Chapter Twenty-Six
“Indira’s a friend of mine. They haven’t advertised the job yet, but she’s willing to arrange an interview over the phone for this week, and if that goes well, you can fly out here and meet her in person,” his sister said through the receiver as Sam lay on his back on the foldout cot, his phone pressed to his ear.
It was Sunday evening, and he’d spent the whole day despondent in his bedroom, avoiding his parents and only venturing downstairs for food.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t mention anything about your little menty b. ”
“Wow, how thoughtful.”
Sam stared at the cabinet of tiny storage containers, each shade of sequins painstakingly arranged from light to dark.
He felt unbearably sad. In the space of twenty-four hours, he’d reverted to the starting line, all the progress of the past few months erased.
He kept replaying the conversation with Connor in his head, and his chest ached every time he remembered the way Connor’s hand had dropped from his arm—like Sam had scalded him.
After arriving home from the disastrous awards ceremony, Sam had been gripped by a moment of clarity.
Having spent weeks discussing healthy boundaries with Louise, Sam realized that by continuing to hide his relationship with Connor, he was putting his hard-won recovery in jeopardy.
Maybe if he were stronger, maybe if he didn’t have a history of deferring his own happiness where others were concerned, they could have made it work.
But he was terrified of losing his voice again.
He just hadn’t expected protecting himself would hurt so much.
“I don’t know,” Sam hedged. “I’m not the biggest fan of Chicago.”
He’d texted his sister in a moment of desperation, asking if her offer still stood.
In true Georgia fashion, she’d taken it to mean full speed ahead.
She’d tapped into her professional network and lined up an interview for him with a local marketing agency.
It was the kind of opportunity he would have jumped at in the past, yet the thought of returning to another version of his old job made his whole body tighten.
“What’s not to like? I bet it’ll pay more than your Austin gig,” Georgia said. “And the city’s a gay mecca. You should feel sorry for me trying to find a man who’s not into dick.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you.” Even contemplating the existence of other men was painful. Not when all he wanted was Connor.
“Compared to Oakdale, Chicago’s fucking Xanadu. Or have you forgotten the hell you lived through?”
Sam stilled. He and his sister had never really spoken about that time—the years of relentless torment and the isolation of being the only queer person in their small-town social circle. “Honestly, I’m surprised you noticed.”
There was an unexpected pause. “Oh, I noticed. How could I not? I saw what it did to you. Thankfully, you had the sense to get out the first chance you got. We had that in common, at least.”
The rabid focus on his job prospects made more sense now. The links to openings in Boston, San Francisco, New York. It wasn’t so much his career Georgia was worried about but him losing his ticket out. She didn’t want him here.
“Can you imagine if we’d stayed?” she scoffed. “I’d probably be married to some tractor salesman with a horde of kids by now.”
Sam thought of Brian and his young family. Maybe it wasn’t the most glamorous undertaking, but it was just as important. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Having a family is a perfectly valid choice.”
“And what choices do you think you’d have? Show me a gay man in Oakdale who isn’t closeted or living with his parents.”
Right for the jugular. He smarted, unable to come up with a clever retort. Yet something niggled at the back of his mind. What about Felix? Even when presented with a buffet of choices, Sam had still picked wrong.
“Okay, look, Georgia. I’ll do the phone interview and see how I feel. But no promises.”
“Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor. I’m just trying to help Mom and Dad. They didn’t spend all these years busting their asses to look after you in their old age.”
“That’s so considerate,” he said sweetly, her barbs missing their mark. He was onto Georgia and her protective hostility. “What would we do without you?”
His sister hung up, and Sam dropped his phone face down on the bed.
He rolled onto his side and let out a heavy sigh.
He wasn’t ready to go yet, at the same time, felt like he’d overstayed his welcome—however tenuous that had been.
He’d thought coming home would help him recenter, but Sam felt more muddled than ever.
“What exactly do you want, Sam? Have you thought about that?” There had been a forceful look on Connor’s face when he’d spoken those words, almost as if issuing a challenge.
Sam had no clue what he wanted. But working at Finnegan’s, working with Connor, had felt good—if his grasp of the concept was to be trusted.
Granted, it wasn’t what he’d imagined for himself, but it was the calmest he’d felt in a long time, the anxious clouds briefly parting to give him a glimpse of the sky.
Sam rubbed a hand across his face. He picked up his phone and brought up the company’s Instagram page.
He clicked on the most recent image of Connor peering into a meter box, the top button of his work polo undone at Sam’s insistence.
Connor sported a slightly exasperated smile as though he knew how corny this all was but was going along with it because he was a good sport.
Sam swiped to another photo and tried not to think about how soft Connor’s voice had sounded in his ear, how tenderly he’d held Sam in his arms—that for a fleeting moment, he’d found his way into this man’s life.
Connor didn’t have the luxury of a supportive family—something Sam had taken for granted while he was coming to terms with who he was. Sam thought of the courage it must have taken for Connor to come out to him after the football game, especially given their shared history.
He swiped back to that first photo of Connor in his muddy overalls, now with thousands of likes and comments. He recalled the anger on Ian Finnegan’s face when he’d seen the photo. Sam had meddled where he shouldn’t have and made a difficult situation even worse.
Falling for Connor had been a mistake. Their lives and the problems they faced were too different. Connor didn’t need someone to make him feel bad about where he was on his journey—to push him to destroy his family as he knew it.
Sam tapped the three dots on the top corner of the photo and hit Delete. Then he navigated to each of the posts he’d created in his rush of misguided enthusiasm and deleted them one by one.
Connor had considered not showing for Sunday-night dinner.
He’d spent the day stewing at home, oscillating between wanting to call Sam and giving the man his space.
He couldn’t keep what they had by staying the same, but he couldn’t guarantee he could fix this by changing.
There was a very real possibility that after Saturday night, that ship had already sailed.
While the prospect of sitting at a table and making small talk with his father made him nauseous, the thought of abandoning his mom tipped the scales. If she had to deal with his old man all day, every day, the least Connor could do was show up for an hour on Sunday and make it through one meal.
When he arrived at his parents’ house, his mother gave him an unusually tight hug in the doorway.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” she said as if it were a party he had the option of attending.
“Your father’s in the living room. I’m just finishing up in the kitchen. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”
Connor tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. He hoped this wasn’t a ploy to get the two of them to reconcile. Fat chance of that. He walked through to the living room, where his dad reclined in his easy chair, watching football on the TV.
“Who’s playing?” Connor asked vaguely in an attempt at conversation.
“Ravens versus the Chiefs,” his father murmured, not taking his eyes off the screen.
Connor moved over to the couch and sat down. He picked up one of his mother’s gardening magazines and flipped through it, if only for something to do.
When the commercials came on, his father muted the TV and swiveled in his chair to look at Connor. “Come down from the buzz yet?” he asked with a snicker. “Put up a special shelf for your trophy?”
Any other time, Connor would have gone along with the joke.
But he couldn’t swallow another of his dad’s jabs.
“You’d think from the way you talk I’ve never put a foot right my entire life,” he muttered.
“That it’s been one fuckup after another.
I know I wasn’t an easy kid, but I’ve worked my ass off for you and the business, and I think I’ve done a damn good job keeping it afloat. ”
His father leaned back in his chair. “What do you want? Another trophy? Do you know how many hours I put into making that company a success? Ask your mother; she used to complain that the only time she’d see me was when I was walking out the door each morning.
Dedication and effort are the core tenets of any endeavor.
And here you are, expecting a standing ovation. ”
“No, I’m not, Dad,” Connor snapped, his blood boiling. “I’m just looking for the slightest fucking acknowledgment. All I ever get from you is complaints.”
“That’s how you grow. No one ever improved from mindless praise. What a waste of time.”
Connor was struck by his logic. So it had been a choice on his father’s part to raise him on a steady diet of criticism.
“You know, I’ve tried to do right by you,” Connor began, staring down at his hands.
“You don’t think I’ve considered other jobs, other places?
I thought staying was best for our family.
” For you. He looked up at his dad’s indignant expression, illuminated by the flickering light of the TV.
“But who am I kidding? No matter what I do, you’ll still treat me like some dumb kid who needs his head put on straight. ”
“No one asked you to do that.” His father lifted the remote and pointed it at the screen. “If you want to leave, then go. No one’s making you stay.”
His dad unmuted the TV, and the roar of the game filled the room. Connor gripped his knees hard. He could just say it loud enough to make out above the noise of the crowd: By the way, Dad. Just when you thought I couldn’t disappoint you any more. Here goes...
Instead, he kept his mouth shut and his eyes fixed on the screen as the players shuffled across the field.