Chapter 19
Nineteen
A few days later, I’m on a video call with a client when my cell flashes with an incoming call. From Toby.
A call. Not a text. It could be something urgent or an emergency. Is Luna okay? Did a pipe burst in the house?
“Deanna, can I put you on hold for one second?” I mute my sound and video and pick up the call before it goes to voicemail.
“Toby?”
“Kingston, hey. I’m coming to Manhattan tomorrow to visit the gallery. Should we get dinner or something after?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, just finalized the plan. I’m taking the train in. Figured I could take the train back after dinner with you. If you’re free.”
“Why don’t you stay over at my place and drive back with me Friday?” It’s not until I issue the invitation that I remember my apartment doesn’t have a second bedroom, just an above-average comfortable couch. “Then you won’t be in a rush.”
“Oh.” He sounds surprised. “Yeah, that would be better. I could see the Hockney exhibit at MOMA before coming home. I think I can take a day off work.”
“Great. So, I’ll see you tomorrow. Dinner.”
“I’ll leave the restaurant to you,” he says. “I know you’ll pick something fabulous.”
“I generally make everything fabulous,” I respond automatically.
“You do,” he says, his voice warm and intimate in my ear. “Until then.”
“Bye, Toby.”
I pull myself together and return to my call with Deanna. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. I think I have figured out the issue with the opening hook.” The author on the other end of the video call arches an eyebrow. “You look unusually happy.”
“What?” I glance at my video feed, the goofy smile on my face utterly unlike the usual sophisticated curve of my lips.
“Good news?” she asks.
“Ah.” Toby coming to the city, dinner plans with him, having him spend the night at my place. It’s almost like a date. Only it’s not. Only it could be. And apparently my mouth thinks it is, if my hokey smile is any indication. “Promising news.”
I have twenty-four hours to plan dinner, and it doesn’t seem like enough. I want it to be casual but nice, romantic but not too romantic. Maybe I should stop thinking about it as a date. Maybe I should call him and ask if it is a date. Maybe I should cancel. Maybe I should get a head check.
Problem is, I’d call Pete or Jack or even Van or Beck, but all of those happily paired-off gays are going to either tell me to be careful or go for it. Which are the two poles I’m already wildly swinging between.
Instead, I text my sister, someone who’s outside the drama of our somewhat incestuous group. Her dating experience isn’t huge—this is someone who’s been with her high school boyfriend ever since their eyes locked in third period Calculus. Gary is a good man, and I trust him with my sister, which is saying a lot.
But Luce knows me, and lately I’ve been having trouble trusting myself to be me.
Hey Luce, you free to talk?
She calls me while I’m looking at restaurant listings on my laptop.
“What’s up?” she asks. “The boys are in the bath, so I have to keep an eye on them or they’ll turn the bathroom into a lake.”
“How’s work?”
“Fine. It’s harder than I thought working half-time. Trying not to work too much. But mostly good.” Lucetta is a lawyer who took time off when the twins were born and has been working part time since they started school.
“And Gary?”
“He wants to buy a truck,” she says flatly.
“Doesn’t he have a truck?”
“This one is ‘special’—some kind of tow package thing he thinks he needs.”
“Well, he probably does,” I say, knowing how alluring vehicles can be.
“Don’t encourage him, please,” she says tartly. “How’s your work?”
“Busy, which is good. How’s Mom?”
“You know. She seems tired. But she’s fine. Didn’t you talk to her this weekend?”
I talk to her a couple of times a week at least. “Yeah, but it’s not the same as being there.”
“So come visit.”
“Yeah. Well.” The guilt bubbles up fresh in my chest. I can’t tell her that I put off the trip I’d been planning because I’ve been selfishly enjoying spending the time with Toby. “How about Thanksgiving?”
She doesn’t reply to that, instead in her most accusing little-sister voice says, “You met someone.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve been MIA and now you’re calling me to chat.”
“Can’t I chat with my baby sister?”
“You can. What do you want to talk about?”
I pause. She’s got me. “So, I think I mentioned this guy who’s staying in my house in Rosedale? Toby.”
“You mentioned him. He’s the one who broke up with his girlfriend and needed a place to stay.”
“Yeah. So. I think—I mean, I know how I feel about him. I’m into him. A lot. Like, from the moment we met, storybook stupid over him.” If anyone should understand being struck by Cupid’s arrow at first sight, it’s Luce.
“When he had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. So I told myself to get over it. But I haven’t. And he doesn’t have a girlfriend anymore. And we’re going to dinner tomorrow and I was thinking—maybe it could be a date? But if I ask him and he says no, is it going to be too weird? I don’t really want him to stop living with me.”
“Is this Toby person even interested in men?”
“Yes. He’s bi.”
“I guess that makes things a little easier.” She’s silent for a moment. “So you like him. A lot, whatever that means. You’re living with him part-time. You want to date him. But if he doesn’t want those things—you’d still want to give him a place to live? Don’t you think that’s kind of?—”
“Pathetic?”
“Unlike you, is what I was going to say. You normally don’t have trouble cutting off people who aren’t vibing with you anymore.”
“It’s not that easy. He’s a friend. He’s friends with my friends. There are stakes here, Luce.”
“And you want to know if you can risk telling him how you feel?” She whistles low. “I don’t know. Your life has more drama than Mom’s stories.”
“I’ve been so drama-free lately,” I insist. “I haven’t been dating at all.”
“Wow, you really like him. Is he hot?”
“He’s beautiful.”
“Pic?”
I pull up a photo I took of Toby, with his permission, cuddling Luna on the armchair in the living room a few weeks ago, his blond hair messy and rimmed with light coming through the window, his feet bare, the cat in his arms accentuating the lean lines of his muscles. He has a smudge of blue paint on his elbow and a smile on his face. I send it to her so she can see the trouble I’m in.
She whistles again. “Damn. Okay. I’m actually impressed you haven’t tried to get with him yet, honestly.”
“It’s not just about that.”
“Oh, Kingston.” She sounds almost sorry for me.
I sigh. “I’m deluding myself, aren’t I?”
“You’re going to have to decide what’s more important to you. Keeping him as a friend or being honest about what’s in your heart.”
It scares me that she thinks I can’t have both.
“Thanks, Luce.”
“Hey, if it works out, bring him with you to Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll let you know.”
But as I end the call, wake up my computer, and scroll through all the romantic bistros on the Upper West Side, I know that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to tell him how I feel. It’s too risky.
On the other hand, there is something I can offer him. I’ll bring it up at dinner, which we’ll have at some safe, well-lit place. And I’ll put fresh sheets on my bed for him while I sleep on the couch. He’s my friend. I’m not going to mess that up by pretending I can have it all.