What It Takes

by Jude Sierra

  “Well,” Dex butts in, “it’s been a while since you guys saw each other. You should catch up sometime.”

  “Uh—” Milo starts.

  “We have plans tonight.” Dex rolls right over Milo’s interruption. “But we should meet up.” Milo doesn’t miss the emphasis on the we.

  “Oh, definitely,” Andrew says. Milo can’t read the tone. The wind tosses his hair and the sun catches the lighter streaks.

  “Great,” Milo says, trying for authentic enthusiasm. The panic is starting to tingle and grow. He needs to get away so he can pull himself together.

  “You at your mom’s?” Andrew asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll call you there, then.” Again with the we.

  “Yeah. Great. Sure.” Milo sucks in a breath and balls up one hand. “I have to go; I was about to leave. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Dex adds. Milo wants to imagine there’s bitterness in his tone, but there’s not.

  Once they’ve walked away, Andrew shoots one last unreadable glance over his shoulder. Milo stumbles up the path to his car with the deep sand sucking at his feet and making it a slog. By the time he reaches the car, he’s out of breath. It’s his once-constant companion, anxiety, coming back to run his life, constricting his lungs.

  He thinks of the view from his home in Denver, how calming it is, how in that life anxiety and fear are more memory than reality.

  Fuck.

  ° ° °

  “SO THAT’S the famous Milo,” Dex says, folding his sweater and putting it onto his shelf. Andrew has to pop his head into the closet to hear him.

  “What?”

  “I said, so that’s the famous Milo.”

  God, not now, Andrew thinks. Although he supposes it’s never going to seem like a good time. “Famous?”

  “Well, you’ve told me all about him,” Dex points out. It’s true he has. Moving on has never meant forgetting to Andrew. Well, maybe forgetting certain things. But he never planned on deleting his childhood best friend from memory, even when he unfriended him on social media, forbade friends from mentioning him and buried what he’d let go deep inside.

  “I don’t see how that makes him the famous Milo,” Andrew says, air quoting defensively.

  “Andrew.” Dex takes him by the hand and leads him to their bed, patting the spot next to him. Dex’s hair is always neat and orderly, but Andrew smooths it with nervous fingers at his temple where the slightest hints of grey are coming in. “I’m not dumb. I know it has hurt, losing contact with him. I could tell how surprised you were. You can talk to me about it.”

  “Hm.” Andrew puts a hand on Dex’s cheek and looks into sweet, steady brown eyes that rarely look at him with anything but genuine care. “I was surprised,” he admits. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “Seeing him?”

  “Yeah,” Andrew says and then kisses Dex. “I don’t know what brought him back here, but it’s probably not a good thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  Andrew shakes his head. “Let’s not talk about this tonight.” Milo’s story isn’t his to tell, and their story is more complicated than he could explain to Dex. Telling him only bits over this last year has seemed like a lie. A lie of omission, meant to spare his own heart.

  “I don’t mean to upset you,” Dex says, then kisses him back. Andrew closes his eyes and breathes him in, the steady comfort that’s Dex. He focuses on feeling his lips track down his neck and the light touch of his hands lifting Andrew’s shirt as he lays Andrew down. Dex is the one who has been with him longest, who has loved Andrew despite his initial fears and his long-time inability to commit.

  Dex makes love to him as if he’s precious tonight. He saturates every one of Andrew’s senses until he is senseless, and his pleasure peaks with Dex’s name on his lips.

  It’s only after, when Dex is lax in sleep beside him, that Andrew remembers what it was like to fall asleep with another man he’s worked fruitlessly for years to push out of his heart.

  ° ° °

  IT TAKES two days for him to contact Milo. He tries to learn what’s going on through town gossip, but he’s not really able to probe without giving away his hand. It’s Dex who makes him call, after Andrew repeats that something awful must be going on. He only tells Dex that Milo had a very difficult life here and had to move on.

  “Well then, he’ll need a friend,” Dex says sensibly. Andrew can tell that Dex’s initial sense of unease has bled out. Andrew’s done everything he can think of to reassure him without words—touches and thoughtful gestures and open intimacy that he sometimes shies away from. Fucking, he can do; Andrew gets that. Tenderness and vulnerability are incredibly hard for him and something Dex wants more often than Andrew can manage, even after all this time.

  Andrew fiddles with a pen while he dials. Dex is at work, so he’s alone. He cannot handle an audience for this.

  Shelby answers on the fourth ring. “Hello, this is Shelby at Graham’s Bed and Breakfast.”

  “Mrs. Graham. It’s Andrew,” he says. His voice is shaky. Hers is a little breathless. He hopes he hasn’t made her run to the phone.

  “Oh my goodness, Andrew honey, it’s so good to hear from you.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, too.”

  “I’d heard you were back.”

  “Yes, a few months ago. We’re settling in.”

  “We?” she asks, only curiosity in her tone.

  “Uh, yes, my boyfriend Dex and I.”

  “Oh, wonderful. I should have you both over for dinner sometime. I assume you know Milo is home?”

  “Yes, actually we ran into him on the beach a few days ago. We talked about getting together to catch up. That’s why I’m calling.”

  “He went for a walk a bit ago. Do you want me to leave him a message?”

  “That,” he says as he clears his throat and squints hard at his ottoman, “that would be great.” He rattles off his number and promises to come over to see her sometime.

  °

  He has several articles due in the next few days and he hasn’t updated his blog all week. He has a religious schedule of posting somewhere every few days. As far as his personal blog goes, he’ll have to figure out what the hell he’ll say. He’s never held back from talking about his life. There’s something about his candor that draws readers. There’s something about the distance between his heart and his words and the readers that has always made him feel safer about exposing himself to that world.

  Milo’s sudden reappearance—or his reaction to it—isn’t something he thinks he can share yet.

  Milo calls about an hour after Andrew left his message. He’s finally managed to make some headway on one of his pieces when the phone wakes him from his work zone trance. That’s what Dex calls it, because it’s hard to rouse him from it.

  “Andrew?” Milo’s voice is steady but unsettling. Familiar, but not.

  “That’s me,” he tries for a light tone. “You called me,” he says like an idiot.

  “You called me first,” Milo points out. There’s a bantering tone in Milo’s voice. He’s definitely regained footing since their run-in at the beach, where Andrew could tell he was shaken. Hell, they both were.

  “Well, we did promise.” Andrew winces at the we.

  “So what’s up?” Milo says after a too-long beat that’s incredibly awkward. At least for Andrew.

  “I thought we should get together. Catch up,” Andrew says.

  “Yeah. How about lunch? Unless you have to work—?”

  “No, lunch is good, my job is very flexible. I don’t know about Dex; I’ll see if he wants to come along?”

  “Sounds good. Let me give you my cell number and you can text me. I’m free as a bird for the time being.”

  Andrew is dying to know what’s going on, but he can’t really ask over the phone.

  “Free as a bird?”

  “Shut up.” Milo laughs. Andrew sighs and abs
orbs the sound.

  “All right, I’ll text you after I talk to Dex,” Andrew promises.

  “Awesome.”

  Andrew sits, staring at his phone. How should he handle this? The truth is he doesn’t want Dex there. Not for this meeting. He and Milo have a lot sitting between them and he doesn’t know how to navigate that with his boyfriend there. Andrew is tempted to search the Internet for some sort of guide, but he doesn’t think there is one for how to juggle a man you loved for years and the one you love now but don’t want to know about it or get involved.

  In the end he texts Dex, Milo is free for lunch, can you get one off this week?

  No I’m swamped. No dinner?

  I don’t think he can. I don’t know what’s up.

  There’s a long pause before the next comes.

  Go ahead and meet him for lunch. Maybe we can do something all together another day.

  Andrew sighs with relief. It’s hard to read tone through text, so he’s not certain what Dex really feels. He opens his contacts, adds Milo’s number and texts him.

  This is Andrew. Lunch is good. What day?

  Like I said, any day is good. Even today.

  Andrews closes his eyes, thunks his head on his desk and takes a deep breath.

  Tribute? Is that good?

  Oh, we’ve become fancy with age have we?

  Andrew laughs. Fancy enough for Tribute. Maybe not ready for Ashe’s. Plus they have excellent white wine sangria.

  Well you had me at sangria. Noon?

  Sure. See you there.

  °

  Andrew spends twenty minutes in his closet staring blankly at his clothes before he pulls himself together with a strong chastisement. This isn’t a date; it’s Milo. He doesn’t have to dress to impress.

  But he wants to. To show who he’s grown into. A small and bitter voice thinks, to show how I’ve grown without you.

  In the end he picks a three-quarter sleeved T-shirt in soft, deep purple cotton and shorts. His hair is a too-long disaster; he’s overdue for a cut. He does what he can, looks himself over and tucks his wallet and phone into his pocket. He can do this.

  °

  Milo has to deal with his mom being sappy about his old friendship with Andrew when he tells her where he’s going. She always loved Andrew, even when his father wouldn’t allow him to visit after Andrew came out. Despite the distance between them, she had to have known Andrew was Milo’s refuge.

  By the time he’s extracted himself from her, he has five minutes to get ready. He changes out of the ratty shirt he was wearing into a deep blue polo, throws on some sneakers and rushes out the door. Wondering what will happen, what he can possibly say, takes up most of his thoughts. Right behind that is an excitement he can’t deny. They promised to move on for good reasons. He’s a different man; he assumes Andrew is. A trip down memory lane and reconnecting with a childhood friend sounds like something he’s more ready for than when he sat on the beach a few days ago, contemplating calling Ted. Meeting Andrew is more fraught in many ways, but oddly, also easier.

  Andrew is sitting on the patio, under the arch of the gorgeous old maple that dominates the front of the restaurant.

  “Is outside okay with you?” he asks when Milo sits.

  “Of course,” Milo says. Andrew’s already got his sangria. The sun is stippling between the leaves, at times bright and then shading green.

  “So this is the famous sangria,” Milo says with a smile. Andrew’s hand pauses midair, and a strange look crosses his face.

  “Yes,” Andrew says after a beat. “Do you want to taste?”

  “Sure, why not try something new? I’m generally more of a beer guy.”

  “Not shocking,” Andrew says. His eyes travel over Milo’s torso in a flutter; if he weren’t watching Andrew so intently he might have missed it. Milo’s face heats up. He takes a quick sip of Andrew’s drink and shakes his head. “Too sweet.”

  “And here I thought I had you at sangria,” Andrew says. Milo smiles in response.

  “Well, I tried a new thing; I’ll cross that off my bucket list.” His smile fades as soon as he says it. “Anyway.” Milo sits back, determined to pry his foot out of his mouth. The chair is wrought iron. He feels huge in it.

  “So how are you?” Andrew asks. His tone is tempered—offering an out for an easy, unrevealing answer. A waitress comes to take their order; Andrew asks for more time and Milo orders a draft beer. After she leaves they both pretend to peruse the menu. Well, Milo does. He doesn’t have many real confidants in his life. He’s learned over time to be an island. Reaching out isn’t natural for him.

  “Well,” Milo puts his menu down. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “How bad is it?”

  “What?”

  “Whatever’s forced you here,” Andrew says with unnerving directness.

  “It could be worse?” Milo thinks of the odds Dr. Schroeder gave them. He looks up at the big, star-shaped leaves above them. He takes a deep breath and doesn’t look at Andrew when he speaks. “Mom has breast cancer.”

  He hears before he sees Andrew’s sharp breath. When he looks back at him, he has to swallow something too big and too painful clogging his throat.

  “Milo,” Andrew says helplessly, “I am so sorry. How bad—I mean, god.”

  “Like I said, it could be worse. She’s seen an oncologist at the Cape Cancer Center. He seems good. She’s having surgery in a couple of weeks.”

  Andrew moves his hand, a flutter as if he’s going to reach across the table to him, but doesn’t.

  “He said her chances are really good.”

  “Okay.” Andrew swallows and looks away.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Milo says, because Andrew’s eyes are bright in the way they always got when he was about to cry.

  “I feel awful. I’ve been here for a few months and I should have visited her or something.”

  “Andrew, you’re not a mind reader.” Milo doesn’t say what he’s thinking—that Andrew probably avoided her because of him. Their waitress, Denise, comes to take their order. Milo orders the first thing his eyes land on. Andrew orders carefully. Milo has to hold back laughter.

  “Still picky, I see,” Milo says. Andrew makes a face at him.

  “I see no reason not to enjoy every bite of my food,” Andrew says primly, and they both laugh.

  “Tell me about you.”

  “I’m afraid my life is not terribly exciting.”

  “Well, you said you’ve been here for a few months?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to be home. Turned out that city living wasn’t for me.”

  “What city?” Milo asks.

  “We were in Baltimore for a while. Dex had a great job there. He’s a CPA. But he had an opportunity to change things up. So we’re trying this out, to see if he can manage Cape living.”

  “It’s not for everyone,” Milo says.

  “He seems good so far.” Andrew smiles at Denise when she sets their food down. Apparently everything is right on his order. Milo begins to slather his fries in ketchup.

  “Want some fries with that ketchup?” Andrew jokes.

  “Nope, just ketchup with ketchup,” he quips back, then bites his lip.

  “So what do you do?”

  “I write,” Andrew says as though it’s obvious. It’s not. Milo remembers that he toyed with the idea of studying writing in college, but never figured he could or would make a living from it.

  “Like, books?”

  “No, freelance stuff, plus part time at the Santuit Chronicle. I have a few blogs.” Andrew pokes through his salad delicately. “Maybe one day a book.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  “I know. I thought I’d be a starving artist,” Andrew jokes. “I still kind of am. On the brink, perhaps.” A large group is being seated at the table beside them. They pull more tables together, and their chatter is loud and intrusive.

  “Artist?” Milo says over the din. Luckily the group quiets. The open a
ir releases the noise and the muttering of the trees buffers the sound.

  “Back when I wrote fiction. Not so much anymore. I double majored in college: journalism and creative writing.” Andrew shrugs it off, but Milo wonders how he really feels. They eat in silence. Every now and then Milo darts a look at Andrew. He seems lost in thought, but Milo catches his eyes once.

  “So you’ll be here for a while?”

  “Yeah. We don’t really know how long. But I’ll help Mom out. She refuses to close her business for a while and let me take care of things financially.” Milo pushes back the recurring frustration.

  “And you can take a break from your job?”

  “No. I toyed with taking a sabbatical, but I spoke to my partners about it and we’re fixing things up so I can work remotely after the surgery.”

  “Where do you work? What are you doing?”

  “I work for a company called Miller Green Developers. I’ve recently become a partner, but more of a junior partner. We rehab and renovate older or run-down homes, make them green-efficient and resell.”

  “So you’re like… home flippers, only hippy style.”

  Milo laughs. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “They must really like you to give you so much leeway.” Andrew pushes his salad plate away. He’s on his second sangria.

  “I’m doing well there.” Milo doesn’t want to brag; he doesn’t feel that his work is really brag-worthy. He’s worked hard for what he has, for where he is. But he isn’t sure that makes him any more special than the next hardworking individual.

  “That’s great to hear. Where is there exactly?”

  “Oh yeah,” Milo says. There’s so much they don’t know. It seems like an impossible chasm. Are they doing this thing? Is this going to be a lunch and done, or some sort of friendship renewed? “Colorado. Denver.”

  “I would never have pictured that.” Andrew leans back in his chair.

  “I like it there. Have you ever been?”

  “Nope.” Andrew shrugs.

  “You always wanted to travel the country,” Milo says. He suppresses a wince. One of Andrew’s wishes, caught in that bonfire. Is it okay to mention them? They promised to remember, and Milo had.

  “I did.” Andrew’s eyes flitter away, taking in the pedestrian traffic and the shifting leaves above them. His expression is coded. “I travel-blogged for a while. I got to see so many things. Just not Denver. Well, I mean there’s lots I also didn’t see. You know what I mean.”