by Wendy Qualls
Finishing around 4 - where do you want me to pick you up? This is gonna be fun - can’t wait to show you my little corner of Atlanta :-)
Right, the heck with professional. Paul closed down his laptop and grabbed everything he needed to take home over the weekend. Or in this case, everything he needed to leave at his apartment while he was enjoying a very not-professional, not-heterosexual weekend away with Brandon. Two hours was enough time to go home and pack, take another shower, and have a nice private freak-out before Brandon showed up.
“Paul?”
He literally jumped at the sound of Grace’s voice from his office doorway.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you. Were you heading out?”
“No, I …” Paul let out a long breath and closed his eyes. “Okay, yeah, you did catch me off-guard. But I was daydreaming a bit, there. My fault. What’s up?”
“Nothing important, I promise.” She bit her lip, suddenly looking shy. “I just—I was wondering if you’d have some time free this weekend. I’ve got some new bookshelves being delivered this afternoon and I don’t know who else to ask. I’m pretty sure I can get the boxes up the stairs by myself, but I’m terrible at assembling furniture like that and it’s always easier with two people. I could make you dinner to say thanks?”
Normally he’d have jumped at the chance to socialize—and to see Grace’s apartment in person, after all the stories he’d heard about her neighbors—but Paul couldn’t summon the enthusiasm to pretend. “I wish I could,” he lied. Sort-of lied. “It’ll kill me to miss your cooking. I’m headed out of town in a little bit, though. Maybe if you still need help by Monday?”
“Oh.” She returned his fake smile with a brittle-looking one of her own. “I hope you have fun, then. Where are you going?”
“Atlanta. To see a friend.”
“Oh. Good. I’m sure it’ll be nice to get away from home for a bit.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Well I’m sure I can manage. Have a wonderful weekend?”
“You too,” he answered mechanically. “And let me know Monday if you need my help—I really wouldn’t mind.”
I’m just planning a much more wonderful weekend in bed with Brandon.
* * * *
“Is that it?” Brandon tossed Paul’s bag in his trunk, slammed the door closed, then jerked his head in the direction of the trees lining the apartment complex’s walking path. “Do you mind showing me what you found?”
Paul led him down to the sad-looking lake and along the path to the correct tree. “You can see the worn patch on the trunk if you stand over here—it’s more obvious up close.”
“I see it.” Brandon backed up and cast an assessing look at the lowest branches. “Mind giving me a leg up?”
Oh Lord. Middle of the afternoon. Someone was bound to see. “Do you really have to—”
“I want to take a closer look,” Brandon interrupted. “You know—check to see that there’s not a torn piece of monogrammed fabric stuck up there.”
“I’d say ‘if only we were so lucky,’ but nothing about this situation feels like I’ve been having good luck.” Paul did sink down on one knee, though, and let Brandon use his thigh as a springboard to get up into the tree. Which he did with surprising agility—much more gracefully than Paul’s attempt the other day. An agility that also showed off how well his black jeans molded to his backside as he scrambled up to a sitting position and then to standing.
Brandon maneuvered himself around until he was standing on the next branch down and could touch the smooth patches for himself. “No smoking gun here,” he called down. “Not that I expected one, but you’re right that the whole thing is pretty damn creepy. We’re just going to have to solve this the old-fashioned way.”
“What’s that?”
Brandon grinned. “Copious amounts of data-tracking, electronic manipulation, cyber-spying, and you and me sleeping together whenever the opportunity presents itself.”
“Right, that’s the old-fashioned way?” Paul raised an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe not, but it’s my plan.” Brandon shrugged—not looking the least bit repentant—and gestured back toward the car. “Shall we?”
* * * *
Metro Atlanta wasn’t all that far away when measured in miles, but that didn’t account for rush-hour traffic. They were going into town while nearly everyone else was coming out, which helped, but I-285 was still a parking lot.
“This right here is why I’ve never moved to a bigger city,” Paul said, craning his neck to see what the cause for the complete standstill was. “I thought the point of a ring road was to conduct traffic?”
Brandon snorted, making it clear what he thought of that assumption. “Believe it or not, my commute is usually only about twenty minutes. My apartment isn’t all that close to downtown, but neither is work. Haven’t you been here before?”
“Of course.” Paul’s hometown was slightly past St. Ben’s, an hour farther out into the middle of nowhere. Atlanta was the only real city of note anywhere within driving distance, and it was impossible to grow up in Georgia without having been there at least a few times. “Never for fun, though. And I’ve never driven it myself.”
Brandon arched an eyebrow. “Not even for the touristy stuff?”
Paul thought back and ticked off fingers one at a time. “Middle school band competition, state finals. Some Christian pop concert for a singer I’d never heard of, but it was a church youth group outing. Um, something at the downtown Marriott for some reason, I’ve forgotten. Oh, and helping my sister look for a prom dress.”
“You went shopping for a prom dress.”
“I mostly held her friends’ purses and coats, but yes.” Paul leaned back against the headrest and tried to figure out how to explain. “Danielle and I… I can’t remember, did I ever tell you my sister and I are twins?”
“You’ve mentioned it.” Brandon glanced over at him, an amused smirk on his lips.
“Not identical, but we do look a lot alike. Her hair’s a slightly darker blond and she’s got a smaller build, but any idiot can tell we’re siblings.” Maybe not any idiot—Dr. Kirsner was caught by surprise. Paul caught his reflexive snicker at Dr. Kirsner’s reaction before it could escape. “I’m told we’ve got a lot of similar mannerisms and verbal tics, too, even though we haven’t lived in the same house for over a decade.”
“Where does she live now?”
“At the moment, France. She’s been there for the last two years, but she’s planning to move back to the States soon.”
“That’s a long way away.”
“Yeah, but she loves it.” Raved about it all weekend, when she wasn’t rhapsodizing about Étienne. “She’s in advertising—some big firm most laypeople wouldn’t recognize but is apparently the company to work for in the advertising world. She asked to be transferred to the Paris office for a while so she could pick up some skills to help prepare projects here before they’re passed to the international department. Dunno if that excuse was totally made up or not, but her French is fantastic now. She’s back in town for the next few weeks. I don’t get to see her much, but we both went home last weekend and it was nice. She’s doing a whirlwind tour of the East Coast right now, visiting some of her other friends. Hopefully we can catch another day or two together before she heads back.”
“You’re close, then.”
“We are,” Paul agreed. “She’s the only one I’ve ever come out to.” Paul never wanted to relive that conversation again. Danielle had come around eventually, was a huge proponent of LGBT rights now that she’d spent so much time in France, but the initial revelation had been painful for both of them. “It’s good, now, to know that at least one person knows that about me, but it was hard at the time.”
“How old were you?”
“Summer after freshman year.” About a week after you made me
realize a lot of things about myself I had been avoiding and I decided I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Brandon made a bit of a strangled noise. “You didn’t…”
“It was all very general, no mention of any particular inciting incident.” Paul snuck a glance at Brandon out of the corner of his eye. “I did eventually tell her that it wasn’t entirely theoretical, but that was a few years down the road. Once she got more comfortable with the idea of me being gay. And once she was over her initial issues. I still didn’t say anything specific, but she’s good at reading between the lines.” He shifted in his seat, slipping the seatbelt a bit farther down his shoulder and away from where it was starting to chafe. “Reading me.”
“I can honestly say I’ve never had anyone like that,” Brandon replied. “Three older brothers, remember. All I got when I came out was some good-natured teasing. But that kind of connection … It’s not the same. They still treat me like the baby a lot of the time.”
“I’ve heard that’s the lifelong curse of being the youngest.” Paul dared a more direct look, watching Brandon’s profile as he kept his eyes on the slowly moving traffic ahead of them. “So they were supportive of you all the way through? Parents not lamenting the loss of future grandkids or anything?”
Brandon shrugged. “My oldest brother is married now. He and his wife have been together since high school. Grandkids were inevitable from them. I’ve got a four-year-old niece and a two-year-old nephew. Who are adorable, by the way. My other two brothers have had long-term girlfriends for ages, and things are looking like they’ll tip toward marriage soon.” He shot Paul a sideways glance, too quick to interpret. “Being gay doesn’t mean you necessarily have to give up the idea of getting married and having kids, you know. If you want them.”
Paul knew intellectually that Brandon was right, but he’d never put much thought into it before. “You want children someday? If you get the chance?”
“Do you?”
God, yes. Paul was, instinctive response. Where did that come from? “I never really thought about it,” he said slowly.
“Because you’re planning to stay single and closeted your whole life.”
Paul clenched his jaw to keep from saying anything and looked out the window instead.
“That was an asshole thing for me to say,” Brandon said after a long moment, “and you deserve an apology. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine. People assuming that because I’m gay, I must only care about musicals and the club scene and fashion and have no interest in being a dad. What if I want to settle down eventually? Do the whole house-in-the-suburbs thing, maybe raise some kids? No reason I shouldn’t be allowed to want that.”
Something in his voice pled for reassurance, and Paul’s heart went out to him. “No reason at all,” he agreed.
“I shouldn’t jump on you for not making the same choices I did. It’s your life.”
Paul took a deep breath and let it back out again. “You’re right. About the whole closet thing. Until this week, I just never thought I could do anything else. I’ve got no interest in musicals and the club scene and fashion, and even though I knew there was more to being gay than that, I never really…knew knew, you know?”
They caught each other’s eye and both snickered a bit, the awkward wording clearing some of the tension in the air.
Brandon was silent for a long moment, staring blankly at the back of the car ahead of them. “It took me a long time,” he finally said.
“For what?”
“To realize I don’t like most of that stuff either.”
“Ah.” Paul watched him, not saying anything more, not wanting to interrupt as Brandon gathered his thoughts. Traffic stalled again.
“I told you I used to go clubbing,” Brandon said suddenly. “It was more than that—I really jumped into ‘the scene’ with both feet after college. During college actually. When I transferred to Georgia Tech, I joined the Georgia Tech Pride Alliance almost immediately. Got involved in all the political activism stuff, pierced my ear, checked all the boxes for the gay college student stereotype.” He grimaced. “I didn’t date, really, but I did pick up a lot of guys. I went a bit wild.”
Paul nodded firmly, determined to not sound like he was judging. “What about after you graduated?”
“I got the job I’m in now and I fell into the club scene. I stayed friends with a bunch of the guys from Pride Alliance, so it wasn’t like I was out partying all alone, but the core group of them are still just as flamboyant as I was back then. We still see each other sometimes, but everything we usually do together seems to involve glitter and drag revues and musicals. Which is great for them, they love it, but I kind of drifted away.”
“Decided that wasn’t really you?”
Brandon shrugged, but there was too much tension in his shoulders for it to be a nonchalant gesture. “Eventually I realized I didn’t have to be a stereotype to be gay. I took out the earring and let the hole close up. I started dressing more professionally during the week and saved the tight clothes for our nights out. I focused more on work than clubbing and I stopped picking up those kinds of guys. Lots of people love the club scene, of course, but I finally admitted I wasn’t one of them.”
“And yet you picked me up anyway.” Paul didn’t mean to say it, it kind of popped out, but it felt good to get it out in the open. Am I just one of a long string of one-night-stands, one of which happened to stretch out for a week, or is this different?
Brandon’s quiet smile was one part sad, one part sweet. “What can I say? You were irresistible.”
Paul didn’t know what to say to that, either, so he looked out his own window and they puttered through the traffic in silence.
Chapter 11
“So this is it.” Brandon swung the door open and waved Paul ahead of him into the apartment. “I wasn’t really planning on company, so forgive the clutter.”
Paul looked around, taking it all in. It really was Brandon, for all he knew of him: comfortable-looking sofa, modern glass coffee table, giant TV on the wall, three gaming consoles of varying ages, several good-sized bookcases, and not much else. The room had a practical, professional feel. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks,” Brandon replied. “I can give you the grand tour, if you want: living room and kitchen here, bedroom’s that door there, and the bathroom’s down the little hallway. Thus endeth the tour. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s close to a MARTA stop, it’s gated, and it’s got parking.”
It was cleaner than the usual state of Paul’s apartment—no clutter to speak of, despite Brandon’s apology. And it didn’t look like it had been furnished entirely from Goodwill, which was another point of contrast. “It suits you.”
They brought their bags in from the car, which consisted of a weekend duffel for Paul and the week’s dirty laundry for Brandon. Brandon tossed Paul’s bag on the queen-sized bed without a word. Guess I’m not going to have to make do with the sofa, then. Paul was about to suggest dinner when Brandon’s stomach rumbled loudly.
“Damn,” he muttered. “I don’t have much to eat in the fridge—didn’t know how long I’d be gone, or whether I’d get back home this weekend or not. What are you hungry for? None of this ‘I don’t care’ crap; give me three choices that sound good to you.”
That certainly seemed like a more efficient way to choose. “Chinese, barbecue, or burgers,” Paul said, trying not to overthink it.
Brandon grinned. “Burgers it is. You, my friend, are missing out on the experience that is Soulburger.”
* * * *
Soulburger turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall restaurant about five minutes from Brandon’s apartment. A short black woman in a flowered apron stood behind the counter, taking orders and yelling them back to the kitchen in a thick Georgia accent. It was so ridiculously, stereotypically southern that Paul had to fight the urge to look around for hidden cameras.
“Hey, y’all! Welcome. You been to Soulburger before?”
Brandon’s eyes flicked to Paul. “I have.”
Paul shrugged. “First time.”
Her whole face lit up. “Everybody, we have a virgin!” There were answering whoops and what sounded like a large dinner bell ringing from the kitchen area. Several of the people in the cramped dining area turned and clapped.
Paul glared at Brandon, who was snickering and looking unforgivably smug. “I’m going to murder you,” Paul said not quite under his breath.
“Not after you try their onion rings, you’re not.” Brandon grinned broadly and ordered the “Don’t Go Bacon My Heart Burger.” Which was one of the less cheesy puns on the menu. “Seriously, go for the onion rings and then tell me you don’t hear angelic choirs proclaiming their perfection.”
“You could have warned me,” he said, mock-kicking Brandon’s ankle.
“I could have, but then they wouldn’t have all gotten to yell. That’s half the fun of coming here—seeing the newbies freak out and wonder what the hell is going on. Well, that and the terrible burger names. It’s mortifying when it’s you, but it’s hilarious when it’s anybody else.”
There was really no point in fighting it, after that. Paul went ahead and ordered a burger with the onion rings on the side. He was only slightly mollified when they got their food and it was confirmed that yes, they were probably the best onion rings on the planet.
“I still hate you, you know,” Paul grumbled, but there was no heat in it. He was hungrier than he’d thought. So was Brandon. Between the two of them they polished off everything they’d ordered, down to the crusty bits of fried batter at the bottom of the grease-spotted paper bowls. Finally Brandon sat back and tilted his head to the side, studying Paul with a tiny smile on his face. “So.”
“So,” Paul echoed.
“Ready to head back?”
“Sure.”
“What should we do tonight?”
Is that a hint that he expects us to jump straight in bed together when we get back? Paul shrugged and busied himself collecting their trash onto the shared plastic tray. “No particular preference.”