by J. M. Snyder
Remy hugged him tight. “I know you think you’re saying no but all I’m hearing is yes.”
Theirs wasn’t the only offer on the house, and their agent cautioned them not to get their hopes up. It was a popular piece of property, and the sellers had several offers to consider. it was all Remy could do not to make another higher offer right away. “Go higher,” he said.
Lane shook his head, amused. “We went as high as we could afford to go. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll find another house.”
“But I want that one,” Remy insisted.
Frustrated, he resisted the urge to step in and take over the negotiations, but what he knew about real estate came from dealing with it as part of his job, and none of the projects he’d ever been a part of had ever meant quite so much to him as this home did. He knew it was meant to be theirs.
He wanted to move in so badly, he even started packing to save time later. Soon his small apartment was cluttered with boxes of clothing and books and DVDs, everything he didn’t need on a daily basis. Some of the stuff he took to Goodwill, things he hadn’t used or worn in years, and when his place was ready to go, he started in on Lane’s.
They even made lists of what furniture they’d keep and what they’d give away when they moved. Remy’s bistro-style bar he used as a dining table could fit into the breakfast nook, while Lane’s larger table would fit in the dining room. They’d keep Remy’s bed as theirs, and Lane’s futon would fold up nicely in his study. Braden would need a new bed, of course, and a dresser, and whatever else he might want to fill up his room, and they’d pick out a new living room set, too. Remy was so excited, he took to strolling the boutique shops in Carytown on his lunch break, making notes of anything artsy or unique that caught his eye.
One evening Lane had run out to pick up Indian food for dinner when Remy’s phone rang. He glanced at the time—quarter to seven. Too late to be the real estate agent? He hoped not. But when he grabbed his cell, it wasn’t Lane’s number on the display at all, but Kate’s.
He tried to hide his disappointment as he answered. “Hey, lady. To what do I owe this great honor?”
“Ha ha.” Kate sounded tired, but not upset or angry, so Remy relaxed a little. This wasn’t going to be one of those calls.
Still, he asked, “How’s Brae doing?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” she assured him. “Listen, the reason I’m calling is I got a charge on my credit card for a plane ticket.”
Remy nodded, even though she couldn’t see the gesture. “Okay. You did get the invite, right? You do know I’m getting married?”
With a laugh, she said, “No, I know. But it’s only one ticket.”
Remy grinned. “Well, see, it’s like this. Lane and I decided we were going to cover some of the costs for our families to fly out there, sort of as a way of saying thanks, you know, and as a kind of Christmas present. Then I thought that since you and Braden were in the wedding itself, I’d just foot your whole bill.”
“Aww, Remy!” Kate’s voice practically melted in his ear. “That’s so sweet of you!”
“Mike, though,” Remy said. “Sorry, but we’re not at the gift exchanging level yet, so he’s going to have to pay for himself. Since you only gave me one credit card number, I figured you’d just have him pay you back.”
Kate’s tone turned suggestive. “In some fashion.”
An image of Mike’s pasty skin and flabby stomach flashed in his mind and Remy winced. “Ew! Please, I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“So where are these tickets?” Kate asked.
Remy tucked the phone against his shoulder and started rummaging through the papers on the counter. It had become a catchall lately, a place to stash mail and random things he found while packing that he knew he needed to put somewhere safe, but exactly where that might be, he wasn’t sure yet. “I think she sent me something…hold on…”
Finally, at the bottom of a stack of old tax documents, he saw the edge of the FedEx envelope and pulled it free. “Here we go. Chell sent me some things a few weeks back. They’re probably in here.”
“You have them all?” Kate wanted to know.
Remy glanced inside. Since Lane had first opened the envelope, Remy hadn’t bothered to look at its contents more closely. Now he cleared off a space on the counter and spread out the documents. Chell’s cover letter was similar in tone to her emails—in fact, it looked as if she’d written it in her email program and then just printed it out. Here are your tickets and schedules, contracts signed to date, yadda yadda. Anything you need, just LMK! Mahalo!
“Ugh,” he muttered, turning the letter over. “I’m so sick of her fake Hawaiian words. Mahalo this and aloha that. She sounds like a real poser.”
In his ear, Kate asked, “How’d you find this woman again?”
“An old friend of Lane’s, if you’d believe it.” Remy skimmed the next page and saw it was a listing of the contents of the envelope, so he set that aside, too. “Okay, here we go.”
After that came the confirmations for the airline tickets. Their wedding was scheduled for December 28th. Remy’s plan was to arrive in Hawaii a week or so earlier with Lane, and have everyone else arrive after Christmas. His and Lane’s confirmations were first, and the date was right—December 17th. The price was much cheaper than flying the week of Christmas, and Remy grudgingly admitted Chell had paid even less than the costs he’d seen when he compared fares online.
Then he noticed Braden’s confirmation was on the same page as his. He looked at the flight times and numbers. He looked again.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Kate asked.
Remy could feel his anger rising. “Oh shit.” Quickly he turned to the next page.
Kate and Mike were on a different flight leaving the next day. Not December 26th, but the next day, December 18th.
“Fuck,” Remy cursed.
Through the phone, his ex-wife asked, “Jer, what? Tell me.”
“This bitch…” He turned to the next confirmation, and damn it the hell, but Lane’s family was flying out of Newark on the eighteenth, too. And Remy’s parents were coming in from San Diego later the same day. Holding the phone away from his ear, Remy clenched his hands into fists and roared, “God!”
There went his holiday. Again.
Chapter 4
Lane was in the hallway outside Remy’s apartment, juggling bags of takeout from Lemon Cuisine to free one hand so he could open the door, when it opened for him. Remy stood in the doorway, and from the sour frown on his face, Lane knew he was pissed. Elbowing his way inside, Lane asked, “What is it?”
“Your friend has screwed us big time,” Remy announced.
By the way he said it, Lane knew he meant Chell. “What now?” Before Remy could reply, Lane added, “Can’t it wait until after we eat?”
Apparently not. Storming past Lane, Remy swept a handful of papers off the counter and brandished them like a summons. “She has all of us flying into Hawaii the week before Christmas,” he said, almost spitting in anger. “You and I come in one day early—one day, that’s all we get, and guess what? We don’t even get it to ourselves, because she’s booked someone else on the same flight as us. Take a stab. Who do you think we’re flying in with?”
Though Lane couldn’t read the papers Remy was waving about, he could see from the way his lover’s eyes were flashing that Remy was really, really pissed, which meant only one thing. Still, hoping to lighten the mood, he joked, “Mike. Does Kate know?”
Remy slapped the papers onto the counter. “Braden. Fourteen hours, and then we have to share a room. And then, the rest of the relatives arrive. Tell me why we’re doing this again? Because I seem to have forgotten—”
“It’s supposed to be fun,” Lane pointed out. Setting down the takeout bags, he scooped up the papers and shuffled through them. “Maybe you’re reading them wrong. You told her the right dates, didn’t you?”
“I told her, yes,” Remy snapp
ed, “but Little Miss Surfer Girl is too busy catching waves and hanging ten to pay attention to anything I have to say. I’m only paying her to plan my entire fucking wedding, so why the hell should she even listen to me? I have half a mind to call her right now—”
“Well, why don’t you?” Lane asked.
The question stopped Remy in mid-tirade. “What? Now? Isn’t it getting kind of late?”
Lane looked at the clock and did the math. “Hawaii’s six hours away, so it’s only one o’clock over there. She’s probably still at lunch. Give her a call.”
“She’s probably at the beach,” Remy muttered, but he dug out his phone and found her number in his contacts. He glared at Lane as he called.
Busying himself with setting out their dinner, Lane waited while Remy placed the call. But after a few seconds, when Chell didn’t answer, he knew it would be fruitless. Remy was probably right; most likely she was at the beach. Must be the life, Lane thought. Knowing his lover wouldn’t leave a message, Lane suggested, “Email her after we eat.”
“Fucking bitch,” Remy cursed. “It’s too late now, you know.”
“It’s still early over there,” Lane countered. He set out two plates on the table and started emptying the bags of their takeout containers.
But Remy shook his head. “No, I mean, it’s too late to do anything about it now. Kate’s already been charged for Mike’s ticket, and I have all the confirmations. The tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable, which means we’re screwed.”
Stepping around the table, Lane took the phone from Remy’s hand and set it on the counter. Then he pulled his lover close and rested his forehead against Remy’s. Looking into Remy’s deep eyes, Lane whispered, “Hey.”
Remy pouted, pooching out his thin lips almost comically. “What?”
“I have a little good news,” Lane told him. “I was going to save it until after dinner, but you look like you might want to hear it now.”
Remy’s lower lip pushed out a little farther. “Is it that they had gulab jamun as the day’s dessert?”
Lane tried hard not to grin. “No…”
Remy wasn’t as successful. “Are you sure? Because I smell roses, and I don’t see any flowers.”
“The dessert isn’t the good news,” Lane said.
“But there is dessert, right?”
Now Lane laughed. Wrapping his arms around his lover’s waist, he kissed Remy until the pout disappeared. “I got a call while I was in line at the restaurant waiting to pick up our order.”
Remy waited a beat, but when Lane didn’t keep talking, he prompted, “And?”
“And…” Lane fought a smile but simply couldn’t do it—he felt it start like a slow burn, igniting first one corner of his mouth, then the other, before spreading up his face to set his entire face alight. “And the sellers accepted our offer. We have to go in tomorrow to sign the contract.”
Remy let out a loud whoop and swept Lane up in a tight embrace, pulling him off his feet. “First good news all day!” he cried, twirling Lane around in the middle of the hallway.
With a laugh, Lane teased, “Even better than dessert?”
Remy stopped and turned to dip Lane back in a tango-esque move that almost had them both on the floor. Against the hollow of Lane’s neck, Remy murmured, “You’re all the dessert I need, husband-to-be.”
* * * *
Once Remy learned why Chell had bought the tickets she did, even he had to admit he couldn’t be too mad at her. Lane smirked as he read the email his lover forwarded to him a few days later. Hey brah, Chell wrote. Muy malo, muchacho! I thought your dates were flex and you were trying to save moolah. I booked the flights when they were cheapest. Sorry!
Beneath that, Remy had written in red, WTF?
It was late on a Monday afternoon in early October. Lane had just gotten back word from the real estate agent that the inspection on their home came back with only one note of concern. Apparently the chimney needed repointing, whatever that meant, and Lane had taken a short break from a draft design sketch to Google it when he saw Remy’s message. Now he hit reply and typed a quick response. Shouldn’t have been such a cheapskate and paid her upfront. HA!
He closed his email program and opened his browser. His homepage was set to Google, and he glanced at the news headlines as he typed chimney repointing into the search bar. Before he could hit ENTER, though, one of the articles caught his eye.
First day of legalized same-sex marriage starts with a wedding.
Hardly news anymore, he knew, but it wasn’t the headline so much as the news source itself. The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Lane’s heart fluttered. “Oh, shit.”
He clicked on the link. When it didn’t load immediately, he clicked again, his other hand fumbling for his desk phone. Knocking off the receiver, he tucked it under his chin and dialed Remy’s office by touch. “Come on,” he pleaded as the phone rang in his ear.
A second later, his lover answered. “Hello?”
“Go to the Times-Dispatch website,” Lane said, without introduction. “Right now.”
“Why? Did you make the front page?” Remy joked.
“Just do it.” Lane clicked the link in his browser once more, and finally the site started to load.
And there, on his screen, were two beautiful women kissing on the steps of a court building in downtown Richmond. Here, in their city, in Virginia, gay and lesbian couples could marry legally for the first time. Lane found himself tearing up at the thought. Thank you, Jesus.
In his ear, Remy murmured, “What am I looking at? Wait…is this for real?”
Lane laughed in delight. “Yeah, looks like it.”
“Fuck Hawaii,” Remy said. “Meet you over there in ten minutes, what do you say?”
Lane laughed harder. “One word. Non-refundable.”
“Shitfire!” Remy cursed. “We can do it today! Kate would meet us, she’d be our witness—”
“Half the world would be our witness,” Lane pointed out. “You’re already miffed we’re having too many people as it is.”
But Remy argued, “This would be different. This would be here. And then it’d be over with, and we could go on our honeymoon in December instead.”
“With your ex-wife, and your son,” Lane said, “and my family, and your parents, who all have tickets for the same two weeks. Here’s another word for you—non-transferrable. No thank you. When did you suddenly decide to throw all your best laid plans to the wind?”
“When the law said I can marry the man of my dreams right here in Virginia!” Remy told him. “It would save us so much hassle…”
But Lane wasn’t so sure. “Have you seen the video they have up? It’s a madhouse down there, and the line’s out the door for marriage licenses. Let’s just stick with our original plan. This can be our backup.”
“Hmm, I have a plan, “ Remy groused. “Let everyone else get on the planes and we’ll stay here. Then we’ll tie the knot and honeymoon in our new home all by ourselves.”
Lane grinned. “Now that sounds promising.”
* * * *
The closing on their new home went off without a hitch, and they spent the last week of October moving in. Lane’s condo didn’t stay on the market long; it was prime real estate, and was snatched up by an interested buyer in a few days, probably because he had hoped to have most of the month of November to decide what was going to the new place and what had to go. He wasn’t quite as organized as Remy, and even with his lover’s help, he was still throwing things into bags at the last minute, separating items at the curb into what went into the moving van and what would end up at Goodwill.
Hiring movers turned out to be a brilliant idea, despite the cost. Lane was no longer the strapping young buck he had once been, and he didn’t envy the college guys who raced up and down the stairs, manhandling furniture and boxes and bags as if their lower backs wouldn’t be aching in the morning. He and Remy directed traffic, guiding the movers to put thi
ngs into the right rooms to make unpacking easier. To make things crazier, Remy had ordered new furniture for the living room and Braden’s bedroom, and desks for their studies, and the delivery arrived just as the movers were leaving.
By the time everything was unloaded and assembled and the drivers tipped, neither Lane nor his lover felt like doing anything more than collapsing onto the new sofa. The strong smell that wafted up around them came straight from the storage warehouse.
“First things first,” Remy announced. “Find the Febreeze.”
Lane sighed. “I was thinking unpack the sheets and make the bed. I’m whupped.”
“Order pizza,” Remy countered. “Or hey—what else is close to here we can order in?”
Rolling his head on the back of the sofa to look at his lover, Lane pointed out, “Ordering in means finding the trash bags, which are in a box marked kitchen and there are a dozen of those to go through. How about we eat out?” When Remy hesitated, he added, “We’re minutes from Carytown, remember? You want pizza? How about Mellow Mushroom?”
Remy’s eyes widened. “No fair. You know I love their Thai pizza.”
“So we go out and eat.” Lane let a slow smile spread across his face. “Then we come back here, make the bed…”
“And mess it up all over again,” Remy finished. “I like that plan. Let’s do it.”
Lane shrugged into his coat and waited at the door for Remy. When he came out of the den, pulling on his own jacket, Lane snagged Remy’s belt loop and reeled him in. “I can’t wait to come home every day now. To this, to you. Hey.”
Remy smiled against Lane’s lips. “What?”
“When we unpack, let’s have your son over one night,” Lane suggested. “On a school night. Just for the hell of it.”
Remy laughed. “This is why he thinks you’re the coolest guy in the world. You know he’s going to ask if he can get in the pool, right?”
“Well, if it isn’t too cold…”
“Lane, no!” Remy cried. “It’s November!”