“Sometimes less,” Justin answered.
“Clever,” Spencer scoffed, but he didn’t back away. Instead, he closed the gap, getting so close Justin could feel the heat of Spencer’s resentment. “But it answers my question anyway.”
“It’s been over for about a year,” Justin told him. In a daring move, he stared into Spencer’s eyes again. The fury still raged within. “My heart always belonged to you.”
“Too bad the rest of you didn’t always belong to me.” Spencer rose from the table with such force that the kitchen chair slammed into the refrigerator behind him. He stormed out of the kitchen and into the living room.
Justin immediately followed him. “Please don’t go,” he pleaded. “We need to talk. We need to work this out.”
Spencer stopped with his back toward Justin. He was facing the front door, obviously ready to leave the house for good. He couldn’t let Spencer leave. If he walked out the door, he might never see him again.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Justin said. He crossed the divide between them, standing close enough for Spencer to feel his presence but far enough away not to draw further anger by making contact. “I’ll endure whatever punishments are necessary. Just please don’t leave.”
“That’s funny,” Spencer told him, still refusing to look at him.
“Why?”
“If only you would’ve said those words to me when I told you about London, I wouldn’t have left.” Spencer turned around to face Justin. His cheeks were on fire. “If you would’ve simply asked me to stay, I would’ve stayed. I wanted you to want me to stay. I kept waiting for you to ask me to stay. Even when we said good-bye at the airport, I waited for you to ask me to stay. You never did. Instead, you told me to go. And you never once took that back.”
Justin’s heart dropped. He’d never even thought to ask Spencer to stay. When Spencer told him he wanted to go, he figured there was no point in asking. Once Spencer’s mind was made up, little could be done to change it. If he had tried, though, they might not be where they were today.
Once again stupidity and shortsightedness had gotten the better of him.
“I’m asking you now,” Justin said. “I want you to stay. I need you to stay.”
A stray tear, too strong to be held back, rolled down Spencer’s cheek. “And I need to go,” Spencer told him. “This isn’t about you anymore, Justin. It’s about me. I need to do what’s right for me now. I can’t worry about your needs or your wants. Not now. Maybe not ever again.”
Justin’s world crumbled. The glimmer of hope he clutched fell from his grasp.
“I’ve been honest with you,” Justin told him. He heard the desperation in his voice, but he didn’t care. At all costs, he had to keep Spencer from leaving. “I could’ve lied, but I didn’t. I’ve been honest with you about everything.”
Spencer stood there, staring at him as if all he felt was pity. Then he looked around at the living room. On the walls were family pictures Justin’s mother proudly displayed. There was a picture of Justin and Spencer when they moved into their house. There were other pictures of them at various stages of their relationship. Scattered among those were pictures of Justin’s family—his aunt, uncle, grandparents, and his mother.
All eyes were watching, waiting in anticipation for how the scene would play out.
“Okay,” Spencer said. “Then one more question. I want you to be honest. I need you to be honest.”
Justin nodded, pleased that Spencer had not yet fled his mother’s house but fearful of what the question might be.
Spencer inhaled sharply, as if this question had been hanging on his tongue just waiting to be asked. It was a question Spencer was obviously afraid to voice, but Justin had no idea what it could be. What could be worse than what had been asked so far?
“Did you fall in love with Dutch?”
The question hit him like a jab to the gut. It was the worst question of them all, ripe with danger and ready to blow everything to smithereens.
“Be honest,” Spencer said. He walked over to Justin, closing the gulf that separated them to mere inches. “It’s what we used to do best. Don’t tarnish that now.”
“Yes,” Justin finally said. “I did.”
He flinched, waiting for the detonation. Instead, Spencer smiled. It wasn’t a joyful smile. The smile told him the answer was what Spencer expected, no matter how much it devastated him.
“I suspected as much,” Spencer finally said. “When I saw your face while you were on the phone. When you told me someone was in an accident. You looked so worried. As if someone very close to you was in danger of dying. That’s why I thought it was someone in your family.”
Tears freely flowed down Spencer’s cheeks, the dam keeping them back unable to withstand the pressure any longer. “I know the kind of man you are, Justin Jimenez. You don’t have sex with someone for that length of time and not develop feelings. You’re not that kind of man.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and pulled them back in until his eyes were bone dry. The dam had been restored. “How I wish you were! But you’re not.”
“But I love you,” Justin said. “I chose you!”
“A choice shouldn’t be necessary,” Spencer told him. “When we were brought together by that magical force, as you like to call it, there wasn’t a choice. It just was.”
“What are you telling me?” Justin asked. “Are you telling me we’re over? For good?” He took Spencer’s hands in his own, hoping his touch would bring the walls back down and weaken Spencer’s resolve to go.
“I’m telling you the two of us were never meant to be a choice. Choosing cheapens what we were, what we had.”
Spencer withdrew his hands from Justin’s grasp.
“I don’t understand,” Justin said, his body trembling. He was losing Spencer; he could feel him pulling away, scampering behind the walls, which were numerous and constantly refortifying. In a few moments, Spencer would be impenetrable.
“That’s the saddest part of it all,” Spencer said. He kissed Justin on the cheek and turned around, then walked out the front door without glancing back even once.
CHAPTER 18
2009
JUSTIN threw his car keys against the living room wall, below the hole he punched before Christmas. When Spencer revealed he was going to London for four months, he was furious, and the wall took the brunt of his anger. Since then, the hole served as a daily reminder of the cavernous void in his heart.
He’d contemplated fixing it, or asking Tyler to help him fix it, but he let it remain. No matter how much of an asshole it made him, he wanted them both to see that hole every day until he left, to remind them how broken their relationship was.
Whether it worked or not, he didn’t know. They rarely spoke after the incident. Christmas was torturous, pretending to be the happy couple for his family and their friends, but they muddled through it without anyone being the wiser.
Everyone except his mother. Her ability to spot unhappiness despite evidence to the contrary was creepy and bordered on supernatural. She asked him many questions, and he lied through his teeth.
Nothing’s wrong, he told her. We’re fine, he reassured her.
Her skeptical eyes revealed she knew better. Still, she let the matter go. He hated lying to her, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Not only was he ashamed about their problems but he feared discussing them with anyone else would make the problems stronger, give them more power than they already possessed.
If he ignored them long enough, they might improve on their own like magic.
That never happened.
New Year’s, which was a special holiday in the Harrison-Jimenez house, came and went without the typical pomp and circumstance. They didn’t spend it with friends or recreate the night at home, like they had done in the past. He watched the ball drop in Times Square on the bedroom television while Spencer read in the guest room, where he now slept.
Their lives rarely intersected and when they
did, they fought. They argued about cold dinners, unwashed dishes, full trash cans, dirty toilets, or an assortment of household complaints. Not once did they broach the true reason for their anger—Spencer’s pending departure. Sure, he’d messed up. He didn’t deny that, but he wasn’t the one who was running away.
At the heart of every disagreement, at the root of every shouting match, Spencer’s upcoming trip lay between them, unmentioned and leaking poison that polluted every single day and every single moment until they said their good-byes a few hours ago at the airport.
“I guess this is it,” Spencer said, holding his plane ticket in one hand and his Louis Vuitton carry-on in the other. His hand fidgeted with the leather strap, as if he were waiting for Justin to speak some magical incantation.
Justin had no idea what words he could possibly say now that would make any difference. He didn’t want Spencer to go, but he wasn’t going to beg him to stay. He didn’t beg. Pride meant too much to him. If Spencer wanted to stay, he needed to admit it. After all, Spencer was the one who wanted to leave.
They stood silently near the airport security area, where Justin couldn’t pass and where Spencer would spend the next few minutes being scrutinized. Countless travelers hurried past them, some running to make flights already boarding and others calmly strolling since they'd arrived with more than enough time to make their connections.
“I hope you have a safe flight,” Justin said at last, feeling the need to say something.
Spencer looked down at his feet. “Thanks.”
“Will you call when you arrive?” he asked. “If that’s not too much trouble.” He immediately regretted the last comment. His anger had gotten the better of him.
Spencer’s eyes met his and turned cold. “Of course,” he said. “Will you be able to answer the call while you’re on Cyber?”
“I can always log back on afterward,” he told Spencer. His hands chilled from the coolness of his response. If he exhaled, he was certain his breath would plume outward.
He didn’t want their last in-person conversation to end this way. Spencer deserved a proper send-off. The man he loved more than anyone else in the world was leaving him for four months. There would be no good-night kisses, no good mornings, and no tender touches to make it through a tough day.
While they hadn’t done such things for a few weeks, they could have if they wanted. They were only a room away. Now, thousands of miles would separate them.
To commemorate his departure, Spencer deserved a huge banner with I’LL MISS YOU written across it. There should be hugs and kisses and tears. There should be tender caresses and promises of seeing each other soon.
There shouldn’t be cruelty and pissiness.
The resentment in his heart about being abandoned kept what should have been from occurring. While Spencer withdrew from the world for protection, Justin lashed out in order to make everyone feel as crappy as he did. That was his defense mechanism. That was what he used to survive. Why suffer alone was his motto.
“I’m just going to go now,” Spencer said, finally breaking the silence.
“Okay.”
Spencer hugged him quickly and then turned around, heading toward the security area. A few steps away from the line, he stopped but didn’t turn around. He waited a few minutes then joined the other travelers in the line.
Justin watched Spencer make his way through security, waiting for him to get out of line and run back to him, telling him he wasn’t going to go. He willed Spencer to change his mind, trying to find the magic that once brought them together and use it to bring Spencer back to him again.
When Spencer cleared security and disappeared into the hallways beyond, Justin turned around, got into his car, and came home.
Now, he was alone. The hole in the wall echoed the hole in his soul. For nine years, he and Spencer had spent every day together. Now, he had to suffer through sixteen weeks without the sound of his presence in the house.
He wished he had stopped him when he had the chance. Now, in the quiet of solitude, his pride seemed less important. The central heat hummed, and the outside wind chimes made eerie music as the cold January air moved about outside.
Needing someone, anyone, he retrieved his car keys from the floor. His mother seemed the most logical answer. Her shoulder was always a comfort in times like this. But going to his mother meant addressing the problems he had yet to share. He wasn’t ready for that.
Tyler was always a source of comfort, as were all their other friends, but like his mother, they were in the dark about the true status of his relationship with Spencer. As far as anyone was concerned, Spencer’s decision to go to London was strictly professional, a feather in his professional bonnet.
He never felt more cut off from his family and loved ones than he did right now. Cast adrift in this sea of misery, he longed for one person, one shining beacon to rescue him before the waters dragged him to the rocky bottom.
What about Dutch? he thought.
For the past few weeks, he and Dutch had chatted on Cyber. When their chats first started, he assumed Dutch was only looking for play. Had his and Spencer’s sex life not stopped entirely, he would have brought Dutch’s profile pic to Spencer as an opportunity.
Dutch’s profile picture, at least before he changed it to Yosemite Sam, was hot. He sat shirtless before a mirror. Dark-black hair matted his chest and framed his face. His broad shoulders looked capable of supporting the world. But his eyes, a crystal blue, entranced Justin the most.
It wasn’t merely the uniqueness of the color; it was the sincerity and rugged beauty it reflected, outshining the headless torsos and other smiling, horny men on the prowl.
Held helpless in their power, he sent Dutch a message on Cyber. Since that first message and over the past few weeks, they’d cultivated a strange online relationship, with honesty at its very core. While they kept private certain aspects of their lives, such as their identities, they told each other everything else—their fears, their hopes, and their longings.
Dutch knew he and Spencer, who he referred to as only “S” on Cyber, were in a rough patch. Telling a stranger, someone not invested in their relationship’s success, helped him deal with the pain without feeling the need to censor himself. A mutual friend or his mother would have taken on the role of devil’s advocate. Dutch didn’t. He was simply there, and that was what he needed the most.
That was what he needed now.
Within moments, his phone was on and Cyber was loading. The number one blinked next to Dutch’s profile picture, which meant Dutch sent him a message. The green light to the left of his profile name indicated Dutch was also online. Immediately, Justin felt connected, not just by the app, but by some unseen USB cord that electronically tethered them to each other whenever they were both logged on at the same time.
Having this connection made him feel less alone in a world without Spencer. Someone, beyond his family, was in his corner. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the connection mattered for Justin. It gave him weight and substance at a time he felt cut free and adrift.
Justin tapped on the display, which maximized Dutch’s profile picture on his small iPhone screen. The picture was no longer Yosemite Sam, the face that had graced his profile for weeks. In its place, Dutch now lay crossways on his bed. A white muscle shirt covered his expansive chest but couldn’t contain the abundant chest hair, which peeked over the fabric’s edges. Lifted slightly, the shirt revealed the coat of hair across his stomach and the waistband of his Unico underwear. Dutch’s right hand rested behind his head, revealing tufts of armpit hair.
The image entranced him. Dutch’s smile, seductive yet rugged, was also straightforward and genuine. It marked him as one of the good guys.
He tapped on the screen again, causing Dutch’s profile picture to disappear. In its place appeared his message from Dutch.
DUTCH: How r u? Did S leave after all?
Tears flooded his eyes, but he wiped them away. He promised himse
lf he wouldn’t cry.
J-SQUARED: Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?
DUTCH: Sure.
J-SQUARED: How r u?
DUTCH: U not tired of my drama yet?
J-SQUARED: Better yours than mine.
DUTCH: LOL. OK. Got turned down for another job today.
J-SQUARED: Damn. I’m sorry.
Dutch had recently transplanted to San Antonio from Boston. He left his mother, sister, and home behind for a better paying job as IT Director at the main San Antonio Bank of America office. A recent breakup of his three-year relationship prompted the move more than the salary increase.
He settled into his new job and bought a house on the northwest side of San Antonio. Dutch even jumpstarted his graduate degree in photography online after contacting his old advisor at the Center for Digital Imagery at Boston University.
More than halfway to a graduate degree in something he loved and making a good chunk of change at his new job, his world bottomed out.
The banking crisis followed him from Boston. Layoffs at many Bank of America branches were necessary. As one of the most recent hires and one of the most expensive employees, Dutch was released from his job.
Now he was saddled with a mortgage he could no longer afford and had been unsuccessful in getting a job in an economy that wouldn’t hire someone of his age and experience.
DUTCH: Me too. To make matters worse, I received a check in the mail today from my mother. I love her to death, but taking her charity makes it worse.
Justin understood. A proud man himself, he preferred to stand on his own two feet, which was one of the reasons no one knew about his problems with Spencer.
J-SQUARED: What about the photography gigs?
He hated asking Dutch about them because Dutch felt as if he was whoring out his artistic talents to make a few bucks. But in this economic climate, he had no other choice.
DUTCH: I have a wedding this weekend. It should help some.
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