“Okay. I see.”
“You haven’t let yourself believe it will be good.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’ll do it. I have faith in you. Now scoot. I have work to do, and the sun is waiting for you.” Paulie hugged him and kissed his cheek, and then took his plate to the sink even though he hadn’t finished the scone. He would have taken the coffee mug too, but Chase grabbed it.
“If you insist on taking the coffee with you, use this.” Paulie went to the cupboard on the fringes of the kitchen where they kept the carefully calculated ration of liquor they planned to use during a weekend, and brought back an insulated mug. When Paulie tried again to take Chase’s mug, he let him.
A fully loaded thirty-ounce mug in his hand, Chase wandered out onto the back porch. His first sip was slightly disappointing: nothing but coffee. He got the hint, and had honestly planned to think sober no matter how tempting the liquor cabinet might be.
Halfway down the back steps, Chase stopped and looked up. The sun would be directly overhead soon. The edges of the sky within his field of vision had already faded from blue to a hazy yellowish-white that he thought meant the afternoon would be warmer than had been predicted. He wished for more clouds—the sky almost seemed unfinished without them. Chase shook his head at himself and continued into the backyard.
“Hey.” Kyle rose to stand in the massage gazebo and smiled. He looked more relaxed than he had the last time Chase saw him—even counting last night, which might be because it had been dark, so he hadn’t seen so much as spoken with him—longer hair, an easier smile, and he’d definitely been spending time in the sun. “Sleep okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks again for the ride.” Chase crossed the grass and stepped onto the first of the three low steps leading up to the gazebo. “What are you doing?”
“You’re welcome. Getting ready for tomorrow. I found these great chimneys so I can have candles without the wind blowing them out.” Kyle held up a chimney that had probably fit over a hurricane lamp, decorated with a simple spiral pattern in silver metallic paint. “A local gal makes them.”
“Nice.” Chase looked past Kyle to the break in the trees leading out onto the beach. “I’m supposed to be thinking. And walking.” Chase lifted his mug in salute and backed off the gazebo steps. By the time he reached the brick path at the edge of the yard, Kyle walked with him. “You don’t have to come with me. I’m not planning to walk into the ocean.”
“I know. You can think out loud. You listened to me thinking out loud enough at the condo.” They shared a grin and walked onto the sand, both barefoot. “I want to see you guys happy. Dance at your wedding.”
“Really?” Chase hoped Kyle understood what he meant but tried to figure out how to explain it anyway. Until Kyle slung an arm around his shoulders and short-circuited his brain. Chase didn’t want to but he stiffened. At least he was able to keep himself from ducking out from under Kyle’s arm.
“Still uncomfortable in public?” Kyle asked gently. “I’m not judging. It’s okay here, though. Is that what’s holding you back?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You grew up out in the burbs, right?”
“Farther out than that. Halfway to the coast.”
Kyle stopped and after a moment removed his arm from Chase’s shoulders. “Where?”
“Willston.”
“Isn’t that a small town in the middle of nowhere?”
“That’s the place.” Chase drank from his mug and hoped Kyle wouldn’t expect him to talk about what it was like to grow up there, if he’d been out and how that went, or any of the usual things people asked when they heard.
“Why didn’t I know that?”
“Because I wanted to forget, so I never said.” Chase started walking again, slowly, and Kyle fell in beside him.
“And I never asked. I’m sorry.”
“If you had, I probably would’ve changed the subject anyway.” Chase took a deep breath and braced himself before he went on. “So, are you guys considering this another intervention?”
“Not officially. Okay, yes.” Kyle rested a hand between Chase’s shoulder blades, gently rubbed in a few circles, and then dropped his arm back to his side. “It’s not like last time. We’re not worried about your health. We want to see you happy again. If we can help, why wouldn’t we?”
“I’m not complaining.” Chase glanced over at Kyle, and when their eyes met, he smiled. “I appreciate it. Just wanted to know if I should expect Nathan to chime in too.”
“You should.”
Chase couldn’t stifle a sigh, but it didn’t sound put-upon, and he was glad. His thoughts slipped back to the first intervention. The guys hadn’t done it in the traditional way—everyone at once—but a gentler process of each friend talking to him one-on-one over the course of a weekend. His drinking had gotten out of control, but he hadn’t thought anyone noticed. That had been a dark time. Chase had been forced to realize that none of the men he currently knew were The One, and his father had been contacting him a lot. He’d felt hopeless and had no motivation whatsoever to try and meet someone new, regardless of the depths of his loneliness. Looking back, he had probably been a little depressed.
“So, what’s going on with you and Garrett?”
“He didn’t tell you?” They walked in silence until Chase realized Kyle wasn’t going to answer that. “Garrett wants to get married.”
“And you don’t.”
“Not exactly….”
“What, exactly, does he want?”
“To become the Holland-Frisches.”
“That sounds great. Garrett Holland-Frisch. Chase Holland-Frisch. I like it.”
For no reason that made sense, Chase didn’t want to admit out loud that he thought it sounded pretty great too. “I don’t see why we need a piece of paper, for the government to sanction our relationship. But he wants it.”
“And what happened next, after he said he wanted the piece of paper?”
“I said I would.”
“And yet you’re here and he’s in Portland.” Kyle glanced out at the water, and Chase followed his gaze. The tide seemed to be coming in, but he didn’t care enough about it to be sure. “Did you guys talk about it?”
Chase’s laughter sounded way too bitter even to himself. He shook his head and focused on a colorful shape far up the beach to avoid Kyle’s reaction to that. “Yeah. We talked about it, and talked about it. I’m no good at that, because I said I would, and he’s still not happy.”
“Did he say why?”
“He only wants to do it if I want it too. Not if I think I have to, not if I’m only doing it for him.”
“What do you want?”
“Garrett.”
“What do you want for yourself? And don’t say Garrett.”
Chase looked at him, and Kyle was smiling gently. But obviously not so gently that he could get out of answering that question.
“I thought I knew, but I don’t. I mean, the art career, sure, I want that. But I could lose both hands tomorrow and be fine if I still had Garrett. I’d do anything for him.”
“Except get married.”
Chase stopped, and after another step Kyle did too. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. Everyone—every relationship has troubles, things to figure out. But you’re working on it. We’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it out.”
They started moving again and walked in silence for a few minutes. Chase worried he wasn’t working on it as hard as he could be. As he should be. He sure hadn’t been doing much thinking out loud. Kyle was a patient man, but even he had his limits. Chase startled when Kyle broke the silence.
“What does marriage mean to you?”
“Pain. Whoa. I didn’t see that coming.” Before Kyle could ask anything else and dig up past hurts Chase wanted to let lie, he asked a question of his own. “Why does he want to change things? I don’t want to change things.”
“I assume you aske
d him?”
“Yeah. He wants to have another reason why he can’t leave.”
“Oh. If he said it like that, I can see why you held your ground.”
“Not exactly…. Well, yeah. ‘Take advantage of his conventional leanings’ is the way he put it. I’m a sad case.”
“No you’re not. If Bran said something like that to me… I won’t lie, it would hurt.”
“I don’t get it. I don’t want him to leave, but…. Well, I sort of get it. But it’s not always easy for him to stay, and that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“How’s that?”
“His anxiety. He doesn’t want everyone to know, but he’s managing it with meds now.”
“Oh. Well, even if it’s based with him, it still has to do with you.” When Chase didn’t speak for a long time, Kyle took the hint. “You want him to stay because he loves you. Not because a piece of paper says he has to.”
“Why did you want the piece of paper?”
“Bran was about to take some medical tests, and if they turned out bad, I didn’t want to be cut out of anything. Legal status rules in the medical field.”
“Yeah, I guess. It just seems so… I don’t know.”
“Normal?”
“Something like that.”
“I get that it takes some getting used to. If Bran hadn’t been facing those tests, we probably wouldn’t have taken the leap so fast.”
“Do you wish you could do it differently?”
Kyle sighed, and it sounded happy and wistful at the same time. When Chase searched his face, he wasn’t sure what he found there—it looked like Kyle’s emotions were all over the place.
“We did rush into it, but I’m not sorry. We had a reception but not a real wedding. Even though I wouldn’t change anything, not really, I would add one of those.”
“Why?”
“So my family could watch while he said he wanted to be with me forever.” Kyle’s voice cracked on the word forever, and Chase squeezed his shoulder. “It’s not like it was when we were Garrett’s age. Not that those commitment ceremonies and handfastings weren’t important. They were when that’s all we had. They still are, if that’s what you want.”
“Garrett wants the piece of paper.”
“I have to admit, I always wanted that. Even without the medical factor.”
“So Garrett could be looking ahead….” Chase wished he hadn’t said that and masked it with a long pull from his coffee. It was too hot for such a deep drink, but that wasn’t why his throat burned and his eyes watered.
“So you think he’s looking at you and seeing an old man who could end up sick any day now?”
Chase shrugged and looked away. The hotels lining the street above the beach seemed to be frowning at him, so he looked down at his own feet shuffling through the sand. Bad choice—those are an old man’s feet on their way to becoming bent and crooked just like Dad’s.
“That was a joke, honey.”
“Maybe that is what he sees. I spent a few months sleeping a lot.”
“When you were driving the pedicab. If he had known from the start—”
“Then he would have been that much more disappointed in me that much longer.”
Kyle stopped, and after a few slow steps, Chase did too. He knew it would happen but felt frozen and powerless to prevent it when Kyle moved to stand in front of him.
“You really think he’s disappointed in you? You do. Honey, he feels guilty, not disappointed.”
Chase frowned and looked for another joke on Kyle’s face. It wasn’t there.
“He feels guilty because he interfered with your career. Or something equally ridiculous. I couldn’t drag it all out of him. He also feels like he’s not good enough for you, too immature or inexperienced, but that’s probably his anxiety talking.”
“I appreciate this, really I do, but I still don’t see the point.”
“The point is, Garrett thinks the piece of paper will keep him from running when things get hard. That it’ll make his connection to you a little stronger. What other point do you need?”
“When you put it that way….”
Kyle touched his shoulder, and Chase repeated his last words silently to himself. What other point do I need?
“You’re holding something back. I can tell. Spill it, Chase. You’re not going to get what you want until everything is out in the open. You’ve been hiding from yourself a long time, but it’s time to break that habit.”
“You’re right. But I don’t think I can say it to you.”
“Yes, you can. I’m happily married. A few words from you won’t change that. And it won’t change our friendship either. If we can get past our awkward hookups, we can get past anything.” Kyle chuckled, but Chase wasn’t convinced. Still, Kyle had been waiting for him in the gazebo, on a day off when he probably could have been spending it with Bran.
“Okay. Getting married just… doesn’t seem like a very queer thing to do.”
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling like a sellout. I’m serious—don’t say it. It was bullshit about your art that makes money, and it’s bullshit about marriage.” Kyle took a slow, deep breath and then started them walking again. “Look at it this way. If a woman decides to stay at home with her baby, is she any less a feminist than the woman who returns to her job as a CEO?”
“I guess not. But I’m not an authority on feminism.” Chase was glad Kyle hadn’t gone into any more detail about his “art that makes money.” They’d had that conversation more than once at the condo, and as much as Chase wanted to be convinced, he still had his doubts that painting what amounted to the same picture over and over with the intent to sell them could honestly be classed as having a career as an artist.
Kyle frowned at Chase, but only for a moment. “Same applies here. Queer is whatever you decide it is.”
“Where did you get that analogy?” Chase wasn’t quite ready to admit that it made sense, but it did. He hadn’t listened to anyone—such as his father—who said he couldn’t become an artist because he was born in a small town and wasn’t very smart, and for so many other reasons that had honestly seemed to make sense.
“A gal at school. She took a lot of shit for quitting her job after her baby was born. This was back in the ’80s. She even lost friends over it.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. She was another ‘returning student,’ which was faculty-speak for old. We bonded in Basic Life Support class. The rest of the class was in their early twenties. If you want to talk about that—the age gap—it might help.”
“Gap. You mean chasm.”
“Garrett doesn’t seem to see it like that.”
“Maybe. But he will when he’s forty and I’m almost sixty. And please don’t say I have good genes and won’t look old then.”
“Okay, I won’t say it.”
Chase glanced over, and Kyle winked at him. It surprised Chase to laugh, but felt good.
“What if he doesn’t care about seventeen years’ difference even then? His partner might be hot, but Garrett isn’t hung up on looks in general.”
They continued a couple more feet, and Chase stopped. He turned toward the water and watched as a few waves rolled in.
“When we get back, are you handing me off to Nathan?”
“Not until after dinner. I think. Don’t worry, if you have it all figured out, you can still spend the afternoon with Nathan.”
“I wish.” Chase shivered and turned to face Kyle. “That didn’t come out right. I don’t—thank you. It feels a little clearer now. I’m not sure I can convince Garrett, but maybe….”
“Give yourself time to get used to it. Believe me, I understand how you feel. It’s still not always easy to align my thoughts and actions with what I know to be in my own best interest.”
They started walking back toward the camp, and it didn’t seem as far away as Chase thought. He felt like they’d been walking for hours, but maybe his perceptions didn’t always align
with reality.
“What do you mean, with what’s best for you?”
“This might come as a shock, but in general, I’m not the most talkative guy.” They shared a quick grin, and Kyle looked away. “But since we rushed into marriage, there’s a lot Bran and I don’t know about each other. If we didn’t talk about things when they come up, we wouldn’t have much of a future. It’s easy to misunderstand what someone is thinking, or even what they say.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s because we’re human, Chase. Not because we’re broken or bad people.”
“Thanks. I really mean it.”
“I know you do. I’m glad you’re willing to listen to my graceless attempts to help. I credit Paulie for what passes as my deep understanding of human nature.”
Chase embraced Kyle and thanked him again, and for once he didn’t care whether anyone on the beach saw or how they might interpret the hug. And he meant that, so maybe he was a little closer to meaning it when he said he would marry Garrett and become Chase Holland-Frisch.
Chase and Kyle didn’t walk any faster on the way back to Buchanan House, but they chatted about lighter things like Kyle and Bran’s house and…. Well, Kyle talked about the renovations they’d just finished to the living room and their plans for the backyard in the fall, and Chase listened and felt the spotlight drift away from himself. For a man who had always wanted to be a famous artist—whatever that really meant—Chase had never been comfortable in the spotlight.
Probably because I have so many secrets.
Chase stopped on the bottom step of the back porch. Two steps later, Kyle did the same. Kyle backtracked halfway and rested a hand on Chase’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I need a minute.”
Kyle nodded, but before he went inside, he crushed Chase in another hug and kissed his cheek. Chase watched him go, and when he was alone on the porch he pulled out his phone and sat on the bottom step, facing the backyard.
He knew he didn’t have more than a minute or two before someone would come out looking for him, to make sure he was okay, to keep him focused. As much as that thought warmed him, he needed to touch Garrett in the only way he could. He texted the only message he could think of that didn’t hold too much or too little meaning: Thinking of you.
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