by Ariel Tachna
He just had to stay in control until he could hear Pascal out. He took a deep breath and then another, trying to get enough air into his lungs to calm his pounding heart and escape the tide of emotions that still threatened to drag him under. Pascal wasn’t Daniel. He didn’t think of Mathias as a piece on the side. He’d taken Mathias home to meet his parents and his sister.
They’d discussed Pascal’s schedule. He didn’t have to close tonight, so he would be able to leave the restaurant when his last table did. If tonight was anything like the other nights he didn’t have to close, he’d be home by eleven thirty. Mathias could wait until eleven forty-five and go upstairs then to talk to him. That would give Pascal a chance to get home even if he was running a little late, maybe to change clothes, but not to be asleep already. Mathias didn’t want to wake him up. He just wanted an explanation. If that made him immature, well, he’d have to live with that. After tonight, he needed it. He needed to hear that Pascal hadn’t cheated on him the way Daniel would have done. Wouldn’t cheat on him the way Daniel had done.
He wouldn’t lie in wait in the foyer. He’d stay in his apartment and go up to see Pascal after he got home. The foyer wasn’t the right place for the conversation they needed to have, no matter how calm Mathias managed to stay, and if he didn’t manage, the foyer definitely wasn’t the right place. He just had to be patient until eleven forty-five. Then he could go upstairs and let Pascal tell him it had all been a misunderstanding.
And if it wasn’t just a misunderstanding, that was better learned in private too.
He looked over at the clock on the oven. Eleven twenty. Pascal ought to be home any time now. He couldn’t see Pascal’s window from his apartment or even from his “terrace,” so that wouldn’t help him. He paced a few more times, trying to bring down the frenetic energy coiling through him, but all the pacing in the world couldn’t make the time pass faster.
He’d never make it twenty-five more minutes. He wasn’t sure he could make it five. He could go upstairs now and see if Pascal was home. If he was, that would put an end to his waiting, and if he wasn’t, walking the stairs would use more energy than pacing his apartment.
That’s what he’d do. He’d change out of his suit into something more comfortable and go see if Pascal was home yet. They’d probably run into each other on the stairs, but Mathias wasn’t spying, like Daniel had accused him of doing when Mathias finally found out. He was coming to talk to Pascal. He’d just seem a little eager if Pascal wasn’t home yet, but there were worse impressions to give.
He went into the bedroom and dug out weekend clothes—not the suits he wore to work or the tight jeans and T-shirts he wore to the bar, but a comfortable pair of track pants and a loose sweatshirt. That struck the right note, didn’t it? Relaxed, easy, just coming to check in with his lover before bed. Nothing to be stressed about, no reason to worry. A prelude to a good-night kiss.
If he told himself that enough times, he might even believe it.
He took a deep breath and reminded himself not to make accusations or fly off the handle. Just because Daniel had screwed him over didn’t mean Pascal had done the same. He had to give Pascal a chance to explain. Then he could decide how to react. He locked his door behind him and climbed the stairs to Pascal’s apartment.
He heard the music playing before he ever knocked at the door. Nothing he recognized, some sort of jazzy number, soulful without being sad. Under any other circumstances, Mathias probably would have liked it, but now it made him suspicious. Pascal didn’t usually have music playing. Why did he have it on now?
He knocked because as often as Pascal had invited him to stay over in the past few weeks, he hadn’t offered Mathias a key. Mathias hadn’t thought anything of it until now. They were lovers, yes, but they weren’t living together. Mathias had his own place and liked it that way. Now he wondered why Pascal hadn’t even brought it up.
Pascal opened the door almost immediately, still wearing his white shirt and black trousers from the restaurant, although the top three buttons were open now, revealing the white T-shirt Pascal wore beneath it.
“Mathias, I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” Pascal said, opening the door wider and stepping aside so Mathias could enter. “I was going to text you in the morning in case you were asleep when I got home.”
Pascal’s easy acceptance of his presence reassured Mathias. Pascal wouldn’t let him in so easily if someone else was here. He hadn’t brought the woman from the restaurant home with him. Mathias didn’t really think Pascal would cheat on him that way, but something inside him uncoiled anyway.
Right up until he saw the gift basket in pride of place on the table.
“You couldn’t even try to hide it?” Mathias asked, turning on Pascal.
“Hide what?” Pascal asked.
Mathias gestured wordlessly to the basket on the table. “I saw you tonight at the restaurant. What the hell was that? Those women were all over you.”
Pascal looked from Mathias to the table and back to Mathias. “My ladies? We were just having a bit of fun.”
“I know what a bit of fun looks like,” Mathias insisted. “That was more than just a bit of fun.”
“You flirt with customers at the bar all the time,” Pascal pointed out. “And they’re far more likely to act on it than my ladies.”
Mathias snorted. “I saw them watching your ass every time you walked away from the table.”
Pascal laughed, so loud it startled Mathias. “Oh, Mathias, you really don’t get it, do you? Martine and the others have no interest in my ass. It’s the fact that I’m tapping yours that fascinates them.”
Mathias blinked a couple of times. “What?”
“Open the gift,” Pascal said.
Mathias frowned but walked over to the table as Pascal instructed. Conscious of Pascal watching him, he didn’t shred the paper like he wanted but opened it carefully to pull out a hardcover book. The title caught his eye. “Wait, is this the new one? It’s not due out for another month.”
“I told you I know Martine. She brings me a copy as soon as she gets them. I often have them as much as six weeks prerelease, depending on when they can get into the restaurant.”
“I don’t understand.”
Pascal sat down on the couch and patted the space beside him. Mathias perched on the edge of the couch, completely baffled now.
“Martine, Hélène, Camille, and Nicole have been patrons at la Colombe d’Or for as long as I’ve worked there. They came in regularly even before I waited on them the first time, but since then, they’ve always asked to sit in my section. We chatted. At first it was casual stuff, the way you do as a waiter to keep your patrons happy, but after a while it went beyond that. And when Robert died and I was so miserable, Martine had an idea to cheer me up.” He handed Mathias the book. “She borrowed my name and set out to write a story of a broken man putting himself back together, not miraculously, but piece by painful piece, all the while saving the world one bad guy at a time. There are times I think looking forward to the next book was the only thing that kept me going in those miserably dark days. So yeah, I joke with them. I toast every new release with them. On quiet nights sometimes I even sit down with them and have an appetizer. And yes, they take it upon themselves to embarrass me with each successive release by bringing a bigger, even gaudier presentation than the time before, but it’s all in good fun. Tonight, though, I didn’t need the balloons and the teasing to cheer me up, because tonight I got to share something with them that I didn’t think I’d ever get to say.”
Mathias wanted desperately to know what it was, but he was afraid if he asked, Pascal would stop talking.
“Tonight I got to tell them they didn’t have to worry about me anymore,” Pascal continued without prompting. “I got to point out where you were sitting at the other table and tell them that I was truly, maybe even ridiculously happy because that cute banker at the other table was willing to put up with me, gray temples and all. That toast
we drank was to you and me.”
Oh fuck.
“I screwed everything up.”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“I was so fucking jealous. I couldn’t think straight.”
“I love my ladies like they were my sisters, but first of all, they’re all happily married. More importantly, I’m happy with you. I don’t want anyone else.”
“I don’t know why,” Mathias muttered. “When I do stupid shit like this.”
Pascal laughed and pulled him into a hug. “You’re young. Stupid shit is part of the package, although maybe next time you could try asking me what’s going on before you jump to wild conclusions. Martine will be tickled if I tell her she made you jealous, but then she’ll smack me for not giving you enough assurances that you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Did that mean what Mathias hoped it meant?
“Nothing to worry about?” he asked when Pascal didn’t say more.
“Not a thing,” Pascal said. “I’m totally gone over you. I was just waiting for the right time to tell you. I didn’t want to scare you off, but I’m hoping maybe the jealousy means you feel the same way.”
All the air rushed out of Mathias’s lungs, leaving him feeling like a fish out of water. He blinked a couple of times, trying to make sure this wasn’t all a dream.
“Yes,” he said finally when Pascal continued to look at him expectantly. “Yes, I feel the same way.”
PASCAL SLUMPED against the back of the couch at Mathias’s admission. He’d hoped…. God, had he hoped Mathias was starting to care for him too, but he hadn’t known how to bring it up without possibly scaring Mathias off. He was fiercely independent, one of the many things Pascal admired about him, but that meant Pascal had been walking on eggshells since he’d realized his own feelings. Asking Mathias to move in was out of the question given how he insisted on paying for half their dates. Even asking him to stay some nights was fraught with worry as to whether he’d gone too far too fast.
Mathias’s fit of pique had caught him off guard for a moment, but then he’d realized it was jealousy, and if Mathias was jealous, then maybe, just maybe, that meant he felt something more. That hope had made it easier to stay calm in the face of Mathias’s accusations and to explain his friendship with his ladies. Mathias hadn’t said the words Pascal longed to hear, but then again, Pascal hadn’t said them either, just implied them strongly. And Mathias had said he felt the same way.
“What happens now?” Mathias asked softly.
Pascal sat up and reached for Mathias. Mathias moved into his embrace willingly. “Anything we want,” Pascal replied. “We can keep going like we have been. We can move in together, here or somewhere else. We can quit our jobs and run away to Aruba and be beach bums.”
Mathias snorted in laughter. “Beach bums?”
“I’ll have you know I look quite fetching in swim trunks,” Pascal said in mock offense.
“I believe it,” Mathias replied, “but I don’t see either of us being happy with nothing to keep ourselves busy. We’d end up bored to tears in a matter of weeks.”
Pascal smiled and kissed Mathias sweetly. “Okay, so that last part was a joke. I meant the rest of it. What do you want to have happen?”
“I don’t want a sugar daddy,” Mathias said slowly. “If we move in together, here or somewhere else, I’m going to pay my share of all the expenses.”
“That’s reasonable,” Pascal said. “I never offered to pay for dinner because I thought you couldn’t. I’m hardly rich, so it’s not like you were trolling me for my money.”
“You make more than I do right now,” Mathias said.
Pascal shrugged. “Maybe, but at some point that won’t be true anymore. Bank executives make nice salaries, but combining expenses and sharing them between us would save us both money, even if we got a bigger place.”
“Does that mean you want me to move in with you?” Mathias asked.
“Eventually,” Pascal said. “It doesn’t have to be this weekend. I don’t want you to feel rushed into a commitment you’re not ready to make.”
“And if I said I wanted to move in tomorrow?”
“I’d get a key made for you on the way to the restaurant in the morning,” Pascal replied immediately. He wouldn’t press. Mathias had to make that decision for himself in his own time, but now that it was on the table, he wanted it so badly it stole his breath.
Mathias looked around the apartment appraisingly. “Not that I have a lot of stuff, but do you think there’s room for both of us here? I don’t want us to end up breaking up because we’re constantly on top of each other.”
“I don’t know,” Pascal drawled. “I rather like it being on top of you.”
Mathias laughed, as Pascal had intended—not that his comment was anything less than the truth. “One of these days maybe I’ll be on top.”
“Whenever you want,” Pascal replied easily. He’d taken charge with Mathias because that seemed to be what he wanted, but he was more than happy to mix things up.
“One of these days,” Mathias repeated. That was fine with Pascal too. He certainly had no complaints about reducing Mathias to a shivering mess beneath him, as often as Mathias wanted. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I think the only way to find out is to try it,” Pascal said. “Robert and I lived in a place even smaller than this for a while, before we could afford somewhere nicer. I moved here not long after he died because I needed a fresh start. If we try it and find we don’t have enough space, we can always look for something bigger when the lease is up. Although, there’s your lease to think about too.”
“I have one more month left on the lease,” Mathias said. “I moved in in May and only signed a six-month lease. As much as I wanted to live here, I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. Making the smallest time commitment on offer seemed prudent. I could spend more time up here even if I still officially had the apartment for another month. I wouldn’t be able to help with rent here until I don’t have to pay rent for downstairs, but it would mean we’d see each other more.”
“That would be fine, but like I said, it’s entirely up to you. I don’t want to rush you into something. We can see how it goes over the next month before you give notice. And if you aren’t sure, you could go month to month for a while. The landlord will let you do that after the first commitment is over.”
Mathias looked at him intently. “You keep saying you don’t want to rush me and asking if I’m ready. What about you?”
“I already know what I want, but I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me,” Pascal said.
“You going to tell me what that is?”
Pascal hesitated. He didn’t want to send Mathias running for the hills. “As long as you understand that what I want is only that, not what I expect. Relationships are all about the negotiation.”
“I know, but it’s a little hard to negotiate when I don’t know where you’re starting from.”
Pascal took a deep breath. This was it. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Okay, then, in an ideal world, you’d move in with me as soon as reasonably possible, we’d pool our resources and see if you can quit working at the bar. I’d look at cutting back my weekend shifts so we’d have that time together, even if I still had to work evenings during the week. You’d take me to meet your parents, and you’d get to know my family better so that you’d know Maman loves you even when she doesn’t remember you. Or maybe even so that you’d be such a part of the family that she’d start remembering you the same way she remembers me. At some point we’d get married and grow old together, even if that happens to me well before it happens to you.” He took a deep breath, not daring to look at Mathias. “But that’s my ideal world. All of it is up for discussion if it’s not what you want too.”
Mathias squeezed his hand. “We’ll have to look at the timeline for some of that, but I don’t see why any of it would be off the table. The job at Le Salon is just a way to make ends me
et. If we can combine expenses so I don’t have to work there, I’ll gladly quit. I don’t have any real vacation until Christmas, though, and La Tuque is a little too far to go for just a night.”
Pascal slumped against the back of the couch, pulling Mathias with him as he went. “As long as I know we’re both moving toward the same goal, the timeline is easy.”
Epilogue
Eighteen months later
PASCAL LOOKED up from serving drinks to Mathias and his friends—he hadn’t been able to get the night off to celebrate Mathias’s promotion out of the training program and into a full-time position as branch manager for mortgages, but he’d insisted Simon put them in Pascal’s section—when his ladies walked in, gift basket in hand.
Mathias winked at Pascal before turning back to Nathalie and Janine, two other trainees in his program, and, of course, Louis. If Pascal were the jealous type, he’d have had something to say about how often Mathias came home from work talking about Louis. He had laughed with Louis’s boyfriend about it more than once. “We’ve lost him now,” Mathias said. “He’s going to spend the rest of the evening flirting with his ladies, and we’ll never get our dinner.”
“I would never do that,” Pascal said with a mock pout.
“I know better than that,” Mathias said. “I’ve watched you flirt with them before. Go on. Say hello from me too.”
Pascal gave Mathias a grateful smile despite the teasing. They’d come a long way since the first time Mathias had been in the restaurant the same night as his ladies. A long way. To his surprise, the hostess seated his ladies one table over from Mathias and his friends.
Martine waved at Mathias as they approached.
“I have an idea,” Mathias said. “Would you ladies like to join us? That way Pascal doesn’t have to bounce back and forth between us.”