Worst Men: An Enemies to Lovers Gay Romance

by Rachel Kane

I patted him on the shoulder, and he smiled weakly at me. “I’m going to go look out for myself,” I said.

  17

  Sergio: So Many Wrong Things

  I knew I’d done something stupid, the minute I saw the look on Marcus’ face. The thing is, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done. We were literally bathing in the afterglow of our encounter, and then suddenly he’s offended and leaves?

  Was it my mention of college? Was there some reason he couldn’t go?

  I thought about it during a brief shower, but couldn’t come up with any resolution. I decided to work. Work clears my head, makes it so I can think--or at least, so my subconscious can solve my problems while my attention is elsewhere.

  “How is my little ermine?”

  I was in the lobby, headed towards the ballroom shortcut to my freezer, when Rhody saw me. I waved at her, a little confused. “How’s your what?” I asked.

  “Nevermind, you were drunk, you’ve probably forgotten our whole conversation.” She followed me through the ballroom. I wondered if this was where the reception was going to be held, and made a mental note to ask Nat and Owen about that...I’d need to know, so I could tell the hotel where to move the sculpture to.

  “When did we have a conversation?” I said. My mind wasn’t on Rhody at all, and yet she kept walking beside me.

  “Remember, we were out by the firepit...I think you were drinking Negronis?”

  “I...guess I remember?”

  Ignoring my hesitation, she plowed forward. “So how is the roommate situation? Any better?”

  I scowled. “It’s fine.”

  “Fine?” she asked. She stared at me, and something clicked. “Oh. My. God. I knew it. I knew you were after Marcus!”

  She was so loud, her voice echoed around the empty ballroom.

  “Come on,” I said, “the entire world doesn’t need to hear this.”

  “Oh, I can keep a secret,” she said. “But you do like him?”

  “I mean...it’s complicated.”

  Her face fell. “Wait...did you piss him off? You know Marcus has a temper. Did you already have a lover’s quarrel? You’ve only been here, what, three days?”

  I was so close to telling her to please go away and leave me alone with my thoughts, but then it occurred to me. “You know Marcus pretty well, don’t you?”

  “Well yeah. I’m over at Nat and Owen’s all the time. I practically live there, so he’s basically my downstairs neighbor.”

  I stopped and turned to her. “Can you keep a secret? I mean, for real?”

  She made the zipping-lip motion with her hand. “Stick a needle in my eye.”

  “Okay...listen. I really pissed him off, I think. But I don’t know how.”

  “It’s Marcus, he’s always mad about something.”

  “Yeah, but this is weird to me. You know...do you know anything about his past?”

  She looked around and leaned closer to me. “You mean that rich guy that messed with him?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, yeah.”

  “I know a little about it. He doesn’t talk about it. But hell, it’s an occupational hazard when you look like Marcus. It happens to a lot of guys like that.”

  “Rhody, that’s awful.”

  “I’m not saying he deserves it. I’m just saying I wasn’t surprised when I heard about it. We’ve got some weirdos in Oceanside.”

  “Okay, so like, if I offered him something, just kind of as a gift--”

  “What kind of something?”

  “It doesn’t matter, but--”

  “What, like a watch? Like a pony?”

  “No, Rhody, I did not offer a grown man a pony.”

  She looked at me with growing horror on her face. “Was it bigger? It wasn’t like a car or something, I hope.”

  “Why would a car be bad? I bought Harris a car for his birthday one year.”

  “Oh no,” she said, “you offered him a car?”

  “No! It wasn’t--”

  “Was it bigger than a car?”

  “Well, in theory, potentially bigger--”

  She gasped loudly and said, “A house? Did you offer him a house?”

  “No! Not that big! I just offered to help him with college. What? Why is that funny?”

  Her laughter was so loud, it was like a howl. “Wait, wait,” she said, trying to catch her breath, putting her hand on my arm to steady herself. “Marcus tells you about his trouble getting kept by a rich psycho dude and literally your first instinct is to offer him money? Holy shit, Sergio, do you even date human beings?”

  My eyebrows knitted with worry. “I don’t get it! Why is that bad?”

  She wiped her eyes. “Oh, god, you don’t get it? Seriously? I’m going to cry, you’re so dumb, I mean I love you, you’re smart, you’re sensitive, you’re an artist, but you may be the dumbest person I have ever met! How do you think it looks to him, having yet another rich guy offer to pay his way in exchange for a relationship?”

  “It’s not an exchange, though. He just needs help and I--”

  “No.”

  “I mean, I would never try to buy him--”

  “No.”

  Was she right? All I wanted to do was help him...could he have taken that the wrong way? Did he think I meant to buy him? How could he think something like that?

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “Go back to him right now, and de-offer the money! Take it back, and tell him you were stupid, and apologize!”

  I found him back in the room, cleaned up, dressed, and looking for me.

  “I think we need to talk about what happened,” I said.

  “We do.”

  That was a positive sign, at least. “It’s...weird,” I said. “I don’t usually have to have this many serious talks at the beginning of a relationship. But I feel like what I said was taken the wrong way.”

  There were three chairs near the window, and Marcus moved to one, propping his feet in another. Rather than looking at me, he looked out the window, far off to the horizon. “I was just shocked, I guess, when you said it. It’s like if I’d told you I was allergic to peanuts, and you’re all, That’s great, here’s a PB&J.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “When I was talking to Rhody a minute ago--”

  “You did what?”

  “I ran into her downstairs, and we just started talking about it.”

  Now he was looking at me, with an expression of incredulity that made my stomach sink. “Oh my god, Sergio, you have to quit doing that.”

  “But it’s just Rhody. She knows us. She--”

  “She is going to tell everyone our business,” he said, rising from the chair. He began pacing in front of the window.

  “She’s your friend!”

  “Of course she is. They’re all my friends. Sergio, that’s not the point. The point is, our friends all suck when it comes to keeping quiet. Everybody knows everything about everybody, and I don’t want them knowing about this!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

  “You really don’t understand, do you? If you understood anything I’d said about being the topic of gossip, you wouldn’t have said anything to her.” He was really worked up. His hands were clasped, pressed together until his knuckles were white. He wasn’t angry, but clearly in distress.

  “I don’t want to fight, Marcus.”

  “I don’t want to either! I’m not fighting! I’m just... Damn, Sergio, why won’t you listen?”

  “I really am sorry. Sorry that I told Rhody anything. But you know, she did make it clear why my offer went so badly with you.”

  “Oh, she had to explain to you why offering to buy me might’ve been a bad idea?”

  I shook my head. “There’s no need to be sarcastic. And I wasn’t offering to buy you. That’s not it at all. I think you know that, though, don’t you? I mean, what kind of person do you think I am? This isn’t a transaction, to me. It’s offering to help someone I care about. Other people never get a c
hance to do this. I thought you’d be excited.”

  “After hearing my whole life story back at the cliff, you thought I’d be excited. I don’t want your money, Sergio.”

  “Fine, do you want me to rescind the offer? Because I will. I do. No college for you. Is that better? No gifts? I’ll just keep all this stupid money that I never earned, that I did nothing to deserve. I wasn’t even born into it, it was just handed to me by the luck of being a cute adoptable kid. It was an unearned, unasked-for gift. And I guess I’ll just keep it.”

  “I understand you’ve got some issues about the money,” Marcus said. He’d at least stopped that pacing, but his back was to me, as he stared out the window.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. I found myself picking up a comb, rubbing my thumb over its teeth. Back to thinking with my hands, I guess.

  “The money is a curse,” I said. “People treat you so much differently when you have it.”

  “Better. They treat you better.”

  “That’s just it. Why? Why does it matter? I’m not a better person for it.”

  Now he turned and looked at me. There was something like sympathy in his eyes, for the first time in this conversation. I wanted to rush to him, I wanted to get entangled in his arms again. Maybe we could convince each other things were okay.

  His tone was quiet. “I think you’re wrong about that.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe I’m superior to anyone, because of the money.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Look, you’re an artist. I know you mostly do abstract stuff, but do you ever look at people’s faces? Seriously, deeply?”

  “All the time,” I said.

  “Do you notice how different rich people’s faces are, from the rest of us?”

  I really didn’t understand where he was going with this. I shook my head.

  “I don’t know how to describe it,” Marcus said, “but when I’m working tables, I know who’s rich and who’s not. It’s not the clothes, it’s not the order, it’s their bodies. It’s around the eyes, in the set of the jaw, in the way their shoulders look.”

  He approached me, and with a gentle hand on my shoulder, turned us towards the mirror.

  “Look at us,” he said.

  “We’re a handsome couple.”

  “No...look at us. If you were sculpting us, if you were doing a detailed, realistic sculpture...”

  I saw it. I didn’t want to see it, but I saw it. It’s something you always know is there, but you try not to think about it. Thinking about it seems discriminatory, unfair.

  Those little lines of worry around his eyes, even though he was a few years younger than me. Our shoulders...even though he was so built, and so physically confident, there was an ease in my posture that wasn’t in his.

  “You sort of train yourself not to see it,” I said finally. “Not consciously. But it’s like it’s impolite to notice.”

  “Your money has bought you a lack of stress that most of us will never be able to grasp,” he said. “You’ll never wonder if you might lose your apartment. You have so much control over your life.”

  I looked at his eyes in the mirror. “That’s the point. That’s what I’m offering you. I wasn’t trying to buy you, I was trying to...to...”

  “To save me. I know. That’s not any better, Sergio. If I need help, I’ll ask for it, but to just have something like this handed to me...it’s so complicated, and so full of misunderstandings and pitfalls.”

  I shook my head. “I’m just going to have to take your word for it. I don’t see it that way at all. That’s not how I meant it.”

  He sighed and put his arm around me. “I’m not asking for an apology or anything. I just need you to see. I need you to understand what it was like for me the last time someone offered me money, and how your offer would look to everyone we know. Even now, if Rhody tells anybody, it’s going to spread...and I’m going to be right back where I was a few years ago. Nobody believing in me. Nobody understanding that I’m working hard to make a life for myself. I’m not a parasite, Sergio.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  “I mean, you literally thought I was a few days ago.”

  “Oh. Yeah, but like, right now, I know better.”

  “Then don’t put me in a position where I look like one, okay?”

  I wanted to object. I wanted to defend myself, really. Not in a million years would I make Marcus look like a parasite. I wasn’t trying to take away his dignity or his self-reliance. I was trying to help. I mean, damn, he was unemployed! He needed help. And I really didn’t appreciate being treated like I was some sort of alien aristocrat.

  All the trouble with Harris had left me extremely sensitive to people trying to lie to me. It wasn’t even like I thought Marcus was lying, exactly, but maybe deliberately misconstruing my intentions? I mean, he knew I wasn’t trying to buy him. He knew that. Why would he think it?

  I don’t know. It just made me mad. Not furious, just this subterranean anger I didn’t know what to do with. I didn’t like the feeling at all. Luckily, I’m good at mashing down emotions that bother me. That’s probably why I was able to survive the relationship with Harris for so long. Probably why I managed not to get in fights with my family. Just push it all down, hide it away.

  Let Good Sergio be front and center. Troubled Sergio could go lurk in a dark corner of my mind where he wouldn’t cause any trouble. I pulled Marcus close and kissed him.

  “I promise to stop complicating your life,” I said to him.

  “Good,” said Marcus.

  “Except for the part where we have to get ready for tonight’s rehearsal and the dinner.”

  “See? Complicated.” But he squeezed me. “I know your heart’s in the right place.”

  18

  Marcus: Rehearse

  Sergio didn’t get it. I wasn’t even sure if he could get it. And that meant I had to make a decision: Was I okay burying my reaction to his wrongness, for the sake of getting along with him? Or should I pursue it, keep bringing it up, explain it more, until he got it...and risk our new little relationship?

  I wasn’t good at stuff like this. I like going out with guys, sleeping with guys, cuddling, watching movies, working out, the usual things you do with a boyfriend. Not having intense conversations about your past and how you want to be treated. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know anyone who likes to do that.

  Of course, the rehearsal made the decision for us, at least for a while. Yet again I was in borrowed clothes at Sergio’s insistence. It seemed like an okay compromise: You can give me this to wear, but can’t pay for college. I didn’t say that of course.

  I’d never been to a wedding rehearsal before. I hadn’t realized it would be like an actual rehearsal, with places to stand and someone telling you how fast to walk. It took us almost an hour to get it down, and chit-chat was highly discouraged. It reminded me of high school. And the whole time, I was getting more and more tense. Nat and Owen had invited a lot of people, and even though only the ones who would be in the ceremony tomorrow were here at rehearsal, that was still a lot of people who knew and had opinions about my business. We were shushed during rehearsal, but as we sat down for dinner afterwards, I began to feel very trapped. Rhody was a little ways down the table, and I looked at her, but couldn’t make eye contact; she knew exactly why things were tense between me and Sergio. Had she already told everyone?

  At least Hunter wasn’t here. Cal and Edgar sat across from one another at the table, glaring...they’d probably broken up again. So at least they wouldn’t combine their powers for gossip.

  I glanced over at Sergio, and he gave me a nervous smile. At least he was feeling this, too. Whenever anyone would look our way, I’d suddenly think: They know. Even if all our friends were now aware that we were together, I didn’t want them to know about our problem. Didn’t want them to know Sergio had offered me an insulting, demoralizing gift.

  How do you express everything
’s okay, don’t look at us, we’re fine? I thought back to Xavier, how we’d be out at dinner after one of our fights, and how he’d insist that I hang all over him, like a payment, a punishment for having gotten out of line.

  If I snuggled up to Sergio, would people think everything was okay, that we didn’t have any problems? Or would they think that Sergio had finally offered me the right price for affection?

  Here I was among friends, and I was suddenly as uncomfortable and alienated as I’d ever been among Xavier’s crowd. I didn’t know how to act, didn’t know what to say.

  I hadn’t felt like this in so long. Questioning every move and thought. I didn’t like it, not at all. I finished my first glass of wine and signaled for another. God, what if I sat here looking sullen and that was the signal to everyone that Sergio and I were having problems?

  I’d made it halfway to considering setting a fire in the men’s room to break up the party, when I heard the sharp ting of a knifeblade tapped against a wineglass. By instinct, we all turned towards the head of the table.

  Nat’s dad was rising from his seat. “Everyone, everyone, if I could have your attention for a moment.”

  His cheeks were red; I wasn’t sure if it was from the sun or from drinking, but the jaunty air about him suggested the latter. Sergio had told me about the incident with the mai tais, and was now scowling at the man. Meanwhile, Owen was whispering urgently to Nat, who looked shocked.

  “Now, Nat asked me not to make a speech. He said that sometimes I have a tendency to offend people, and that’s true. I’m not a young man anymore, and I’m not hip to the lingo that you homosexuals use--”

  “Oh my god, Dad!” said Nat.

  “--but I love my son, and we have grown quite fond of his gay lover Owen! And so I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the topic. Debbie showed me how to use The Google, and I’ve been visiting as many websites as I can to learn about it. For instance, I always thought that gays were good at science! I thought it was just something all of you naturally turned to, because when Nat was little, he’d always wear his mother’s housecoat, and when I’d ask him about it, he’d say it was his lab coat! Of course, that didn’t explain why he’d be wearing her jewelry too--”