Finally Us

by Quinn Ward

  “Hey, you should go over and introduce yourself,” I suggested as I pulled out the chair across from him. Sitting beside him would’ve made it easier to be heard over the music, but I didn’t want anyone to get the impression he and I were a couple. Not that I’d be offended if they thought we were together, but it wouldn’t do much for Gabe’s “Find Seth a Man” campaign.

  “No point.” Seth sighed. “A guy that good looking probably has either a steady boyfriend or he’s the type to have a different hook-up every night of the week. Either way, not something I want to get messed up with.”

  “And what if he’s as lonely and miserable as you are?” I pressed. He sure as heck didn’t look happy to be here, but maybe that was because he was stuck working.

  “Pretty sure that’s not possible.” Ugh, it sucked playing the good friend to someone who obviously wanted nothing more than to throw himself a pity party.

  “Gabe said you were trying to reinvent yourself this semester,” I said, trying a new tactic. Seth cocked his head to the side before nodding. “Okay, then why not work half as hard on changing the inside as you have the outside?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I’m not going to sit here and tell you I have it all figured out, because I don’t. But I do know guys like someone who’s confident. They don’t want to have to constantly reassure their partner that they’re good enough.” Kind of like Gabe has to do with me.

  “Is that something else that’s in the boyfriend manual Gabe keeps saying he’ll let me borrow so I understand this stuff?” Now it was my turn to look confused. “Sorry, inside joke.”

  “Trust me, if there’s a manual, Gabe hasn’t read it.”

  “Seems to me he’s doing a pretty good job at the boyfriend gig.” Seth’s chest puffed out as he defended my boyfriend.

  I shook my head, trying to figure out how to backtrack out of the corner I’d gotten myself into. “I’m not trying to say he’s not. He’s better than I deserve most days. But the thing is, he didn’t learn that from any manual. We were both lucky to have some pretty great parents in our lives. They taught both of us how to be good partners.”

  “Then why are you so scared of coming out to them?” There was no accusation in his question, only curiosity. My so-called dilemma had to seem strange to him since he really couldn’t come out. He was from one of those families you read about but didn’t think actually existed. He hadn’t shared much about his childhood, but he had told us that he’d grown up on a compound in the middle of nowhere, sheltered from the evils of the outside world. Groups like that typically viewed being gay pretty high on the list of evils. Now that he’d confronted me about why I was still guarding our secret so closely, I felt silly. But maybe Seth had given me an opening to test out the truth and see what sort of reaction I’d get. Gabe trusted him, and I trusted Gabe. I could do this.

  “How much has Gabe told you about us?” I asked. I knew, without a doubt, that he didn’t know the extent of our relationship because Gabe had repeatedly promised me the sticking point would be strictly between us unless I felt comfortable sharing.

  “Not much, I guess.” Seth’s gaze drifted again to the man behind the counter. If we got through this chat without me passing out, I was going to make an effort to help him work up the nerve to step out of his comfort zone. “I know you guys have been friends forever, which is part of why it’s so strange to me that you won’t admit you’re in love with him. If I had a guy like Gabe, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep quiet.”

  “It’s not easy, that’s for sure,” I admitted. “The thing is, when Gabe says we’ve been friends forever, he means it. It’s not some figure of speech because we’ve been buddies for years. We met, so to speak, the day I was born. Of course, neither of us remember that far back, but our moms were pregnant together, and we were practically raised like brothers with all four parents sharing the responsibilities.”

  “You mean they were… what’s the word?” He stared off as though trying to grasp the term he was looking for out of thin air, snapping his fingers when he remembered the word. “Were they one of those polyamorous couples?”

  I busted out laughing, because that might’ve been the most absurd assumption I’d ever heard. The hurt on Seth’s face stopped me cold. “Sorry, I guess I can see why you might think that from what I said, but give me a minute and I think you’ll understand why I reacted the way I did.”

  “Okay.” He seemed to shrink in on himself and I wondered how much I’d just damaged his fragile attempt to be more outgoing.

  “So no, they weren’t like that. But they were close. Still are. Our parents bought houses on the same block, and all through school, it wasn’t strange for Gabe and me to turn up at the other’s house randomly. When we got a little older, if we weren’t home by dark, whichever mom was missing a kid would call the other to make sure we were both accounted for. In a lot of ways, I think that made it easier for both sets of parents to still have their own relationships, because there was a built-in babysitter.

  “Eventually, things started to change. I’d been thinking about Gabe in ways I knew I shouldn’t for a while, but I never dared say anything to him about it.” I swirled the straw in my drink, remembering those terrifying months when I worried he’d figure out I was crushing on him and he’d hate me. Never, not once, did I imagine he’d come out to me and tell me he understood if I didn’t want to hang out with him anymore.

  “It makes sense if you think about it,” Seth interrupted. “You were two halves of a whole since you were babies. Everyone says you’re supposed to be best friends with your partner, so it stands to reason that best friends could fall in love with one another.”

  It was a valid point, one I’d made many times over the years when trying to reconcile how this had happened. But knowing how it happened didn’t change the fact it shouldn’t have happened. I took a deep breath and held it, ready to share my deepest secret with someone who hovered somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend.

  “Yeah, but our situation is crazy complicated.”

  “Probably not as much as you think,” Seth countered.

  “Yeah?” My eyes narrowed as I got ready to detonate the bomb. “What about the fact that his grandma and my grandpa are married?”

  “So, your moms are sisters? Or your dads are brothers? Which is it?” He fidgeted on his chair but didn’t seem completely repulsed. “That’d be the easier way to say it. Or say you’re cousins. Why get all cryptic about it?”

  “Does it really matter who’s related to who? And yeah, we’re cousins, but not the way you think. I mean, technically, we’re only cousins by marriage.” Now that it was out in the open, I found myself trying to defend our relationship. What was it Gabe had said? Oh yeah, it wasn’t wrong because there was no genetic bond and it wasn’t like we were a het couple looking to pop out a bunch of kids.

  “No, but I’m trying to understand,” Seth responded. “I’m trying to be a friend, because you seem like you need someone to talk to who won’t judge you.”

  “Thanks.” Funny how I was the one who was constantly surrounded by people, but I’d managed to isolate myself in the crowd because I feared anyone getting too close to the truth. “So, my grandpa married Gabe’s grandma when our moms were teenagers. As much as our grandparents worried they wouldn’t like having to share a room, the two of them instantly became best friends. Grandma says she’s pretty sure they made a pact to never do anything alone, because they got engaged about the same time, married, and then got pregnant within a few weeks of one another.”

  “And because they’re close, you’re worried they’ll think you’re doing something wrong,” Seth guessed. My shoulders sagged and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted. Literally, I felt lighter now that I wasn’t dragging this secret around with me.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I confessed.

  “You want some unsolicited advice?”

  “Are you going to keep it to yourself if I
say no?” On second thought, this was Seth; yeah, he’d totally shut up if I told him I didn’t want to hear his opinion. “Sorry, go ahead.”

  “They love you. Will it be easy for them to accept this new dynamic? Probably not. But from what Gabe’s told me about both of your families, they don’t believe in love with strings. You need to be honest with them before hiding destroys what could be that forever type of love everyone hopes to find.”

  I leaned back in my seat and thought about what he’d said. Yes, I’d already resigned myself to telling everyone back home that I was in love with Gabe, but the way Seth put it solidified my decision. It was something I needed to do as much for my relationship with my mom as for how I felt about Gabe. Tomorrow morning, we’d head back for a quick visit and by the time we headed to class on Monday, everything would be revealed.

  “You know, for a guy who says he doesn’t know about functional families and relationships, you’re pretty good at the advice stuff.”

  “Yeah, well there wasn’t much to do at home, so I read a lot of self-help books. That’s probably where my fascination with the human mind came from.”

  I stood, wanting to find Gabe and let him know we couldn’t stay out too late tonight. “Well, keep at it. And try to apply some of the theories you read about to your own life. Maybe start by going up to get another drink and introduce yourself to the guy you’ve been eye-fucking all night.”

  “I haven’t been⁠—⁠”

  “Yeah, you have.” I chuckled and patted him on the back. “You’re a good guy, Seth. It’s easy to see how you and Gabe got to be friends. Maybe we’ll have to find time when all three of us can hang out.”

  Seth followed me to the counter, where I grabbed a drink for myself and one for Gabe, who was still deep in conversation with Jayden and Levi. I didn’t want to interrupt, but dammit, tonight was supposed to be a night out with my boyfriend and I wasn’t going to spend the whole time trying to make new friends.

  “Have you given any more thought to my offer,” Levi asked. I froze, wanting to hear what they were talking about, wondering why Gabe hadn’t said anything to me about any offers.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know, man.” He sounded tired. “It’s a great opportunity, but what would I do about housing?”

  My blood ran cold. He was moving out? When did he plan on telling me? I resisted the urge to shove my way between them and yank him out of the coffee shop because it was blatantly obvious there was yet another long-overdue conversation we needed to have.

  “I’ve got the spare bedroom,” Jayden told him. “I told you it’s yours if you need it.”

  The fruit juice and soda from my first drink rose in my throat. I tried to keep my calm long enough to get out of the building because I didn’t want to make a scene when Gabe was obviously so happy. Once I was safely outside, I broke into a sprint, which wasn’t easy in dress shoes.

  I made it to the field next to our building before my knees buckled and I fell to the ground. Tears streamed down my face, and I didn’t give a damn who heard my shattered sobs. Somehow, right when I worked up the courage to come out for Gabe, he was working on plans to leave.

  18

  Gabe

  I was officially the world’s worst boyfriend. I’d begged Trevor to accompany me to this party, then I’d gotten sucked into talking to Levi and Jayden. They’d become close friends as we planned the anti-Valentines dinner, and over long nights of planning, I’d confessed to them my doubts about my future at UNCW. Jayden was quick to agree that taking some time off might be for the best if I had no clue what I wanted to do, and he was sort of the resident expert since he had a completely useless degree hanging on the wall to show for his years at the school. Together, they’d come up with the idea that I could work for Levi, helping him manage Port Java since I was obviously a bit of a coffee snob and knew every drink on the menu.

  There were no good solutions to my problems, but this was the best so far. I would still be close to Trevor, we’d have actual privacy for once in our lives, and he wouldn’t have to worry about abandoning me because he was buried in work. Now, I needed to figure out a way to convince him this was a good move for both of us.

  I excused myself when Jayden ducked into the kitchen to answer a few last-minute questions for the caterers we’d brought in for the night. I scanned the crowd, wondering if Trevor had met up with some students he knew from class. I hoped he had; maybe that’d help him see that we could be out, like normal college kids, and no one would think twice. Yes, we’d still have to be careful about how much we shared, but we’d both known going into this that we’d never be able to be completely open about ourselves. It was a sacrifice I would willingly make for the rest of my life as long as Trevor was by my side.

  A few people I’d met over the winter stopped me to say hello and thank me for helping organize the party. I took a few seconds to speak with each of them, but anxiety grew the deeper I got into the building because there weren’t that many hiding spots and I still didn’t see any sign of the mop of unruly, overgrown waves I loved tangling my fingers in as Trevor and I kissed. On my second sweep around, I noticed Seth talking to Jesse, the newest employee who’d offered to work tonight. The poor kid looked ready to crawl out of his skin, but I was proud of him for doing something other than propping up the wall. I didn’t want to interrupt, but my concern was quickly spiraling into panic. Deep in my gut, I felt like something major had shifted, and it wasn’t anything good.

  “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked Seth after waiting patiently for a lull in Seth and Jesse’s conversation.

  Jesse told Seth to find him later and got back to work. Seth watched him walk away, then turned back to me. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Have you seen Trevor? Last I knew, he was headed your way, but now I can’t find him.”

  Seth shook his head and started looking around the room as if he’d see my missing boyfriend. “No, last I knew, he was coming back to find you.”

  “Well shit.” I patted down my pockets, realizing too late that I’d forgotten my phone back in the room. As I cursed under my breath, Seth handed over his own phone. I dialed the number I’d memorized when we were thirteen and both got phones for our birthdays. The damn thing rang twice and went to voicemail. What in the hell had I done for him to hit the fuck you button on me? Maybe he didn’t realize it was me or he’d bumped the button by mistake. I dialed back, only to get the same result. Okay then, so it definitely hadn’t been an accident.

  “Come on, baby, answer so you can tell me why you’re suddenly pissed off at me,” I muttered under my breath as I dialed a third time. Unlike my previous attempts to reach him, the phone didn’t even ring before voicemail picked up.

  I pressed the phone back into Seth’s hand and darted off without so much as a thank you, desperate to find Levi and let him know I had an emergency I needed to take care of. I flagged him down and pulled him outside where we could talk in peace.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked as soon as the door closed behind us. A cautious hand on my shoulder had me flinching away from him. Without knowing what in the hell had Trevor all wound up or where in the hell he was, I didn’t want to risk him seeing someone else comforting me and get the wrong impression. “Gabe, chill man.”

  “I’m sorry, I gotta go,” I told him, my attention already far in the distance, trying to catch a glimpse of Trevor somewhere along the dark road. “I know it’s shit because the party’s just starting, but⁠—”

  “No man, you do whatever you need to do.” His voice was low, words measured. “I hope everything’s okay, but if you’re not going to be here for your shifts this weekend, let me know. You’re no use to us if your mind’s someplace else.”

  As much as I didn’t want to bail on him, the responsible thing to do was tell him now, when he had time to cover my shifts. Luckily, Jesse was hungry for hours, so it shouldn’t take too long. “Yeah, probably won’t be here. I’m sorry, but I really need to fi
nd Trevor.”

  “Yeah, go. I’ll give Jayden a heads up. We’ve got shit covered here.” He pushed me away as he wished me good luck. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  The suite was eerily quiet when I pushed open the door. Total darkness. I’d walked into this exact situation several times in the past, but never had the sight made me want to blow chunks. “Trevor?”

  It was stupid to think he’d be anywhere in the suite, just sitting there in the dark, but that didn’t stop me from calling out his name. I flipped on the light to our bedroom, only to reveal empty space. It wasn’t until I reached for my phone, ready to call Trevor incessantly until he answered, when I noticed his keys were missing from the top of the dresser. “Where in the hell did you go?”

  I racked my brain trying to come up with a plausible excuse for Trevor bailing on me, but there were none. While he hadn’t been enthusiastic about tonight, I’d given him multiple opportunities to stay home and he’d still opted to go with me. There wasn’t anything that stuck out over the past week that’d have him this angry with me. And if there’d been a family emergency back home, Trevor wouldn’t have hesitated to pull my ass out of the party, no matter what I’d been doing at the time. He was just… gone.

  As tempted as I was to start blowing up everyone’s phones back home to see if anyone had heard from him, I didn’t want to make anyone else panic. Not yet. Maybe he just needed to go for a drive to clear his head. He’d be back. He had to come back.

  I paced back and forth in our tiny room, twisting my hair between my fingers as I tried to think of anywhere Trevor might’ve gone. Back home, he always went to a small clearing in the park a few blocks from our neighborhood when he needed to clear his head. If he had a place like that in Wilmington, I sure as hell didn’t know about it. Eventually, I ran out of energy to continue pacing and dropped to my ass on the floor next to the bed. I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face against my arms, barely holding back tears. There was no reason to cry. Not yet. We’d fought plenty over the years, and Trevor always wanted to talk things out in his own time. He’d be back.