Chapter 10 TARAN
It didn’t feel right to ask Diego to lunch with Mom while he was still thinking through the boyfriend idea.
Admittedly, it hurt at first when he said he wasn’t ready.
But then we had the baseball and LotR marathon weekend, which was perfect.
I mean, a little too much dissection of my brain from him, but otherwise ideal.
For one thing, I didn’t realize how those movies would hit, after three years without them.
Without Dad. It was good to remember him explaining why Frodo had compassion for Gollum, when I was just like, “Why doesn’t he get rid of him; he’s creepy?
” It was cool to remember him telling me it was okay to cry with the hobbits when Gandalf died, and that grief wasn’t something to be ashamed of.
I especially liked the memories about when, after I finally read the books, we sat and talked for hours about what the movies left out and what they put in and why and how we’d have done it.
That was the Ben Kovacs the football dads didn’t know: over-educated, well-read, emotionally sturdy.
On the sidelines, he might judge the coach and swear and brag, just like the rest of the parents, but he knew when to rein it in.
He’d reined in some of the other dads a few times, in fact.
He had a good job, a good family, living the dream; people respected him.
I felt a lot of confusion about that. All those good, sensible, responsible, even compassionate things about him.
The seemingly random vitriol toward gay people didn’t make fucking sense.
Had he known a gay person who was a complete prick in college?
Had he lost a girlfriend to a lesbian at some point?
Or was he really just regurgitating the same generic disgust and fear he’d grown up hearing?
So that I’d grow up hearing it. At first, not understanding, but then slowly realizing it was me he was talking about. That I not only wanted to kiss boys, but that I didn’t understand why it was so bad to kiss them in public, just like he kissed Mom.
Diego had been through the same shit. But he never had a choice to stay quiet, not really; he didn’t know how to be anyone but himself unless he was on stage.
And I’d loved him for it. If I was being real, I loved him for it now.
All romance, all sex, everything else aside, now that I knew him even better, I loved him even more.
I was pretty good at giving up control. At accepting that other people were gonna do what they were gonna do and I needed to take care of my own shit and nothing else.
I didn’t just let things happen to me, like I had as a kid.
Not anymore. But I tried to accept things when it became clear they weren’t up to me.
It wasn’t up to me if and when Diego agreed to the label I liked—or if he ever did, for that matter. But it was up to me to treat him like he deserved, never take him for granted, and even take care of him when he’d let me. That, I could do. And I was good at it, according to him.
It was more than enough. I’d never stop wanting more, but that didn’t mean I was unhappy. I was living the fucking dream.
Which is a long-winded way to say that my next Greek food lunch with Mom, the weekend after the Pirates-and-LotR weekend—didn’t include Diego. After we hugged and settled at our table, Mom said, “I haven’t heard from you since last week. I thought you’d call after the Pirates game.”
I flushed and ducked my head. “Sorry. Got a little crazy last weekend.”
“With Diego?” She arched an eyebrow.
I nodded, trying not to smile too much.
“I was hoping he’d come with you today,” she said.
“Still trying to take it slow,” I replied easily, in spite of it not being true at all in my mind. If Diego was taking it slow, great. I was all in, and he knew it, and if I ended up broken-hearted…
Worth it, at this point.
“Why is that, again?” she wondered.
“Everyone our age has plenty of war stories.”
“I was married for three years by the time I was your age,” she said with a little laugh.
“You saying I’m on the shelf?” I chuckled, throwing some Jane Austen at her.
She loved it, of course. “You’re just getting started, honey. Though If you do find a rich nobleman who’s looking for a husband…”
“Probably not.” Had to admit though, “I’m impressed. You adjusted to queering your jokes pretty fast.”
“Thank you.” She smiled genuinely. “I’m working on it. Not that it takes work to accept,” she added quickly.
“I get it,” I assured her. It was nice to think she’d actually tried to educate herself after last time had gone a little bit sideways. Best case scenario.
“Do you think Diego would ever get married?” she asked.
I laughed even harder. “Diego won’t even say I’m his boyfriend.”
“But you obviously are. You two are constantly together.”
“Not constantly. I mean, I tried it, but he’s way too smart to let me get codependent and weird this early on.”
“You’re a romantic,” she said, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Just like your father.”
She winced.
I smiled, though. “It’s okay. I want to talk about him.”
“He was such a feminist, you know. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”
I chuckled, because yeah, absolutely. “I’m sure.”
She sighed. “I think he was just… saying things he heard his whole life.”
“Partly,” I agreed. She’d clearly been thinking about it, though probably not as much as I had. “But there was a lot of, I don’t know, vitriol. Like, who has vitriol for Winnie the Pooh?”
“Winnie the Pooh?”
“Yeah, he had a high voice, like Mickey Mouse, so dad always sneered and called him a faggot.”
She blinked the word but recovered quickly. “Probably made him cry when he was a child. You know that’s why he wouldn’t watch Bambi?”
“I thought it was because he used to hunt.”
“He just said that.” She snorted.
“It’s funny, because I remember him telling me it was okay to cry. I mean, if I’d done it on the field, he probably would’ve told me to wait until we got home for that kind of thing, but still. Pretty progressive.”
“He felt everything very deeply.” Her smile grew sad. “It’s hard to know… I wish he was here.”
I nodded, unwilling to admit that, although I did too, there were also times that I knew goddamn well my life was easier right now because he was gone. “Grief fucking sucks,” I said with a sigh.
“It really fucking sucks, yeah.” She gave a surprised little laugh. “I don’t know if you can find peace with him right now. But just know that I support you, and I do not excuse anything he said that hurt you. That still hurts you.”
I nodded, face getting hot. “I know.”
“Well, I might’ve said too much last time, in my haste to defend. And then in my ignorance.”
I smiled. “Maybe.”
“And I regret it. And I’m sorry.”
And here I was, brooding like a damn teenager. “Thanks. I mean it.”
“Me too. So bring Diego over for dinner. ASAP.”
***
Finally, I replied to Jennie:
Sorry for taking so long. Wasn’t sure how to answer and wanted to think it through.
I didn’t know how to say, I’m also attracted to men, out of the blue.
Instead I just never hid it, which I now understand seemed like me humoring you, not genuine attraction.
I tried to find the easy, comfortable way out and it failed.
After a few minutes of the bubbles appearing and disappearing, she replied:
Jennie
It’s not my business, and you don’t owe me anything, I know. My mother said I was crazy for coming at you like that. Aarti disagreed, but that was my red flag.
Her best friend, Aarti, lived for drama. Hers, other peoples’, celebrities’; didn’t matter. That made me chuckle, anyhow.
You’re not crazy. You’re not wrong either. I wish I’d said it just to get it out there on our first date. I will from now on, regardless of what gender I’m dating.
So you’re bi?
Queer of some kind. Bi/pan/idk.
OK.
How long have you known?
High school.
When you met that guy? What’s his name?
Diego. Yeah.
The bubbles did the appearing and disappearing thing for a while. Then she said:
He’s hot.
I laughed out loud and typed back:
I’ll tell him you think so.
It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I felt good about the conversation after the fact.
I stopped by to see Diego at work that day, since it was early on a Wednesday. I told him about it, then showed him the messages.
He shook his head and said, “Hope you didn’t do that because of me.”
“I get where she was coming from. I didn’t owe her an explanation, but I wanted to give her one.
” It was no skin off my back, and if it answered a burning question for her, hey, why not?
Besides, I did wish I’d said something. I wished I’d said something to everyone I’d dated or gotten remotely close since college, at the very least.
“I can’t get over how chill you are about someone you thought you were gonna marry cheating on you.” He shook his head and handed my phone back.
I shrugged. “I wasn’t at first, believe me.”
“I do.” He cocked his head and squinted, as if trying to see through me. Or impersonating a forest bird of some kind. Hard to tell, with Diego. “But compared to me, this stuff is like water off a duck’s back for you. I envy it big time.”
“Starting to think it just deflects the damage off me and inflicts it on everyone else,” I admitted.
He smiled. “You made it up to me.”
“Did I?” I smiled too.
He licked his lips. “Did I?”
I chuckled, and Bryn brought me something that looked suspiciously like an old fashioned. “Heard you’re a whiskey guy.”
“Sure am.” I accepted gratefully.
“My gift to you. Can you come out after work tonight?” they asked.
“Me?” I wondered.
“I knew you were too pretty to be smart,” they said with a little smile.
Diego laughed. “Don’t let the face fool you; I would’ve repeated eleventh grade if not for his big brain.”
“Not quite.” But I smirked because I had worked really, really hard to get Diego to like me in that chemistry class, it was true.
“We’re going to The Firebrand after.”