Chapter 1 #2
He unpacked mechanically. Laptop on the desk.
Charger plugged in. Toiletries in the bathroom.
His sketchbook went on the nightstand—battered Moleskine, half-full, the last ten pages devoted to wedding invitation concepts he'd been roughing out for weeks.
He'd gone through four directions and hated all of them, which was normal.
The good version always came after the crisis.
He checked his phone. Three texts from Sasha, all variants of report back immediately.
One email from a client about a logo revision.
Nothing from anyone else, because there was no one else—Jamie's love life was a barren landscape of half-hearted dating app conversations and one-night stands that left him feeling less than he'd felt before them, which was already not much.
He sat on the bed and let himself feel it: the particular loneliness of being in someone else's happy home. Tom had this. This warmth, this house, this man who built things with his hands and picked out champagne. Tom had figured out how to be loved.
Jamie had figured out how to design logos.
He pressed his rings against his thigh, fidgeting, and made himself stop. Stood up. Splashed water on his face in the bathroom. Looked at himself in the mirror and said, out loud, "Six weeks. Don't be a dick about it."
His reflection looked unconvinced.
He went downstairs and found Tom at the stove, stirring something in a copper pot with the focus of a man who was cooking from a recipe on his phone propped against the backsplash.
"Can I help?" Jamie asked.
"Grab whatever you want to drink. There's wine in the fridge, beer, sparkling water—Marcus keeps the place stocked."
Jamie opened the fridge. It was, indeed, stocked—organized, even, in a way that suggested a system.
Vegetables in the crisper. Condiments on the door shelf.
Everything aligned with its label facing out.
He grabbed a bottle of white wine and poured himself a glass, then leaned against the counter and watched his father cook.
Tom was concentrating hard, tongue between his teeth, and Jamie felt a sudden, sharp tenderness for him.
Tom had never been a cook. When Jamie was a kid, dinner was rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or pasta with jarred sauce.
Now here he was, mincing shallots, and Jamie wanted to hug him and also couldn't bridge the four feet between them to do it.
"So," Tom said, not looking up from his shallots. "How's work?"
"Good. Busy."
"And the apartment?"
"Still standing."
"Are you seeing anyone?"
Jamie took a long sip of wine. "Nope."
"That's okay. You've got time."
"I know I've got time, Dad."
"I just mean—I didn't find Marcus until I was fifty. You never know when it's going to happen."
Jamie pressed his tongue piercing against the roof of his mouth and counted to three. "That's really sweet."
Tom looked up, uncertain, scanning Jamie's face for sarcasm. Jamie gave him nothing but neutral warmth, which was exhausting and necessary.
"I just want you to be happy," Tom said.
"I am happy."
It wasn't a lie, exactly. It was more like a sketch—the rough outline of a truth with the details left blank.
Jamie was functional. Jamie was employed.
Jamie had friends and a therapist he'd seen three times before deciding he didn't need one and a city he loved and a body that worked and a life that, from the outside, looked like enough.
From the inside, it had the hollow ring of a room with good bones and no furniture.
But Tom didn't need to know that. Tom needed to stir his shallots and believe his son was fine, and Jamie needed to let him.
They talked about the invitations—paper stock options, Jamie's initial concepts, the guest list (120 people, which was more friends than Jamie had realized his father possessed).
Tom's face lit up when he talked about the wedding, and Jamie found himself leaning into it despite himself, asking questions, sketching mental notes.
There was something infectious about his father's happiness, even if it sat next to something complicated in Jamie's chest.
"Marcus has opinions about typography," Tom said, almost apologetically. "He's—you know, architects. Everything is visual."
"I can handle opinions."
"He's not controlling about it. He's just—he notices things. Details. He'll probably want to talk fonts with you."
"Fonts are literally my job, Dad."
Tom laughed. "I know. I'm just saying, you two are going to get along. I can feel it."
The certainty in his father's voice did something to Jamie that he didn't want to examine. He topped off his wine and changed the subject to the seating chart, which was a safe enough topic to carry them through the next fifteen minutes.
Then he heard it.
A car door, out front. The heavy, definitive sound of an SUV closing. Footsteps on the front walk—unhurried, even, confident. A key in the lock.
Tom set down his spoon and turned toward the hallway with an expression Jamie had never seen on his father's face before.
Not in all the years of marriage to Jamie's mother, not during the divorce, not during any of the polite, arm's-length years that followed.
It was naked and uncomplicated and completely unguarded.
Tom Cole looked like a man who had just heard the best part of his day walk through the door.
"That's him," Tom said, already moving.
Jamie set down his wine glass. Straightened his shoulders. Put on the version of his face that said I am a normal, supportive adult son who is happy for his father and not at all a tangled mess of resentment and longing and wine on an empty stomach.
From the hallway, Tom's voice: "Perfect timing—Jamie just got here. Come meet him."
Footsteps on the hardwood. Coming closer. A low voice—just a murmur from this distance, but something about the register, the cadence, snagged in Jamie's ear like a hook in fabric.
He picked up his wine glass again. Put it down. Picked it up.
The footsteps rounded the corner into the kitchen.
And every molecule in Jamie's body went perfectly, catastrophically still.