Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Austin
My dad was smiling vaguely at the feel-good Christmas Eve news while just beyond him I was fairly sure our world was crumbling.
Mom had for sure caught the two of us shooting cupid arrows at each other with our eyes.
Pulling away from each other quickly had only made it more obvious.
When she gave me the vice-president-in-charge head flick that I’d known for years meant I was supposed to do what Mom wanted, I was willing to brave her wrath.
I bored my eyes into the back of Randall’s head while Mom bored her eyes into me.
All I could see was that red mark, and I imagined it pulsing in time to my heartbeat.
Mom softened her glance and nodded again.
I poured more coffee, waiting for Randall to turn around, but he hadn’t by the time I was done, so I joined Dad in the family room, positioning myself to see into the kitchen.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Mom and Randall spoke, and eventually, Mom joined us in front of the TV, a soft, unreadable smile on her face.
Randall emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later and mumbled something about getting washed and dressed.
Dad followed after him, mumbling himself about getting to the restaurant.
A short while later, croissants and travel mugs in hand, Dad and Randall left for the Three B’s.
The Excuse: I’m sorry.
The Stranger: Nothing to be sorry about. We’ll find time to talk when your dad and I get home, yeah?
The Stranger: Your dad just asked about my mystery man again.
The Excuse: You're sure you’re ok?
Sitting on the couch with pastry crumbs peppering my T-shirt, I was expecting another quick response. Instead …
The Stranger: I meant what I said. I’ve never been happier.
Your parents were my friends long ago, and I cherish that, and I’m so grateful that they cared enough about me after all this time to take me in this week.
Your Dad says I’m family, and I want that to be true.
I’ve got a great job, my dream home, and an SUV that can brave the Upstate New York weather.
I thought I had my life right where I wanted it, ensconced in my own private snow globe.
Then you burst into that sad little bus station with what I wasn’t sure at the time was a sack full of presents or a bag full of dirty laundry, and with every unique and beautiful snowflake that fell, that snow globe shifted and changed.
It became more beautiful even as it took on that bit of chaos that comes from being shaken.
It shifted and … flurried to accommodate you.
Exploring this thing between us is what I want.
And before I could even dream of responding to any of that, even to joke about college students and dirty laundry, another text came through.
The Stranger: And I understand, sweetheart, of course, I do, that your relationship with your parents is important. So we’ll figure it out.
The dots continued to bounce, but I jumped in.
The Excuse: We’ll shake that snow globe, Randall, and shake it and shake it as long and as hard as we have to. And there may be more chaos before those beautiful snowflakes finally settle, but when they do, I know my parents will come around. At least I hope they will. I’ll see you soon.
“Aus,” my mom said softly from the kitchen. She’d gone upstairs to change without us having a chance to talk after the men had left. I was dying to know what she and Randall had talked about, but frankly, I wanted to hear it from Randall’s perspective.
Her look was so kind but clearly held concern.
“Are you cooking dressed like that?” I looked down at my crumb-stained shirt.
I stood, stretching the shirt out in front of me to capture the flakes.
I walked like that to the kitchen and shook the shirt over the sink, dropping it back down and brushing it off until it was clean.
“At your service.” I smiled at my mom.
“Classy,” she responded, handing me a red-and-green apron and donning one that matched.
We got to work, preparing Christmas Eve dinner, holiday music playing in the background, an image dancing in my mind of two men standing arm in arm in front of a picturesque cabin, an SUV in the driveway, and snowflakes falling softly around them.
“Mom?” I asked as I cut celery, and she opened a couple of cans of tomatoes.
She leaned over my shoulder. “Smaller.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was quiet for a minute before she started the blender. It only took a few beats for the tomatoes to puree, after which I tried to engage Mom again as I scraped the celery into the pot and started on the garlic.
“Mom. Can we talk about it?”
“Randall is really special, Austin.”
“I know.”
“And I think he’s been very much alone.”
“He has friends in England, Mom. He wasn’t alone.”
“We shouldn’t have abandoned him.”
“You didn’t. He left.”
“He was like a brother to us. He introduced us, for God’s sake.”
“I know that, Mom.”
“He was never close with his family. I feel like I should have known. I should have figured out that he was gay, Austin.”
“I don’t think you need to feel any guilt about that. He didn’t want you two to know back then.” The comment hung heavily in the air between us. It wasn’t the only thing Randall hadn’t wanted my parents to know.
“He loves his job; he likes the company he works for. Sure, he had a shitty marriage, but he got out of it and came back, and he’s starting a new life in New York. He’s … fine. He’s great. He’s really great, Mom.”
“But, Austin?” Mom focused on the vegetables she was chopping as if she needed to collect her words. I gave her time.
“I know how gay men are, Austin.”
“Not sure what you mean, Mom.”
“I know that some gay men tend to be … not monogamous. And I’m not sure that’s him, and frankly, I’m not sure that’s you, but I don’t want to see either of you get hurt if that …
if that’s what this is.” Mom was saying a lot of words but not what she actually meant. At least not what I thought she meant.
I dropped the garlic in the pot and washed my hands. “Tell me what you saw this morning, Mom. What you think you saw between us, standing right here in your kitchen.”
She didn't hesitate. “I saw two men in love.” Oh wow, is that how we looked?
I wasn’t ready to address that. So instead, I asked, “Were you shocked?”
“No. I was shocked when I found his underpants in your jeans. After that,” she joked, “the shock sort of wore off.”
I put my hands over my face, the faint smell of garlic permeating. “Oh my God, Mom.” What had she said to Randall?
“Mom. Please tell me you didn’t scare him away this morning.”
She stopped what she was doing to stand in front of me, wiping her hands on her apron as I began to lower mine from in front of my face. She grabbed ahold of my wrists.
“He wouldn’t be the man I think he is, and that look wouldn’t have been what I thought it was, if I could scare him away that easily.”
“I know this is too new, and too soon, and very complicated, but he’s special, Mom.”
Her hand cupped my cheek for a brief moment. “I’m happy for you, Aus.” She gave me a gentle tap. “Now go wash those hands again. We don’t want the cookies tasting of garlic.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hours later, I was bounding down the stairs, freshly showered and buttoning my dress shirt, my hands softer than usual from all the butter I had worked with to bake up batches of Christmas cookies, Mom's watchful eyes on me as she prepared the fish and vegetables for Christmas Eve dinner.
“They should be back any minute,” she called out. “I haven’t heard from them, but Preston gave me the head’s up that they were …”
It was at that very moment that I cleared the last step, and the door in front of me swung open with gusto.
“Merry Christmas!” They had their arms wrapped around each other, the others held out wide, their faces flushed, from the cold, maybe, but also possibly from the hours they’d spent hanging out at a bar.
They couldn’t fit through the door with their arms splayed.
This appeared to be an insurmountable challenge for them.
Watching them arm in arm caused a small pang of jealousy to zip through me, but then I looked at Randall, really looked at him and not the drunken scene playing out before me.
Those cupid arrows were aimed in only one direction—mine.
I chuckled and shook my head. “You two are either going to have to put your arms down or separate, possibly both if you want to make it through the door.”
Mom emerged from the kitchen. “Seriously, what’s going on out here?
” she asked from the arched opening that connected that room and the dining room.
“Oh, for the love of God, you two! I was about to pop the campaign, but I think it might be a bit too late for that. Close the fucking door and get in here, you two idiots.”
“Merry Christmas, honey.” My dad finally let Randall go, motioning for him to enter first.
“She’s your honey, not me.” Randall laughed.
“Who did you think I was talking to?”
“I’m standing right here, Mart,” Randall responded. It was like watching the toddler version of a classic comedy routine.
I peered behind them to see an empty driveway.
Dad wasn’t so far gone as to not understand my unspoken question. “Preston drove us home.”
“Good man,” I said, mostly to myself.
“Good man,” Randall replied, but the way he looked at me, I was sure he wasn’t talking about Preston.
“Okay!” Mom intervened, and Dad and Randall finally stepped through and closed the door.
Dad gave Mom a big hug. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas, Mart. How much did you have to drink? You two know you’re not in college anymore, right? You smell like the bar. Go get washed up.”
Dad beelined for the stairs as if he knew better than to defy Mom. Randall, on the other hand, stood and stared at me.
“Hi,” he beamed.
“Merry Christmas.” I smiled back.
“Jesus Christ,” Mom said, pointing to the stairs. “Go, talk or whatever.” We both looked at her.
“Mom!”
“Just don’t take forever. It’s not my job to make excuses for you two to my husband.” She pointed again.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
She turned and went back to the kitchen. “I’m popping the cork now anyway,” I could hear her complain as I headed up the stairs. “I need a drink.”
Randall walked past me, brushing and squeezing my hand for a brief moment. “We should talk,” he said before taking the stairs two at a time.
“Slow down, babe. Wait for me.”
I made it to the guest room in time for him to have flopped on the bed, his legs still on the floor, his hands over his face, reminding me of myself during my talk with Mom.
“He keeps asking about my mystery man. And I want to shout from the rooftops that I’ve found a smart, funny, caring, protective, sexy future pediatrician, for all the world to hear, but especially for my best friend to hear.”
I climbed onto the bed next to him, kneeling above him. He removed his hands to smile up at me, lopsided and adorable and definitely a little tipsy.
“Maybe leave the sexy part out?”
His hands went right back over his face. “Your mom!”
I flopped down next to him at that one. “I was wearing your underwear!”
“Oh my God!” He leaned into me, tucking in but keeping his face covered. I wrapped him in my arms. “I hated not telling him. I’m terrified to tell him. Can’t he just figure it out, like your mom?”
“You’ve met my dad, right? He could walk in on us right now and not figure it out.”
“Maybe if I got the toy out …”
I jumped up. “Eww!”
“Yeah, sorry. Eww is right. This is so complicated.” His hands found their way under his eyeglasses, rubbing at his eyes in frustration before he took the glasses off to clean them.
He was still bundled in his winter coat, with no access to soft material.
I stood, lifted my untucked button-down, and yanked my undershirt out of my pants, standing on my toes and leaning over to offer it to him.
“Hi.” He smiled at me, his look still slightly unfamiliar to me without his glasses on but also like someone I’d known forever, someone I knew like I knew my own soul. I was sure right then and there that none of this was complicated.
“Hey, babe? How was your morning?”
“You mean outside of the existential crisis?”
I nodded as he dropped my undershirt, tucking it in with one hand and putting his glasses on with the other. He was dressing me instead of undressing me, and somehow, it was still really hot. He straightened my shirt, tapping my stomach when he finished, answering my question as he did so.
“I may have had one too many. Your mom is right; I’m not in college anymore.”
I kissed him softly. “You should go wash up. And then …”
His expression turned from hopeful to worried. “And then we have to go back down there with your parents.”
I looked at him then. We looked at each other, and that energy between us, softer, less intense, but no less strong than it had been when we were tearing each other’s clothes off, told me everything I needed to know.
We would get through the complication of telling my dad, and any other complications that arose, because we were meant to be together.