Chapter 28
Since returning from the Philippines three and a half weeks ago, I’ve barely had a moment to breathe.
Time flew by in a blur. Between moving all my remaining stuff into Alexander’s house, the new campaigns starting up at work, and having Marco start at Elemental Creative, I’ve been pulled in every direction.
I just want a moment to stand still, but I wasn’t expecting it to come as a result of the woman standing naked, aside from some pink-bowed underwear, in front of me. She casually opens the fridge door in the kitchen.
My shock finally gives way to fear when she turns.
“Who are you?”
I slowly step toward the island in the center of the kitchen and reach for one of the knives. She’s a few inches shorter than me, and I’m sure I can defend myself, but better to be careful. You never know these days.
“I was thirsty,” she responds, opening the orange juice and drinking from the carton. As if that clarifies why she’s here.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”
My fists clench tight. I look toward the glass doors looking out to the pool, but they’re closed. The alarm didn’t go off in the night either, so she can’t have broken in.
“I came back with your roommate. Harry, I think he said his name was.”
Her blank face meets mine as she puts the bottle of juice down.
“Harrison,” I state matter-of-factly.
My shoulders drop and my fists unclench. I thought we’d gone through this with Harrison already, but clearly, it’s fallen on deaf ears. I move away from where the knives are to reach for the bread and place two slices in the toaster.
Ever since Harrison moved in two weeks ago, he’s been treating the place like a hotel.
Going to work. Coming back here after the gym to change.
Then out until all hours of the night, bringing back random women to sleep with.
Usually, I wouldn’t care. After all, he’s twenty-two and the place is big enough that I can barely hear what’s going on in the lounge from our bedroom, let alone his room on the other side of the house.
But last weekend, one of his hookups snuck her way into our room.
She slipped under the covers and slid her hands all over me, startling me awake.
I don’t know who was more shocked. Me, at the sight of a random woman, or her, at the fact that I wasn’t Alexander.
She was clearly aware of who Harrison’s brother was and had assumed I was him.
Alexander saw the funny side when I told him the next morning, after he got back from his recording trip in Nashville, but he soon realized the seriousness of it all. If he wants to keep his sexuality a secret, Harrison can’t be bringing random girls back to the house.
“Can you go get him for me?” I say to the woman.
My gaze drifts to the stove to avoid looking at her pert breasts and large nipples, pointed straight at me. She’s clearly unashamed of walking around topless in a stranger’s house.
“He’s still asleep.”
She shrugs her shoulders and reaches for the OJ again.
“Then wake him.”
This time there’s anger in my voice, and she scurries out of the kitchen and down the hallway. The last thing I need is to be dealing with this, when I’ve still got to pack the final bits in my house and hand over the keys over before work and Alexander’s pre-Grammy party later.
Harrison strolls down the hallway and into the kitchen, wiping at his eyes.
“What do you want?” he asks, grabbing the bottle of OJ left on the side and swigging the last two mouthfuls.
Guess I won’t be having any OJ with my toast.
“What did your brother say about bringing girls back to the house?”
My voice is lowered, but it loses none of its growl.
The toaster pops and Harrison swipes one of the slices straight out.
“Come on, it’s no big deal.”
“That was mine.” I grab his wrist, forcing him to drop the slice.
“Sorry, your royal highness,” Harrison responds in a mock English accent, shaking his hand free.
I’m not sure I like who I become around him. I’m constantly having to set and reinforce ground rules. Even Alexander has noticed the change in me. He told me I need to take a chill pill. So I guess it’s back to using the stress balls again.
I take a step closer to him and ask Alexa to turn on music to ensure the woman can’t hear us.
“Look, I don’t care who you bring home. Or if you fuck a different girl every night of the week.
In fact, if your brother wasn’t who he is, I’d probably be high-fiving you right now.
” Instead, I want to high-five him around the face, with a chair.
“But no one knows about me and your brother. All it takes is for one of your hookups to sneak into our room when we’re sleeping and snap a picture of us, and then poof.
All this goes away. And it’s back to cutting coupons out of magazines. ”
I emphasize the last part, to ensure he knows how serious this is.
His face whitens before he shakes his head.
“I don’t know why you make such a big deal out of it. No one cares if he’s gay.”
I wish that were true. That people wouldn’t care and Alexander and I could walk around the streets like any other couple, holding hands.
But Harrison’s straight and although things have gotten better over the years, there are still many people out there who aren’t welcoming or accepting of gay men or anyone else from the LGBTQIA+ community.
“Do you want to find out? To be responsible for whatever happens if it gets out from one of these girls?”
I shudder at the thought of sounding exactly like Connie and Paul.
Harrison’s mouth remains hard-set as Alexander wanders into the kitchen, kisses me good morning, and steals the other slice of toast.
Clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Morgan tree.
“What’s going on?” Alexander picks up on the tense atmosphere.
“Why don’t you fill him in, Harrison,” I say, already over the conversation.
“I brought home a girl last night, and now your boyfriend is hitting the roof.” His emphasis on the word boyfriend is clearly meant as a jibe, and I squeeze my leg in place of a stress ball.
“We talked about this, bro. If you want to live here, there’s two simple rules. Clean up after yourself, and if you wanna hook up with someone, go back to theirs,” Alexander says. He takes a bit of my toast.
“But you’ve got Valentina for that.”
Harrison is clearly missing the point. I look at my watch and shake my head. I don’t have time for this.
“I need to bounce,” I say, resigned to the fact I will have to grab something to eat en route to work. This isn’t my battle to fight anyway, and I hate that I’ve let myself be drawn into it.
“I think he might be a flexitarian,” Julie whispers to me, almost drooling over Marco, who’s standing outside the boardroom with his laptop up against his chest.
His black, tight-fitted T-shirt showcases an amazing physique.
“Are you sure that’s not just his flirty personality?”
I’ve been unable to work out if Marco is straight, bisexual, pansexual, or one of the million different iterations in between. But right now, I don’t need to be focused on that, I need to focus on this meeting. I grab my laptop and a stress ball of my desk and follow Julie to the door.
Marco acknowledges both Julie and I with a smile when we get to the boardroom. Olly and Pietro are already seated inside.
“Is there anything I need to prepare for the meeting?” Marco asks.
“No, you’re good,” Julie says, patting him on the arm as she opens the door and makes her way through. Julie opts to sit next to me, forcing Marco to sit across from us next to Olly. Pietro has already claimed the spot at the top of the table.
“Right.” Pietro jumps right in. “I know it’s only January, but we need to start thinking about creative ideas to present to our brands for Pride month and in particular, the clothing brand Jackal. Chris, do you have any ideas?”
Oh, how I wish Pietro didn’t know I was gay. How I hadn’t corrected him when he assumed I must have a girlfriend when I first started working here. Pietro now opts to ask me to lead the conversation on anything LGBTQIA+ related, like I’m the spokesperson for the entire community.
I squeeze the stress ball, taking a deep breath and repeating my mantra before responding.
Be better. Not bitter.
Be better. Not bitter.
“I think the most important thing for us to be thinking about, with all our brands, is that whatever we do, it doesn’t look disingenuous. That it’s not a box-ticking exercise for them. That they’ll do it and quickly move on to the next topic or theme, such as Black History Month.”
Pietro’s glare communicates one thing—get to the point. But he wasn’t the one who had to deal with the challenge we had last year when the far-right forced one of our clients to stop stocking anything pride-related. It effectively ended our campaign just as it started.
Marco leans forward on the table and looks at me as if asking for permission to speak.
I nod, thankful for the distraction.
“Maybe we could go beyond just focusing on pride and look at labels all together.”
“Go on,” Pietro says and pulls his chair in.
“That we are more than the label society puts on us. Gay, straight. White, Hispanic. Disabled, fat, skinny, autistic. That beyond these labels, we’re all the same, we are all human.”
“Beyond the label. That’s it,” Pietro says, raising his hand in the air. Julie squeezes my leg and grabs the jug of water, pouring herself a glass and drinking it.
“I can see the campaign now. People of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds, genders and sexualities, cutting the labels out of their clothes and coming together as one.”
Pietro does a chef’s kiss, and Marco smiles widely.
“That’s a great idea,” I say, trying to hide my envy at not coming up with it myself. I’ve clearly gotten too comfortable, if not complacent, recently. It wasn’t helped by Tony’s complete lack of creativity or ability to think outside the box.
I guess this is a reminder that I need to step up my game.
“Thank you,” Marco says and notes down the tagline.