Chapter 9
9
I n the weeks that followed Peter worked incessantly. He traveled nonstop and called me intermittently to check in. He sounded exhausted and preoccupied, which made any real conversation difficult. I found myself doing a comedy routine instead to make him laugh. I told him silly over-embellished stories about office antics to entertain him. It was effective on one hand, but I would hang up feeling empty and terribly lonely.
Something had to change, and it was apparent it had to be me.
I didn’t know how to cope other than to try to act normal. I failed miserably, and my friends knew immediately that things were upside down. They tried to cheer me up with movie nights and dinners in an effort to keep me from spending too much time alone. They were sweet diversions, but I had to figure this out myself.
Two weeks after our trip to Rehoboth I was offered a position at a small, boutique lobbying firm in the city. I accepted it immediately and gave my notice. Rebecca cried when I told her I would be moving on, and even Mel got a little teary-eyed. I made arrangements to leave Jackson and Burnell as soon as my current project wrapped up, which meant I had one week left on the job.
Peter, of course, was out of town. He hadn’t been to the office since our beach trip at all. I had started and stopped myself from telling him about leaving the firm a couple of times. I wasn’t sure why.
He called me the evening of my going-away party. He was in Los Angeles on business and didn’t have much to say other than to give me his itinerary. The conversation was distant and awkward. I didn’t have it in me to infuse gaiety and life into our usual banter. It all seemed too hard. I had tears in my eyes when I hung up.
It was over. I needed to make it through this party, then cut all ties to this office. Including Peter. There was no sense pretending and frankly, it was too fucking painful. I wasn’t a good game-player. I didn’t understand his rules, nor could I read him. I had tried and I had failed. All I felt now was desperately unhappy.
My coworkers all assumed my melancholy had to do with my departure. They bought round after round of drinks and toasted me with wishes of great success at my new job and in life in general. No one seemed to notice I wasn’t drinking much. They partied on around me while I nursed one drink all evening with a plastic smile painted on my face.
Something was certainly wrong when Jay Reynolds didn’t enjoy his own party. All I wanted was to go home, fall into bed, and wake up with a new start and a clear focus.
Aaron met me at my house later that night. He was opening my front door just as I pulled my car up. I sat for a minute, gathering the strength to deal with his questions, his anger. I knew he hated seeing me in the depressed state I’d wallowed in over the past few weeks. I tried to shake that heavy feeling for his sake. It wasn’t fair for him to have to deal with my moods. In the end, I didn’t have to deal with anything.
He took one look at me and wrapped me in his arms. I gave in and cried on his shoulder until I literally had nothing left in me. I fell asleep in Aaron’s lap with him running his fingers soothingly through my hair, whispering sweet platitudes over and over.
“Don’t worry, Jaybird. Everything will be just fine, honey. I’m here.”
He stayed with me that night. I wished more than ever that we could be right for each other. I loved Aaron with all my heart, but he wasn’t the man for me. I thanked him and kissed the top of his head as he left for his own apartment in the morning to get ready for work.
I curled up on my sofa later the following day with a book and a big glass of wine. I had kept myself busy on my first day of freedom with trips to the gym and the grocery store and phone calls to my family. I planned to visit them the next weekend. The need to surround myself with people and places that were comforting and familiar was almost physical. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have hopped in my car right then.
A loud knock at the door jolted me from my thoughts and nearly had me spilling my glass of chardonnay on my sofa. I figured it had to be Aaron or Katie checking on their poor sad-sack friend, so I pasted a smile on my face and stupidly opened the door without looking to see who was standing on the other side.
It was Peter.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Huh?”
He looked keyed up and more than a little pissed. He’d obviously come straight from work. However, he didn’t look as cool and composed as he usually did.
“I went to the office today and was told that I’d missed a great going-away party for Jay Reynolds. I was sure there had to be a mistake. But no… everyone assured me it was Jay. You know, the tall, dreamy guy who’s always making the receptionists laugh. The one who knows everyone’s name, who they’re married to, dating, or interested in.” He paused, resting his hand above his head in the doorway. It was a gesture that should have come across as nonchalant, but instead made him look tense. “I still didn’t believe it until I checked your office. It was empty.”
Peter rubbed his neck absently in a sure sign of agitation. I realized I hadn’t seen him do that in some time.
“Can I come in?”
“Sorry. Yes. Um… can I get you something to drink? Water? I was just having a glass of wine, and I?—”
“Jay, stop.” His tone was sharp with frustration.
I nodded slowly. He followed me to the living room where I curled back into the corner of my sofa. He sat across from me in a parlor chair that looked much too small for his large body. I wanted to break the thick tension and say something funny about him looking like Alice in Wonderland, but I refrained. We stared at each other for a long moment.
“I got a new job.”
“I figured. I didn’t know you were looking.” He looked hurt.
“I meant to tell you but….” I let the words fade, not sure if I were brave enough to continue.
“But what? You forgot? It slipped your mind?” He let out a humorless chuckle and combed his fingers through his hair before he gave me that intense look of scrutiny he was so damn good at. “Tell me what’s going on, Jay. I need to know.”
I became unnerved as a charged stillness settled between us. I picked up the pillow next to me and hugged it to my chest protectively.
“I can’t do this anymore, Peter.”
Silence.
“Do what exactly?” He licked his top lip in an uncharacteristically nervous manner.
“This. I… I have a feeling…. No. Actually, I know that we don’t want the same things, and I can’t pretend to be happy anymore about our… arrangement.”
It hurt to breathe, but at least I got the words out. Now he knew where I was coming from. Except, when I looked over at him, it was apparent that he had no clue what the fuck I was saying. He asked exactly that question.
“Peter… fine. Fuck, okay!” I stood up with a sudden burst of anxious energy, threw the pillow aside, and began to pace around my small living area. “I can’t do this casual fuck buddy thing anymore. I can’t be your friend with benefits. It’s not… me. I want….”
“What?” Peter stood and gently took my hand in his. It was such a sweet gesture that I found myself wanting to cry. “What do you want?”
“I want everything, Peter.” I willed him to understand so I wouldn’t be forced to bare my soul, but he looked clueless. “I made a mistake when I said I could be casual. I can’t. I don’t know how to not….”
“Not what? You’re freaking me out. What are you trying to say?”
“I love you.”
Fuck. No, please God, don’t let me have just said that out loud . A glance at the shocked man in front of me told me my prayer had gone unanswered.
“I’m sorry. It’s not your problem. It’s mine. I understand that you don’t feel the same things for me that… actually, that’s not true… I think you do feel the same way about me, only I think you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t have a normal relationship or that you don’t want it. Unfortunately, Peter, I do. I want it all. I’m a greedy bastard at the end of the day. I want the man I’m with to want me the same way I want him. I want our lives to complement each other. And I sure as hell don’t want to be a casual, secret fuck buddy. I think we’re more than that, but….”
“We are. You know we are.” He looked away from me and massaged his neck again absently.
“What am I, then?”
He looked back at me carefully as though weighing his words.
“You matter to me, Jay. You have to know that.”
“I do know that. But what am I? Who am I to you? Am I your friend? Is that all I’ll ever be? Will I be a version of Jack someday? Will you run into me with some new young lover one day and say, ‘That’s a guy I used to care about.’ Or will you admit to yourself that maybe ‘that’s the guy I couldn’t commit to’?”
I knew by the look in his eye that I’d struck a nerve. He seemed equal parts embarrassed and angry.
“You don’t know anything about?—”
“No, I don’t. Because you won’t tell me. You tell me pieces and leave me to figure the rest out. And… I’m terrible at it. I speak a simple language, Peter. I don’t understand what I can’t see plainly, so I need words.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. What do you want me to say? What words do you want from me?”
“Peter….” I tried to choose my words carefully, but I was upset and frustrated. “Look, I’ve been accused of not being able to see what’s right in front of me sometimes. I accept that may be true at times, and I’ve tried not to read too much into situations, knowing that I’m often incorrect. But I can’t do that with you… not anymore.”
“So you’re saying I’m unclear. Is that it?” He took a deep breath and even smiled a little as though pleased that he finally understood me.
“You’ve clearly told me we’re friends. I’m clearly telling you I want more.”
A cloak of silence covered the room. I could hear the wail of a siren somewhere outside in the distance. It was somehow fitting, I mused.
“Okay. We can try that.”
“What?”
Peter licked his lips nervously and paced around me.
“We can try to be more. To each other.”
“No.”
“You just said….”
“No. You don’t understand. I’m not giving you an ultimatum. I’m setting you free.”
Peter’s expression was incredulous and confused.
“Jay… wh…? You told me you….”
“I do. I wish we could be something amazing together, but you’re stuck somewhere in the past with complications you can’t seem to shake.” I swallowed, suddenly afraid I might cry. “I want you, Peter. But I need something less complicated. Someone who’s sure he loves me… not just willing to give it a try.”
Silence.
Only the noise of that faraway siren penetrated my four walls. Peter looked terribly uncomfortable. He didn’t know how to answer, and he didn’t like it. Instantly deflated, I plopped back down on the sofa.
“I’m not sure what to say.”
He didn’t move a muscle, but waves of tension rolled off of him as he struggled for control, for a solution, or a graceful exit strategy. I didn’t know where his head was but it was easy to see that he was upset. I stared at him helplessly. I wanted to offer consolation or maybe just change my mind entirely and try. Try what, though?
“Good-bye.”
“I don’t want to say good-bye.” Peter clenched his jaw anxiously. “Jay… I’m not ready to say good-bye.”
“Please, Peter. Just go.”
He stared at me for a long moment before he sighed deeply and walked back to the door. I didn’t watch him leave. I couldn’t. But the sound of the door opening and closing softly felt like a physical blow. I bit the inside of my lip in an effort to keep myself from falling apart. It didn’t work.
Peter called me every day in the days that followed. It was as though he purposefully ignored our last conversation. I never picked up the phone, but he always left a message.
“Hi. I was thinking about you. I’m out of town but… call me. Please, Jay. Let’s just talk.”
“Jay, it’s me. I’m back home, and I thought I’d see if you felt like grabbing something to eat. Or we could talk. Call me.”
There were countless messages asking me to call him. His voice was low and sounded… different, off. I told myself not to listen, that I was torturing myself needlessly, but I couldn’t help it. I even picked up the phone once but quickly hung up. I ended up with a migraine headache that night. I was a mess. My friends had been worried about me before I’d broken things off with Peter, but now they were seriously alarmed.
Once I started my new job, I thought I might be turning a corner. I hoped the cooler temperatures and changing colors of the autumn leaves might signify a new start for me too. Unfortunately, I got what I wanted at my new firm… a lower-stress environment with a lighter workload, which in my current state, equated to too much time to think.
Two weeks after I was hired I was assigned my first project. I threw myself into it, and no doubt came across as a total kiss-ass overachiever to my coworkers. One of the legal counsels was an African American woman named Monique, who gave me one of those head-to-toe once-overs that spoke volumes.
“So it’s gonna be like that, hmm? I’m not staying here all damn night and day because the new boy’s got something to prove.” She used a head bob to emphasize her point.
I laughed and promised to tone it down, but I didn’t want to go home either.
“Hey, cutie. There’s a pretty lady here to see you. It may be about your project, but I don’t know.” My new secretary, Charlene, was nothing like Rebecca and would never in a million years have been hired at Jackson and Burnell, but her gum-popping busybody attitude was a refreshing change in a way. “She’s in the small conference room, sugar.”
Charlene winked at me and spun on her six-inch heels in a surprisingly graceful move. I had a feeling she had a crush on me, and I hated that at some point I was going to have to do the “office coming out” thing. I sighed and pushed away from my desk to go meet my visitor.
The small conference room was aptly named. It was in fact tiny. I opened the door slowly, knowing that I could be in serious danger of hitting whomever was sitting at the little table on the other side if I wasn’t careful. The red sole of a woman’s high-heeled Louboutin shoe made my heart skip a beat. It could have been the shoe itself because I was a sucker for well-made accessories, but I had a feeling this was a personal caller and not one of my new clients doing a quick stopover from the Department of Energy.
I was correct. It was personal. It was Kelly.
“Hey.” She stood in the cramped quarters and gave me a wan smile.
“Hi. Um….” I really had no idea what to say, which wasn’t like me at all. I could usually bullshit my way out of and around most situations. My ex-friend with benefits’ best friend stopping by my office unexpectedly was a new one, though.
“I would have called, but I didn’t know if you’d see me, and I….”
“Of course I….” I cleared my throat and took the office chair next to hers. “How can I… help, I guess? I’m assuming this has to do with Peter.”
Damn. It hurt to say his name out loud. I heard my voice catch and hoped Kelly was none the wiser.
“Yes. Look…. He doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. And truly, you may have a completely different perspective, so I’m taking a chance that maybe you feel the same way he does….” Her voice drifted as she made eye contact. She was a beautiful woman, but I could see the anguish in her lovely features. Her mouth was drawn, and her luminous eyes had dark circles under them.
“What way is that?”
“He’s in love with you, Jay.”
My breath caught audibly. I swallowed hard in an effort to keep my composure or at least some facsimile of calm. Kelly’s smile reached her eyes this time.
“He is. The problem with him is… well, honestly, he has a few….” We both chuckled nervously, enjoying a moment of like-minded thought. “Peter’s….”
“Complicated?”
“Yes. But has he… did he share any of his family stories with you? I’m….” She looked terribly uncomfortable suddenly.
“Kelly, why are you here? Is it really to tell me Peter had it rough as a kid and I should reconsider reprising my role of friend with benefits and give the guy a break?”
“No. I’m here because my best friend needs me. He doesn’t know in this instance perhaps that he needs me… but that’s neither here nor there.” She sighed and bit her lips thoughtfully before continuing. “Jay, he told me you broke things off with him, and he even shared that you wanted a real relationship. I understand that whatever happened between you is your business, I’m not trying to assert myself, but I want you to have a little backstory because I know he won’t give it on his own. Or if he does, he won’t explain why it matters. If it makes a difference… great. If not, then at least you know.” She shrugged.
I looked away from her, not sure how I felt about her telling me anything about Peter. If I was to move on, I had to shed these feelings… not mull over whys and what ifs. It wasn’t healthy. Unfortunately, my mother raised a gentleman, so I turned back to face Kelly and gave her a weak grin.
“We met in junior high….”
Oh for fuck’s sake! I couldn’t go through his whole damn life story again. I just couldn’t take that kind of punishment. I held up a hand to stop her.
“Kelly, no offense, but please… tell me what you really think I need to know. He told me about meeting you as a teenager.”
“His mom wanted us to get married. Did he tell you that? Knowing Peter, I bet he told you she had a problem with him being gay when he eventually came out, which believe me… she did. She went off the deep end. But did he mention that she told her whole family back in Italy that he and I were engaged? That’s how confident she was in our eventual nuptials. She was so sure and frankly, so damn Catholic, that she only saw what she wanted to see. We were close friends, yes, but we were never….”
“He told me.”
“Good. I mean, even before he came out and he had girlfriends, I wasn’t one of them. Maybe that’s why we’re still friends. His mom thought every girl was a placeholder until he proposed to me. So when he came out, she went nuts. At first, she was sure he was suffering from exhaustion or was sick. It wasn’t until she saw him with Jack that she began to realize her baby boy was serious. The problem once she understood that he was telling the truth was that, well… he was no longer perfect. And trust me when I tell you, Francesca thought Peter hung the moon. She doted on him and was extremely proud of his accomplishments. He was a good student. A Division I athlete.” She paused for a moment. “She turned him away when he came out. She told the same boy she’d told his entire life how wonderful, handsome, intelligent, and fabulous he was… how evil, disgusting, and unworthy he was.”
She took a bottle of water from her large, expensive handbag. I wanted to apologize for not offering her one, but I didn’t want to divert her attention.
“He had a crush on Jack.” I was confused by her switch from Peter’s mom to his former lover. “When they first got together, Peter had just come out; Jack was a lifeline for him in a way. He is my brother and I adore him, but Jack and Peter… they were just wrong for each other.”
“I thought they were together for five years. They couldn’t have been that wrong.”
“No. But they were always friends first and….” She didn’t have to say a word. They were friends with benefits. “The reason I think Peter got together with Jack was to get back at his mom. If you think about it, it was the perfect ‘fuck you.’”
“Because she wouldn’t accept that he wouldn’t be with you, he went for your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s….”
“I know it sounds weird, but he was young and Jack hadn’t really given him the time of day when we were in high school. But damn, when Peter came out at twenty-two… he was insanely handsome. Jack didn’t resist any overtures then. They were okay together for a while. They were friends and Jack helped him become a little more comfortable with himself as a gay man, you know?”
“Sure. That makes sense. What does any of this have to do with now, though? I’m not trying to be rude, but….”
“You aren’t. Jack and Peter were never going to be a long-term thing. That isn’t really news to anyone who knows them both. But it wasn’t because Peter wasn’t capable of loving or committing or whatever else he’s tried to tell himself. It was because they weren’t compatible. On top of it, I don’t know if you were raised in a religious household or not….”
“No, lapsed Protestants.”
“Well, Peter may not be a practicing Catholic now, but he wars with the church’s doctrines. He wars with good and evil. Don’t get me wrong… he doesn’t buy into oppressive bullshit when it comes to other gay people. He bought that damn club to—” She stopped suddenly as though she’d said too much.
“Why did he buy the club, Kelly? He always just said it was a good investment.”
“Yes, it was or has been. He wanted a safe place for gay people to meet, party, or whatever. He started making more money than he could spend, and it was something for us all to do together. And again… it was another….”
“Fuck you to his mom?”
“Exactly. We’re about to sell it. He’s worried about the market taking a turn, and he’s… well, he’s less angry now than he used to be. He’s on better terms with his parents. He loves his work too. There is one thing missing, though.”
“Kel….”
“He’s afraid, Jay. He might not ever admit it, but he is. You’re the first. I’ve known him forever, and I’ve never seen him laugh like he does when he’s with you. I’ve never seen him so happy. I… don’t want him to let you get away.”
Her eyes were wet with tears. I wanted to reassure her that it would all be okay, but my heart was in my throat. There was a very big problem here, and she didn’t seem to see it clearly.
“Kelly. I told Peter how I felt about him. I know he has feelings for me, but… he isn’t ready for anything more, and I’m not going to push him. It would be wrong and eventually he’d resent me. Thank you for coming by.”
I stood up. I knew I was being rude and abrupt but there was no reason to keep talking about something neither of us could do anything about. Peter was complicated. True. But I couldn’t wait around for him to change if he wasn’t ready.
Kelly nodded and stood also. She leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
I watched her walk out of the room and down the short hallway before I closed the door and willed my hands to stop shaking and my heartbeat to slow. What was it about Peter Morgan that had turned my world upside down? So much had changed in less than a year.
From the moment I was assigned to work under him, I’d been through an emotional wringer. Infatuation, hate, grudging admiration, and lust had led me to love and finally, heartbreak. Nothing was the same for me. I didn’t even work in the same place any longer.
I had been guilty of assuming I knew him based on what I could see with my own eyes, or later, based on what he told me in his own words. However, it seemed the real truth lay somewhere in between. Maybe loving someone was about giving yourself up to chance entirely and accepting that you can’t always know everything about him. Maybe it’s about faith.
Peter’s relationship with his family or a past lover wasn’t important. Those relationships may have shaped who he was today, but they meant nothing if he wasn’t willing to take a chance on the future.
It was up to him.