. If Andrew worked for them, he’d have to commute every day, or move. This was what he wanted, though. To be an architect, and that wouldn’t happen if he didn’t take the first steps. He hit send.
An hour later, he was in a small room at the Ashmore office of McGregor Construction, sitting opposite Ms. Pascale from HR. She explained the complaint Sam had made against him and their process, then began with the questions.
“I understand you and he exchanged heated words prior to you leaving with Mr. Sheridan,” Ms. Pascale asked, looking at her notes.
“Yes. He said some disrespectful things about Mr. Sheridan, then included me in them.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Andrew repeated Sam’s words as best as he remembered them, then had to explain why he’d been having semi-regular meetings with the architect.
“Mr. Sheridan had found out I was training to be an architect before giving it up. He was coming to the site to talk to me and sort of coax me back to it. The crew had seen me going into the office with him several times. Sam decided because Mr. Sheridan is gay, that I was . . . doing things with him in there.”
Pascale’s eyebrows shot up. “He actually said that to you?”
Andrew nodded.
She pursed her lips, then asked, “Can you tell me specifically what he said?”
“Sure. Um, that I was sucking Mr. Sheridan off. He then said something about how he didn’t want to work with me because I’d be perving at his, ah, bum.” Andrew took a sip from the water she’d provided him, his throat dry as he relived that day.
“Are you certain of that?” Pascale asked gravely.
“Yes.”
“Sam said that you called him a bigot.”
“Yeah I did. Because he is one.” He couldn’t tell how that went over but Andrew wasn’t about to downplay it.
They went over the incident a couple more times, then she asked about Vaughn and his visits.
“As I said before, he remembered me from when I used to work for him and he liked that I had practical experience with construction. He wanted to see how that affected my process as an architect. We did it during lunch break or after hours.”
“We had reports that you would leave early with Mr. Sheridan,” Pascale said.
“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes once a week, but the rest of the crew said they didn’t mind. I always made up the time.”
“On the day of the incident, you left the build site to have lunch with Mr. Sheridan,” Pascale noted. “And when you returned, you went home sick. Was that because of the incident with Sam?”
Vaughn didn’t work for McGregor but he did contract them often. Andrew had no personal desire to spread word of what Vaughn had said to him, but what if he tried it on someone else in the future? What if he’d already done it to another person?
“Andrew?” Pascale asked gently. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, sipped more water, and spoke. “When we started our talks, Vaughn Sheridan told me he had a position in his firm for a graduate architect opening up in a couple of months. That day, when he found out I was . . . queer, he told me the position was mine, if I showed him how much I wanted it. He said he’d make it beneficial for both of us. His, ah, hand was on my knee the entire time.”
Pascale sat back in surprise.
“I didn’t want another run in with Sam, but Sheridan saying that to me was the main reason I wanted to leave.”
“That’s workplace sexual harassment. Sheridan often works closely with McGregor and we will need to follow up on this. Since it is a separate issue from the one we’re discussing today, I’ll have to schedule another meeting with you.”
Feeling sick at the thought of being questioned more closely about his sexuality, Andrew just nodded.
After she’d left, Andrew wasn’t sure if he should feel optimistic about the meeting or not. When he got outside, he found Terri leaning against the wall, phone in her hands.
“Drew!” She gave him a tight hug. “It feels like forever since I’ve seen you. Does this mean you’re coming back to work with us now?”
“Not yet. I had
my meeting with HR today. I guess it will probably take them another month to decide ‘what really happened.’”
Terri scowled. “HR are always useless.”
Not really wanting to talk about it, Andrew instead asked, “Why are you here? Don’t tell me you’ve got to talk to them as well?”
“I had my interrogation last week. We finished the Palm Beach build today and I’m just dropping off some stuff. Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? The demons possessing my kids miss you.”
He smiled. “I’d love to but I have a friend staying with me at the moment.”
“Hey, bring them—oh shit. Maybe they thought you’d be gone by now.” She was looking over his shoulder.
Andrew turned and saw Sam walking up to the office door. Sam saw him at the same moment and his blank face turned vicious in an instant.
“You fucking bastard,” Sam snarled. “If I lose my job I’m coming after you.”
Terri grabbed Andrew’s arm and steered him away. “Come on. Before he does something stupid.”
Andrew agreed and went with her. She was offering him a lift home when his phone dinged. On the screen was a reply to the email he’d just sent.
‘Dear Mr. Fitzroy,
Thank you for your email enquiring about a graduate architect position with us. I was incredibly happy to read it as I recalled seeing your application a couple of years ago and would very much—’
The preview cut off and Andrew was about to unlock his phone to read it, not daring to hope it continued on so positively, when he heard running footsteps coming up behind him. He was about to turn when something hit the back of his skull.
Sharp, sudden pain rocketed through his head and Andrew dropped into darkness.
Brian rushed into the A&E, his face recognisable enough no one stopped him. Sean was on his heels, having insisted on accompanying him, claiming Brian was too distraught to get himself there.
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