by Kelly Fox
I register the sound of the front door opening, and a woman’s voice with a lilting accent exclaims, “Jean-Pierre!”
An older couple is standing in the entryway, a shorter, slightly rounder black woman wearing a gorgeous yellow dress, perfect jewelry, and red-bottomed high heels, and a tall, reedy lighter-skinned black man wearing a tailored suit and designer glasses. Gotta be Jean-Pierre’s parents.
And I’m plastered to their son like cedar pollen on an Austin windshield.
Jean-Pierre
Merde. It had been the perfect moment to take the next step. The way we were both relaxed and buzzy from yoga, the way he’d taken to my body without freezing, not even for a microsecond, the beginnings of his erection against my thigh… I could touch my lips to his and he would be mine.
Flawless timing for one of my parents’ trademark pop-in visits. They’re popping in from Quebec City, you understand. Just a hop, skip, and a one-or-two connection, ten-hour day of flying away. With no phone call.
We’re going to have to work on our boundaries.
I don’t want to push Jake away, but he gives me a sweet smile and steps away, quickly walking from the space. I walk up to my parents and pull them both up into a big hug, hoping they didn’t read too much, or too accurately, into what Jake and I were doing.
“My son, do you have a private place to talk?” asks my mother, whose eyes follow Jake out the back door.
I lower my head and gesture for them to follow me to the kitchen. Given the gym’s growing clientele and our need for a real place to meet, Nick and Elijah will be moving into a house nearby, and we’ll be repurposing the apartment as an office and meeting space. In the meantime, this crowded kitchen is apparently where I’ll be coming out to my grim-looking parents.
Sitting at a regular-sized table always makes me feel like I’m in kindergarten again, and it’s not the most comfortable position to be in when I face my parents to tell them the truth I’ve carefully concealed from them for so many years. My heart pounds in my chest, and I hope that I can explain that being myself in no way reflects ingratitude for everything they’ve done for me. I pick at a hangnail and start to say something but am cut off by my father.
“I told you, Celeste, he will not be bringing a girl home anytime soon,” he says, kissing her knuckles.
Wait, what?
His tone is not disappointed, which I find rather confusing. I wonder if Silvia… no, she would never.
“Yes, darling, you are right,” my mother says, patting my father’s face. “I just wanted to see your beautiful cheekbones on my grandchildren before I die.”
I’m stuck, speechless, eyes pinging back and forth between my parents.
“So, you’re not going to let us meet your boyfriend? Are we still pretending that this isn’t a thing?” she asks, gesturing between me and the direction of the back door out of which Jake just exited.
“Mère!”
My father sends me… what does Elijah call it? An eyebrow full of doubt. “Son, do you think that the person who gave birth to you doesn’t know you intimately? Do you think that we’ve not suspected since you were a young child? And then your friendship with Leopold…”
Oh god, they know about Leopold.
Just hearing his name makes my stomach clench. My mother’s face is soft and kind, and she rubs my arm carefully. “Before everything happened, we were trying to figure out how to love you through the difficult path set before you. It was hard to deny how much you loved your good friend.”
My love for him will never be past tense. And why didn’t they ever say anything?
“We did not know if it was serious, or if it was just two boys exploring. But we knew that this was part of you for a long, long time. And we were devastated and terrified to find out how your Leopold died.”
My father explains in his calm voice, “His aunt told us that he was killed, but we knew it was more than that when you came home that night. The night of the thunderstorm. You were wet and muddy with blood spattered on your shirt and horror etched on your face, like you’d seen something that you’d never be able to unsee. That was when we knew we had to leave. Because if they were going to do that to him, they were going to do that to you, and if we could help it, we would never allow it. They’d have had to kill us—”
“Both of us,” my mother interjects.
“Before they could ever lay a hand on you.”
I swallow the sick rising in my throat, barely able to breathe. I can feel my heart rate hammering in my neck. I’m half at Wrecked and half in Rwanda, and it’s raining. “Why did you never tell me that you knew?”
“We weren’t sure what to say, and then we were on the run, and it wasn’t as important as survival,” answers my father.
My mother reaches for one of my locs and twirls it in her fingers. “We thought that you would come to us when you were ready. But then basketball took so much of your time, and when you met Silvia, we assumed that you were bisexual, so we didn’t pursue the subject. Frankly, with everything we’d been through, we were happy to have a live son, a son who worked so hard to overcome the demons of that year, a son who excelled at everything he ever did. Mourning your sexuality would have been disrespectful after what you’d survived. After what you and your father did for me. I’ll never stop being proud of you.”
My understanding of what happened in Rwanda so many years ago has evolved over time, but I do know that our escape was due in part to my mother’s connections through her powerful family. They never did approve of her marriage to my father, but they did love me and they did love her, and she let them know that my father was part of the package deal.
Even with connections, we had to run for our lives, and now I know why. There would always be more men who would be willing to do to me what they’d done to Leopold. There are experiences that the three of us never talk about with anyone. Not even with each other. It hadn’t occurred to me until just now that a couple who risked everything to be together might understand a gay son, certainly more than I’d given them credit for.
“So who is this man who has attached himself to you like an octopus?” my mother asks with a grin.
My body comes back to the present tense at the thought of him. “His name is Jake. And we haven’t made anything official.”
“Yet,” my father says decidedly. His certainty shocks me, and tears spring to my eyes. It makes me hope more than I’d dare to hope before.
“He is quite beautiful,” my mom observes. “And this Jake, I’ve heard you talk about him before. You’ve known him for a while.”
“Yes,” I answer, hugging myself. Their love for me is overwhelming. “Almost a year now.”
“And have you always liked him?”
“Yes,” I say shyly. “My friend Scout—you remember her.”
My mother nods. “The one that you said married the woman with the blue hair.”
“Purple hair,” I say, smiling. “Jake is the brother of the purple-haired woman.”
“And he is a good man?” my mother asks, her face curious, kind.
“The very best.”
“I’m sorry that he left. I wish to get to know him better.”
“I… I just need a bit more time to work things out with him.”
My father frowns. “Why do you need any time at all? You’ve known each other for long enough; surely now is the time for a relationship, no?”
So many emotions crowd my heart all at once. They are being as pushy as they had been when I started dating Silvia, which is just as annoying as it was back then. But this is different. This isn’t just acceptance; it’s support. How? I… I am so confused and joyful and sad for the many lonely years. There’s a tiny flutter of grief as I think about our unspoken pact to not talk about the hard things, and it makes me wonder if maybe doing so meant that sometimes we didn’t have the language for the joyful things, either.
An invisible weight, like one of those chains that Thane puts around someone in the Cor
ner of Heavy Things, slides off my shoulders. I wipe away tears of relief and see my mother and father doing the same. We reach across the table and grip our hands together, much like our first night in that tiny furnished apartment in Quebec City all those years ago.
Sitting back and wiping my tears, I feel weightless. “It is time. He’s had a difficult path, and I was being patient, letting him come to me, and he is ready, I think.”
“What kind of difficult path?” my mother asks.
I shift in my tiny chair, unsure of what I should reveal. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about his past without his permission, but it does appear that he and I share the same diagnosis.”
“Has he seen war?” my father asks, pointing at the “Wrecked: Body Shop for Combat Vets” sign above the cabinets.
I hesitate before answering my father; I have my suspicions, but if I am right, then it is likely classified. “I don’t know. If he served, he’s been really quiet about it.”
“And you think he got into something bad from that?”
“Yes, I, uh… that is my sense of the situation.”
“And is he getting proper help? I know that it’s not a given in the United States. In Canada, we were able to get you the help you needed pretty quickly, but here… Who knows?”
I nod enthusiastically. “His family was able to pool together enough money to send him to a world-class rehabilitation center, and they made sure that he went to the best trauma therapist in the city.”
“Was the rehab for just the trauma, or…?”
I bite my lip. “I maybe have said too much. I would like to respect his privacy. I will say that I see him almost daily, and he works hard for his equilibrium.”
My father’s face is thoughtful. “That is understandable. I don’t mean to be unkind to the man, but are you certain that both of you together, with your combined issues—is that a good idea?”
I understand very well that they would be concerned for me, but they also know that I am stable enough in life to make this decision, to set good boundaries. Except for with them, of course. “I don’t know if it is a good idea, but it’s been the only thought in my head for many months. I feel too deeply for him to turn away from this path now. Unless he doesn’t want me, I will continue to want him.”
My mother’s smile is a little sad, and she and my father look at each other with understanding. “This is a harder road for you than we would have wanted, but we know that you are a good man and that you would only allow a good man in your life. When he is ready, bring him to Canada and we will meet him properly.”
She stands, as if to say that what she has decreed shall be done, and my father and I smile at each other and follow her out into the gym again.
I bring them both into a hug and ask, “So, did you come down here because I hadn’t responded to a voicemail?”
My father answers, “No, but we knew something was going on. And we miss you. We have plans to stay for the evening, and then we will be going to Vegas for some gambling. Will you join us for dinner?”
I hug them again until my mother squeaks. She smacks me on the arm. “You’re too aggressive with your hugs, Jean-Pierre. You always have been. You are far too large and should take care not to hurt people.”
I bow my head, a little ashamed. “Yes, Mother.”
She reaches up to pat me on the chest. “I think that, because you are such a positive person, you forget that other people can be intimidated by your size and that with your size you can do so much damage. Remember always, my son, even in your joy, to step more lightly than others so as not to injure us regular humans here below.”
As always, my mother is right.
I take them to the Oasis that evening, and we toast the sunset. Honestly, if my parents can take my being gay this well, then I don’t much care what the general public thinks.
All I need is Jake.
Chapter Fifteen
Jake
Did I say that I was fine with the dark?
Yeah, I’m a fucking liar.
Given the success of the pizza shop and the steady growth of Wrecked, Scout, Evie, and I wanted to more closely align future locations of the pizza shop and the gym so that we wouldn’t be spread out all over the city. What this means is that, after a loooong day at work, way past sunset, I’m at an abandoned lot that Roly’d found in his neighborhood close to the gym.
My happy place, this is not.
I take out my phone and supplement the shitty street lighting with my flashlight app, then continue walking through the overgrown property. It’s a hot mess, but I can see the possibility. I note all of the things that need to be done—the building that needs to be inspected for viability, the trash that needs to be cleared, the small saplings that need to be taken down, the large beautiful oak tree that needs to be protected, and one of the old slabs that needs to be jackhammered out so that we can put in decent parking.
As I walk the fence line, a call comes in from a Dallas area code. I put it on speakerphone so I can keep using the flashlight. “Jake here.”
“Jake, buddy!”
“DB—how’s it going?”
“I have a project for you if you’re interested.”
“Hell yeah, I’m interested. Hit me with the details.” I find a small bench and pull up the Notes app on my phone. He rattles off the details as my thumbs go to work, and it’s not a difficult op. A nice palate cleanser before I get started on an art commission this weekend. “And you’ll be sending me the rest of the equipment I asked for?”
“On its way.”
“Awesome. Koenig out.”
I hang up the phone and instantly my Spidey senses start to go haywire. I’m trying to push myself by being out here when it’s this dark, but I’d let my guard down during the call, and now I’m paying for it with some hard-core paranoia. Just as I’m trying to talk myself down from the sensation of being watched, there’s the sound of a dried twig getting snapped in two. Fuck. It’s not my coolest move, but I start jogging to my car, my heart in my throat.
“Jake, it’s me. Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I grind my teeth and crack my neck, anxiety and frustration burning me up as I turn toward the familiar low voice. It takes a moment, but I see Jean-Pierre, half-hidden in the darkness, awkwardly trying to hide his six-foot-eleven frame in the shadow of the oak tree. It’d be funny if my heart weren’t flipping around like a fucking fish on a dock. I’m guessing he’d walked up on my conversation with DB. Wonder how much he heard.
“S’up, Sehene,” I say, my voice sounding ragged and a little higher-pitched than normal.
He rubs the back of his neck and looks at me obliquely. “Hi, Jake. I, uh… I didn’t mean to—”
I interrupt his excuse. “Why are you out here, Jean-Pierre?” That comes out a little angrier than I intended it to, but then again, I was angry. Angry at myself for being so afraid, angry at him for making me seem foolish in my fear.
He steps closer to me, and I retract. He stops his forward progress and holds up his hands. “Evie called me because she knew you were out here, and neither one of us wanted you to be alone. Elijah had mentioned that sometimes his friend who deals meth operates near this block, and I did not… we were both worried about your safety. I don’t know why you didn’t just come by in the morning.”
I gesture with my phone. “You could have called me and told me that you were coming, Jean-Pierre.” I sound like the world’s least grateful person right now, but my hands are still shaking and the adrenaline hasn’t abated yet.
Agitated.
That’s what my old therapist Una would call this feeling. I’m feeling vulnerable and angry, and I’m prone to lashing out in this state. This is why I keep to myself; this is why shit never lasts. And I wonder if my sister simply didn’t trust me in the vicinity of drugs.
He lowers his head. “You are, of course, correct. I didn’t think about how I might scare you, coming to you in the dark like this. I knew that you
would be anxious, because you do not like the dark, and I didn’t want you to feel alone in your anxiety.”
“Jesus, Jean-Pierre. I’m sorry. I just get so—”
It was his turn to interrupt. “Jake, you do not have to explain yourself to me. If anyone understands the fear of darkness, it is me. I’m just sorry that I scared you in the middle of a private call. Though… is this the man with the cane?”
My shoulders relax, and the electricity running through my arms subsides. “Yes.”
“It didn’t sound… legal. What you were discussing.”
“It’s okay, Jean-Pierre. I can’t give you the details, but we are a white hat operation.”
“White hat, as in good guy?” he asks, coming a little closer.
“Yes, generally.” His nearness is both agitating and calming, and I really wish my body and my head would fucking decide.
“Will you get into trouble doing this?”
He’s close enough to touch, and his cologne is, as usual, sexy as fuck.
“No, Jean-Pierre. I am very, very good at this.”
He opens his arm, and I hesitate, then tuck myself against his body, decision made.
“Okay, but whatever you did before cost you a lot,” he says, touching his lips to the top of my head.
I make myself at home against his chest, still scanning the area for blind spots. Rather than deny it, I lean in. “I know. And they do, too. They’re not giving me anything dangerous, I promise.”
He takes a big breath in and lets it out slowly. “Okay, I trust your judgment, mon petit pirate. And, I suppose that means I have to trust this DB person as well.”
He just called me his little hacker, and it makes me smile almost as much as whatever cologne he is wearing. “You can trust DB, I promise.”
“If you say so, mon amour.” Not acknowledging that he’s called me “his love” yet again, Jean-Pierre looks around the lot and asks, “So, is this a good spot for pizza?”