Chapter Thirty-Two
He rang the doorbell at eight, standing on the step looking stylish and stoic. Smiled, when I expressed surprise he was up so early; tight-lipped, when I asked how things with his parents had been that morning.
“I thought I’d help you pack,” he said, instead of an answer.
Perhaps I was a coward, but I allowed myself to believe it was easier, kinder, to let him tell me in his own time.
Seeing him interact with my parents - laughing and joking with them - made it difficult to think there could be something weighing on him, anyway. Most of his “helping” amounted to chatting with them while I stuffed a few things into boxes.
“I’ll be back in a couple of days, so it’s not like this is goodbye, or anything.”
My mom gave me an amused look. “You talk about it as though you’re joining the French Foreign Legion, honey. Even when you move out properly, you’ll still be down the road.”
“Three or four hours down the road,” I pointed out.
She laughed. “Who are you trying to reassure, here? Us, or yourself?”
I bit my lip, and hugged her, and then my dad who’d been listening and seemed similarly entertained. Then watched as they hugged Flynn, too.
“He’ll call you, when we get there,” he promised them.
Mom tapped him on the arm, playfully. “Don’t you start. A text message is fine.”
And then suddenly we were in Flynn’s SUV, on the highway, and I wasn’t sure why I had tears in the corners of my eyes but I did.
I could feel his flickering glances, as I watched the road ahead.
“I don’t know if I should be reassuring you, or distracting you, or jerking you off.”
I spluttered with surprise, then elbowed him in the arm. “Focus on the driving, asshole.”
“Wow, not even the offer of a little road-head? Chivalry truly is dead.”
He was ridiculous, but it had done the trick. I knuckled my eyes, then half-turned in the seat, so that I could look at him better. “So, what happened with your parents this morning?”
Flynn made a face. “Do we have to talk about this, now?”
“What happened to ‘they don’t have to like it, we just need to know either way’?” I was paraphrasing, but I felt like that was probably close enough. “Had she told your dad?”
A nod.
“And was he okay with it? Or angry as well?”
A shrug.
“For fuck’s sake, Flynn!”
He grunted annoyance. “Fine! Fucking hell. It was... horrible. Polite, and quiet, and horrible. Like we were strangers, sharing a hotel breakfast table. So I came over to your place, instead.”
I blinked at him. “You just left?”
“I mean, I shouted goodbye.”
Swallowing the urge to tell him that probably hadn’t helped matters - a fact I was sure Flynn undoubtedly knew - I drummed my fingers on my leg, instead.
Unable to shed the feeling that this was all my fault, really.
That, had I not visited the city, and responded to William’s message, and gone over to their apartment, all of this would not have happened.
Flynn would still most likely be dating his ex, or maybe not, but either way he’d have felt little requirement to come out to his family.
“You’re trying to decide how you can blame yourself for all this, aren’t you.”
His question shook me from my spiraling. I frowned, wondering if I’d inadvertently said something out loud, or if Flynn simply had a mind-reading talent I’d never known about.
“It’s just so... complicated,” I grumbled.
He made a face. “Is it? Or does it really just come down to ‘some people are assholes about this stuff,’ and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”
“You’re being very balanced about all this.”
“I’ll give you a heads-up before I have a breakdown.”
I laughed, even though it wasn’t really all that funny.
#
We’d been driving for not much more than two hours, when the phone rang. “MOM that whichever of his parents had called was now listening to his voicemail message.
“Hey there, son.”
Flynn’s dad. He was a nice man, albeit a quiet one. I’d never been sure whether that was a learned response to his talkative wife, or what made them compatible in the first place.
“Hey, dad.”
I nudged him in the arm.
“You’re on speakerphone, by the way,” Flynn added, cutting his eyes at me. “Oli’s in the car.”
He cleared his throat. “Ah. Well. Hello, Oliver.”
“Hey, Mr Cunningham.”
Silence, again. I looked over at Flynn, wondering what his expression would be. From the blank look facing the highway ahead, I figured he was treating this as just another hotel breakfast.
“Look, your mother and I, well... we’re very proud of you. Of everything you’ve accomplished. Even if sometimes we might be... slow, to catch up with you, perhaps.”
Flynn sighed. “You don’t need to ‘catch up’ with me, dad. I’m gay, Oli and I are dating, we’re going to live together. It’s not a negotiation, or a topic up for discussion. It’s just the facts, and you can either accept that, or...”
The unspoken alternative hung in the air. Filling the car, and I figured doing the same at the other end of the line. A threat and a prediction, all in one.
“Indeed,” Flynn’s dad said.
There was a scraping sound, a loud rustling. And then a change of voice.
“Do Oliver’s parents know?” His mom’s question.
“They do, Mrs Cunningham,” I answered. “Though only as of this week, too.”
“I’m sure they were surprised.”
“I think so,” I agreed. “Plus the news that I was moving out.”
A noise. It was, I thought, the sound of her sucking her teeth.
“That’ll certainly be a shock for them, yes. I mean, Flynn’s father and I, we’ve been through all that before, of course. But your parents haven’t had that experience.”
I glanced at Flynn, who rolled his eyes. If there was one thing almost guaranteed to drag his mother out of a funk, it was the potential for her to lord how much better she was handling it over someone else.
My parents would, I figured, take one for the team if it made life easier for Flynn and me.
“I’m sure they’d appreciate any support you could give them, Mrs Cunningham.”
She tutted to herself, as though ‘reassuring poor Oliver’s poor family’ was being added to the long list of good deeds that filled her days.
“You can’t change this, mom,” Flynn said. “This is just the situation, the way it is. I told you because I want you to know, I want both of you to know. And I’d like you to be happy, for Oli and I.”
I could imagine them both at the other end, the phone tilted between them. Flynn’s dad undoubtedly waiting to hear what his wife’s verdict might be.
“You know we only ever want you to be happy,” she said, finally.
Flynn nodded, even though they couldn’t see him. “And I am happy. Oli makes me happy.”
A beat.
“Well, we’ll see you boys this weekend, then. I hope you’re driving safely.”
It was an astonishing rally, I decided: a masterclass in reading the situation, weighing your priorities, and then pivoting as though this had all been your intention in the first place. Flynn’s mom was genuinely terrifying.
“I am, mom, don’t worry. But I’m gonna focus on the road, now. I love you guys, okay?”
“We love you, too. And Oliver?”
“Yes, Mrs Cunningham?”
“We’ll look forward to catching up with you properly at the weekend. I’m sure there’s a lot to hear about.”
Somehow, that prospect felt even more terrifying than Flynn’s parents disapproving of us being together. My mouth was oddly dry.
“Uh, I’d like that, Mrs Cunningham. See you soon.”
“Bye,” Flynn added, and then clicked off the call.
I deflated in the chair.
“You look distraught,” he said, glancing between me and the traffic building around us.
I sighed, somehow both relieved and overwhelmed. “Y’know, I think I’ll take that handjob now.”