2. Nolan
2
NOLAN
“ N olan, sweetheart, do you have a sec?”
My mom’s voice came down the hall from the living room, light and clear as a bell. Even with everything that had happened over the past twenty years—to say nothing of the last twelve months—she still sounded exactly the way I remembered from when I was a kid.
That said, I could hear a note of worry underneath. Actually, no—not just worry. What I was hearing was her doing her best to conceal her worry. I was all too familiar with that sound, too.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden spike in my heartbeat. She’d been living with me for a year now, and I still got taken by surprise by moments like these. Moments where all the fear, all the guilt came rushing back, and I wondered what else I was about to lose.
“Be right there!” I called, opening my eyes.
I’d been pulling a suitcase down out of my closet, but that could wait. I’d put off packing for this long, there was no reason I couldn’t avoid it for another few minutes.
“What’s up?” I asked, putting on a bright smile as I entered the living room.
My mom sat on my sofa, wrapped up in an old afghan my grandmother—her mother—had knit. It was lime-green and orange, truly atrocious, and I wasn’t sure which one of us loved it more. She pulled it tighter—she was always cold these days—and patted the seat next to her.
“Come sit, honey,” she said.
Her smile was worried too. It was the same smile that used to hover on her face when she’d tuck me into the closet and tell me to stay quiet on the nights when my dad came home drunk. The same smile that used to appear and disappear like the sun behind clouds when she’d visit my grandparents and ask for money. It was a smile that said she hated what she was doing, but she couldn’t think of a better option.
The last time I’d seen that smile, I’d been coming home from a night I couldn’t remember—a night I never wanted to think about again. I’d found her sitting on the front stoop of my building.
She’d had nowhere else to go, and I’d had no one else to trust. She’d needed somewhere to live, and I’d needed—well, I’d needed a lot of things. A distraction. A lesson. A way to atone.
What else could I do but ask her to stay?
I hadn’t regretted it. Not for a moment. I’m not saying it was fun, seeing her this sick. And it wasn’t easy, wondering if I could have prevented all of this if I’d been a better son.
But I’d spent more time with her in the past year than I had in the twenty preceding that. And I was crossing my fingers that we were through the worst of it.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, sinking onto the couch. “Are you feeling alright? Should we call Dr. Morgan? Or is it a medication thing? I can stay if you want me to. It really wouldn’t be that big a deal, and—”
“Nolan.” My mom gave me a level look. “I feel fine.” I looked right back at her and she flushed. “Well, as fine as can be expected, under the circumstances.”
“Really?” I studied her face, searching for some sign that she was concealing the truth. I was familiar with how that looked on her, too. “Because you don’t have to pretend for me. Your health is more important than anything. Is it pain? Or nausea? We could get those pills, even if we do have to pay out of pocket for them.”
“ Nolan . I’m fine. I mean it. We don’t need to call Dr. Morgan, and you definitely don’t need to stay home. Hell, even if I didn’t feel fine, I wouldn’t let you stay here.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I arched an eyebrow. “All that does is make me think you are lying, just so I won’t feel bad about leaving.”
“We all have our crosses to bear.” She grinned, but her face sobered when I didn’t smile back. “I’m serious, Nolan. I really do feel better than I have in weeks. Even if it’s only because I’m excited for you, think how guilty you’d feel if you stayed home just to be safe , and nothing was wrong, and you missed your chance to win all that money. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
I gave her a dirty look. “That’s blatant emotional manipulation.”
She grinned again. “Fuck, you think I don’t know that? I’ve had a lot of practice with it over the years, and it’s about damned time I put it to use in service of a good cause instead of just trying to scam your grandparents out of money.”
“Grandma would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you cursing,” I said.
My mom just laughed. “Well, she’d be even more horrified with what’s coming next. Because, sweetheart, we need to talk about you.”
“Me? Why would Grandma be upset about—” But before I could even finish my question, my mom’s smile went all sly, and I knew exactly what she was going to say. “Oh, come on. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Too bad.” My mom gave me a stern look. She wasn’t even close to as fierce as my grandmother had been, but she did try. “We need to talk about your love life.”
“I’d really rather not.”
That was an understatement. My love life didn’t exist, and that was just the way I—okay, maybe I couldn’t exactly say it was the way I liked it, but I’d made my peace with it.
I’d never been one for relationships. They required way more than I was capable of giving. But for the past year, I’d barely even hooked up with anyone.
But it didn’t matter. Whether my mom understood my choices or not, they were mine . They didn’t have to make sense to anyone but me.
“And as I said, too bad. Haven’t you ever heard the expression all work and no play makes you a dull boy ? Don’t you ever want to have fun?”
“I have fun,” I said, looking away from her.
“Really? When was the last time you brought a girl home? Or a boy?”
“I live with my mother. I think that question answers itself.”
“I could clear out for a night, if need be,” she said. “I know I upended your life, coming here, but I know how to make myself scarce if you ever need the place to yourself. You wouldn’t even have to pay for a hotel for me, I could—”
“You’re not sleeping on the streets just so I can hook up with someone,” I said, more vehemently than I intended. “You don’t ever have to do that again. You understand that, right? I never want you to.”
“Oh, honey.” My mom’s eyes went wide. “I just meant I could crash with a friend or something.” She put her hand on my wrist and squeezed it. “I’m more grateful to you than I can say. Really.”
I looked away and swallowed. “I know.”
“I’m not sure you do.” She shook her head, and I saw a new smile spread across her face from the corner of my eye. Her sad smile. I hated that one even more than her worried one. “You are the best thing in my life. I just want you to have a life. Ever since I moved in, you haven’t so much as been on a date. Not once.”
“Mom, I’m—”
“I just want you to be happy, honey. I want you to have a chance at a real relationship. With whoever you want. Anyone that makes my little boy smile is okay in my books.”
Oh, God. Sometimes, I wished I’d never come out to her. I’d told her one weekend when I was seventeen, and she was on one of her supervised visits. I’d caught her taking money out of my grandfather’s wallet. She’d looked so guilty, and I’d just been so mad, so angry that she kept making things worse for everyone, that I’d blurted it out.
I’d wanted her to say something cruel or callous so I could yell about how she was ruining my life. Instead, she’d told me she didn’t care that I was bisexual, that she loved me no matter what. To try to forgive my grandparents if they had a hard time accepting it. That they were doing their best.
At the time, I’d hated that she’d ruined that moment for me too.
Things were so different now. My grandfather had been gone for five years, my grandmother for three. My mom was sober, and sick, and I’d stopped wanting to hurt her long ago. I wasn’t angry at her anymore. But sometimes…I guess sometimes, it still made me a bit uncomfortable, how understanding she was.
“Thanks for the PFLAG speech,” I said, my voice flat. “But dating isn’t really something I’m looking to do right now.”
She smoothed the afghan over her legs, her fingers tracing one line of green yarn through a sea of orange. “I know that your father and I weren’t always—that is, we didn’t give you the greatest example of a successful relationship. I know we weren’t exactly role models.”
That was putting it lightly. My dad had been abusive, and my mom had been… I didn’t want to think about what my mom had been. After the divorce, after I’d been taken away from her—well, it turned out that just about the only thing my mom and dad had in common was a propensity towards addiction.
There was a reason I was so careful about what, and how much, I drank. Why I’d never even smoked a cigarette. Well, there were many reasons, but that was one of them.
“I’d just hate to think that you’d closed yourself off to that possibility because of us,” she continued. “Because, sweetheart, you are the best part of both of us, and so much more besides. You’re better than either of us ever was, or ever will be. And I just don’t want you to miss out on—”
“Jesus, Mom, can you drop it?” I snapped, standing up from the couch.
I felt guilty as soon as I said it. It wasn’t her fault, of course. She was just trying to help, and the last thing she needed was me yelling at her.
But I couldn’t talk about this. With anyone. It was too complicated and too—I hated the word sensitive , but that was what it was. It made my skin crawl, admitting that there was this part of me that was still too tender to talk about. It was easier, and better, if I just handled things my way.
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning around. I made my voice warm. It really wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know. “I didn’t mean to snap. I think I’m just nervous.”
I was far more than just nervous, if you wanted the truth. I’d been a wreck ever since I found out I’d been cast on A Piece of Cake , and it had only gotten worse as the competition got closer and closer. I’d been too panicked to sleep last night, and now I had to drive down to Georgia in a couple of hours, and I hadn’t packed so much as a single sock.
“You have no reason to be,” my mom said, reaching a hand out. I took it and let her pull me back to the sofa. “You’re going to walk onto that set and blow everybody away from day one. You’re going to win this thing. I just know it.”
“You have to say that,” I complained. “You’re my mom.”
“Yes, but I’m also an excellent judge of baked goods,” she said. “What have I been eating for the past few months if not evidence of your growing prowess in the kitchen?”
I snorted. “Growing, maybe. I’m still not sure I’d call it prowess. It’s not like you’re eating whole trays of cookies in one sitting.”
“That’s the chemo, honey, not you.”
“Still.”
Until a few months ago, I’d never baked a single cookie, much less a tray. But my mom had started watching old seasons of A Piece of Cake during her chemo appointments and had somehow gotten it in her head that I could audition, and win. Telling her that I worked in restaurant management, not a restaurant kitchen, hadn’t dissuaded her even a little bit.
I’d been prepared to ignore her, until I’d gotten the most recent round of medical bills. No matter how much I’d scrimped and saved over the past few years, I didn’t have nearly enough money to pay for everything my mom needed. I’d already taken out a huge loan to pay for surgery costs, and I’d have to take out another if I wanted to cover the rest of her treatment. And suddenly, it didn’t seem quite so crazy to think that maybe I should try out for the show after all.
Or, actually, no. It still seemed crazy, but I think I’d become a little crazy myself, with everything that had happened. And I didn’t want to let her down.
It probably helped that this season of A Piece of Cake was being filmed on Summersea, the same tiny, semi-tropical island that two of my friends lived on. And not just on Summersea, but on the grounds of the Wisteria Inn, owned by my friend, Mal and his husband, Deacon. Mal was a wizard in the kitchen, and he’d been giving me baking lessons over the phone ever since I’d decided to go for it.
There were still a million reasons why this was a terrible idea. I was awkward around strangers these days, and I froze up in crowds. My anxiety, which had been running at an all-time high just generally for the past year, went through the roof when I got stressed—to the point where I’d stutter and stammer and lose the ability to speak entirely if I got too worked up. I couldn’t imagine what I would be like on camera.
But my mom wanted me to do it. My mom needed me to do it. And frankly, I needed me to do it too.
With any luck, the chemo would work, and she’d beat this for good. But even if the cancer never came back, I still needed to find some way to pay for all the expenses we’d encountered so far. If I didn’t, I’d spend the rest of my life drowning in debt.
So I was going. Even though I was terrified, even though I worried about leaving her alone, even though all I really wanted to do was crawl under the covers of my bed and never leave my apartment again.
“Besides,” my mom said brightly, “who knows? Maybe you’ll meet a gorgeous girl in that baking tent, and you’ll fall in love over a pair of profiteroles.”
“Mom.”
“What? Too heteronormative? How about a gorgeous boy and a couple of cream puffs?”
“What did I just say about not wanting to talk about this?” I buried my face in my hands.
“Alright, alright.” She raised her hands in surrender. “I’ll let it go—”
“Thank you.”
“—I’ll let it go if you promise me one thing.”
I looked at her through my fingers. “Why do I feel like I’m not going to like whatever you’re about to say?”
“Because you’re a stick-in-the-mud who’s way too responsible and serious for his age, and for how handsome he is.”
She brushed my hands aside so she could pinch my cheek. “Just promise me that you’ll keep an open mind. Promise me that if you meet someone you’re interested in, you won’t shut it down just because—well, because of whatever reasons you’ve been shutting things down for the past year. At the very least, once you’re down there, you won’t have to worry about bringing someone home only to find your mom on your couch eating cereal at two a.m.”
I rubbed my cheek. “You’re really not going to let this go until I promise, are you?”
“Aww, my son. Handsome and smart. I did good when I made you.”
She grinned, her eyes dancing, and I didn’t know how to say no. I’d never known how to say no to her, not really. Even in the years she was using, I’d been terrible at it. My grandmother used to say I was a soft touch and wouldn’t let me see her.
My mom’s voice was the same as it ever had been, but the past twenty years were visible on her face. All the hardship she’d weathered. Her grief. And now her illness.
I wasn’t going to add more to that. I leaned in and gave her a hug, her thin frame almost brittle in my arms.
“Alright,” I said, kissing her cheek. “I promise.”
I had never missed Xanax more.
I didn’t actually take it for very long. My therapist had suggested I try it, right after—well, when the panic attacks were happening on a weekly, if not daily, basis. And it had helped, for a while.
It put reality into this peaceful little haze where any sense of worry I had just…evaporated. But it also made me so sleepy and confused that I could barely function, so I’d stopped it after a couple of months.
This morning, though—this morning, I was having trouble remembering why I’d ever stopped it at all.
I’d left my place in Washington, DC midday yesterday and driven all the way to Savannah before stopping for the night. This morning, I’d gotten up early to drive the last hour and a half to Brunswick, where I’d catch the ferry over to Summersea.
You might think being alone in a car for ten hours would be great for someone with social anxiety, what with the whole being alone thing, but all it really did was give me ten hours to dream up every possible bad thing that could happen once I got to Summersea and filming began.
You might also think that I’d be more relaxed since the show was being filmed at my friends’ bed and breakfast, but you’d be mistaken there as well. All that did was convince me that terrible things were definitely going to happen, and my friends would be there to witness my humiliation first hand.
Sometimes, I wanted to dropkick my brain into the Atlantic.
It didn’t matter how many times my therapist told me my brain was just trying to help, that feelings were just feelings, and I didn’t have to let them control me.
I knew it was trying to help, I knew I didn’t have to listen, but that didn’t stop my brain from whispering all last night that I was going to make an utter fool of myself on camera and get sent home after the first episode, and that everyone who’d ever met me would watch and laugh. That I’d fail my mom again.
I’d gotten approximately forty-five minutes of sleep, total. We were supposed to check in with the producers of the show by eleven a.m., and I was pretty sure I’d left myself plenty of time, but the longer I waited for the ferry to arrive at the Brunswick terminal, the more nervous I got.
I’d just begun walking back to the ticket desk, to ask if they had any update on the ferry’s arrival, when an announcement—static and crackly and impossible to hear—came over the loudspeaker, sending a flock of seagulls up in the air in surprise.
Fuck. That couldn’t be good. With my luck, the ferry had probably hit an iceberg and managed to sink, Titanic style, into the lukewarm depths of the Intracoastal Waterway. They’d probably just announced there would be no crossing for the next seventy-two hours.
I turned to an older guy who was standing a few feet away from me, leaning up against a pillar, and gave him my best customer-service smile—gentle, relaxed, eyes crinkled at the corners so it looked genuine.
“You, uh, didn’t happen to catch what that said, did you?” I asked, trying to calm my racing heart.
The guy looked away from the water, frowning. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was just wondering if you were able to make any more sense out of that than I was,” I said, gesturing towards the loudspeaker. “I’m just hoping the boat isn’t late. It’s probably stupid, but—”
The man looked me up and down, or rather down, then up, and his frown deepened when his eyes reached about waist-level.
“I don’t believe I know you,” he said frostily when he met my gaze again.
What the fuck? It was one thing to imagine strangers being rude to me for no reason—I was almost used to that at this point, my brain did it so well—but it was another to actually come face-to-face with it. I swallowed.
“Right, yeah, I was just—” I broke off, feeling my cheeks redden. My heart thud-thud-thud-ed in my ears. “You know what? It’s not important, I’ll just—”
“I don’t believe I want to know you,” the man said, his eyes cutting back to my waist.
What the hell was he…oh. Oh .
It wasn’t my waist he was looking at. It was my messenger bag. More specifically, at the little bisexual pride pin my mom had gotten me four months ago and insisted I wear. His lip curled in distaste.
Fuck, I wanted to sink into the ground. I tried to take a deep breath, but it came out shallow and sharp. Sweat beaded on my brow.
“The—the thing is, I—I didn’t mean to—it’s not even—”
Dammit, what the hell was I doing? I didn’t need to explain myself to this guy. I could just walk away. He was right—I didn’t know him, and there was no earthly reason to give a shit that a perfect stranger was biphobic, or just really hated pieces of flare.
This was the consequence of going off Xanax. The consequence of trying to live my life like a normal person when I no longer felt like one. The consequence of not being strong enough to keep it together.
Time and time again, I found myself tripping over my tongue. I’d be desperate to say something smooth and calm and collected, but every aborted, botched sentence that came out of my mouth just served to paralyze me further.
It was so stupid . There was no reason for random encounters with strangers, in public, in broad daylight, to make me freeze up so badly. It wasn’t like that was the root of my issues.
Trauma manifests in strange way s, my therapist liked to say, which was good to know, I supposed, but was singularly unhelpful in turning me back into a functional human being.
“I don’t want whatever you’re selling, and I’m not interested in donating to whatever cause you’re promoting,” the man sneered.
“But I’m—I was just asking if you knew what they said on the—you know, the words they used on the—the—the radio…thing?”
Great. Now I couldn’t even remember the words for what I was trying to ask about. I wanted to bash my head against the pillar. What the hell was wrong with me?
I tried again. “Did you hear what the—the—the thing said?” I stammered, pointing up. “On the air?”
“I don’t have time for this.” The man pushed away from the pillar and stalked off.
“Announcement!” I said when the word came back to me. “On the loudspeaker!”
But I was talking to myself by that point. Too little, too late.
“Thanks so much!” I called after the man, pitching my customer-service voice at a slight yell. “Asshole,” I whispered a second later, just to myself.
I tried for another deep breath, tried the mindfulness exercise my therapist had taught me.
Notice the tang of the salt air, and its warmth on your cheek. Notice the cries of the gulls, and the way the water laps against the dock posts.
I tried to transcend self and merge with the sun and the sky and the oneness of the universe, but it was no good. I still felt like I was on the verge of passing out.
Ripping my mom’s button off my bag and shoving it into my pocket, I stumbled back to my car and sat in silence until the ferry finally arrived and I could drive onto it.
The ferry bellowed two long, slow blasts of its horn, then pulled away from the dock. I managed to stay in my car for a full ten minutes, but all too soon, I felt trapped. That was another fun thing that had started this year—an itchy sensation would come over me sometimes, this need to walk, to run, to get far, far away and never come back.
I got out and started walking. I didn’t have anywhere to go, really, but it felt good to move—right up until I saw the guy I’d talked to earlier walking in my direction.
Fuck. I didn’t think he’d seen me yet, but I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. There was a door to my right with a unisex restroom sign. I pushed it open, stepped inside, and froze.
There was a naked guy in the bathroom. Jerking off.
Well, no, not entirely naked. Only on the bottom. On the top, the guy was wearing a tight lavender T-shirt that emphasized his compact, thin frame.
He was on the shorter side, with blond hair and blue eyes and a distractingly cute face that was currently pulled into a glare. And his cock… Christ, I didn’t want to think about what his cock looked like. That was not a road I was going down.
“Well? Do you need something?” he snapped.
I opened my mouth to apologize—or maybe to point out that he was the one jerking off in a public restroom, so I wasn’t sure it was fair to act like I was the one in the wrong here—but once again, my tongue wouldn’t cooperate. I just stood there, gaping like a fish.
“Or are you just going to stand there staring?” the guy added.
I could feel my face heating up, and I closed my eyes in frustration.
“I—I’m—I didn’t—” I stammered, feeling more and more like an idiot with each syllable.
Just say you’re sorry and leave , I yelled at myself internally. Even dealing with that asshole outside has got to be better than whatever’s going on in here. Make your goddamn mouth work.
But I couldn’t. I didn’t know if it was embarrassment over the situation in general, or my particular hang-ups around attractive, naked men, but even after I opened my eyes, I couldn’t say anything coherent.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” the guy said, his eyebrows drawing down even farther—until one of them quirked upwards. “Or maybe you’re enjoying the show?”
His foot was up on the sink, and he shifted, angling his body towards me for a better view. He stroked his cock, and I swallowed. My neck felt hot. I took a step backwards.
“What’s the matter? Scared you might like it?” the guy said. “Scared your boss might see you in here with a big, bad gay guy and think the wrong thing?”
Now I frowned. What the hell was he talking about?
“My boss? I—I don’t—”
“Or is he a family member?” the guy continued. “A friend? Whoever he is, he made no secret of his views. So, fuck you, and fuck your homophobia.”
Was the universe deliberately messing with me today, only letting me interact with people who accused me of things without even giving me a chance to talk? Of course, it might have helped if I’d actually been able to talk, and not just stutter uselessly, but still.
“I’m not—I didn’t—I don’t even—”
“Just fuck off, asshole,” the guy said. “I don’t need your judgement, and if you’re not going to participate, I don’t need your presence either.”
“Participate? Seriously?” The words tumbled out of my mouth, but any relief I felt was swept away by the growing anxiety in my stomach. “I’m not being homophobic. I just didn’t expect to find someone masturbating in a public restroom.”
“Right.” The guy smiled slyly. “It’s just surprise that’s making you not leave. Just shock that’s making you stare at my cock like you’re wondering what it tastes like. That’s the only reason.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s definitely not fear that you might want to see even more.” The guy arched an eyebrow. “Not you wanting me to turn around so you can see the rest of me.”
“You don’t even know me,” I said, backing up another step. But the guy seemed to take that as a challenge, because he took his foot off the sink and started walking towards me, his dick still hard. He caught me looking and smirked.
“I know interest when I see it—no matter how much you try to hide it.”
I backed up even farther, my hand fumbling behind me for the doorknob. There was no reason to be scared of this guy. I had a good six inches on him and was more muscular too. It wasn’t like he could force me to do anything I didn’t want to do.
But I needed to get out of there.
I found the knob, twisted it, and yanked the door open. I couldn’t quite bring myself to turn my back to him, so I edged out of the little room backwards as he came closer and closer. I only made it a few inches before he was right in front of me, looking up.
His eyes were so fucking blue, I thought I might drown in them. He put his hand on my chest, and my heart thumped. I swallowed again. Why hadn’t I left yet?
He smiled sweetly. “Go fuck yourself.”
Then he slammed the door in my face.
All in all, it was a relief to get off the ferry. I drove straight to the Wisteria Inn, but I was still shaking when I got there, rattled by my encounter with that guy and mad at myself for being rattled.
Mal and Deacon were two of my favorite people in the world, and one of the reasons why was because they took me at my word when I said I was exhausted and needed to collapse in my room, immediately. Nor did they get mad when I begged off eating dinner with them that night, opting instead to stay in my room and gnaw on an old granola bar I found in the bottom of my bag.
They didn’t even ask me what the hell was wrong when I came downstairs in a panic the next morning because I’d lain awake half the night going through worst-case scenarios only to finally drift off and sleep through my alarm. Mal just handed me a cup of coffee and wished me luck as Deacon held open the kitchen door that led to the Wisteria’s backyard.
The grounds of the inn were filled with tents. Equipment tents, catering tents, one that seemed to have multiple computers running inside it, and, of course, the biggest tent of all, where we would be baking.
The air hummed with humidity and birdsong. I hurried under a live oak in the middle of the yard to reach the baking tent. I didn’t even take a moment to collect myself before lifting flaps and ducking inside.
I should have. Because I’d only taken two steps into the tent before I stopped, staring.
The guy from the ferry was there, sitting right in front of me.