22. Graham
22
GRAHAM
I can’t seem to move past something my father said to me on Sunday in his office. It was just a few words, and they glided over me at the time, but ever since we left the privacy of his study and rejoined the others, the words have been doing a real number on me. “It wouldn’t have been the end of the world.”
One truth I’ve lived my life according to is that my family would not accept me if they knew I was gay. I’d lose my inheritance. I’d be cast out like my sister. I’d be nothing to them. No one. Wiped off the plate of their lives forever.
Was he only saying that because there’s now so much proof to the contrary? Proof I manufactured out of thin air? Would he feel differently if I were still single, not trying to get a woman pregnant? Not an elected official? If I were just a gay prosecutor minding my own business and quietly dating men?
I’ve never allowed myself to consider what an “out” life would look like, but given my historically low sex drive and late blooming, I doubt I’d have been out hitting the clubs every night looking for hook-ups. And since being in a relationship with a man wasn’t on any Bingo card I possessed, I never considered what was involved in finding a boyfriend.
My father is a busy, wealthy man. He wasn’t overly involved in my upbringing—neither was my mom, really. Any family trips we took were usually in service to some business meeting he had. Some public appearance that needed to be made out of town. We’ve never been especially close. Over the years we’ve talked about my grades, my courses, my career, how to present myself properly in public, but we don’t talk about real life. My dad doesn’t know what my favorite movie is, or how much I wish I could live in a coastal house in Maine. He doesn’t even know I’m a cat person, not a dog person. I’d like to say it’s because those things never came up, but the truth is more along the lines of I didn’t think he’d care.
I wonder if that’s not true. Maybe my sister’s bad attitude about him has rubbed off on me, and I haven’t given the old man a fair shake?
The fact that he might be okay with my being gay? Well, that’s news to me.
And it’s messing with me.
Like right now while Avery’s trying to get me hard. Loud porn plays in the background, and there’s a fresh Band-Aid from her implant removal on her arm. Despite all the moaning and sucking blasting from the sound system, I can’t maintain an erection.
“It’s okay,” she says, letting my dick slide out of her mouth. “We’ll get some Viagra or something. We don’t have to do it tonight. It’ll probably be a few weeks before I ovulate anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, meaning it. It’s embarrassing, and it hasn’t been a problem yet, although anyone could have probably seen it coming.
She pauses the TV, and the apartment fills with glorious silence as she gets off her knees and takes a seat next to me. I tuck myself back into my sweatpants. The screen is frozen on the face of a pretty twink deep throating a cock. The tip of his nose is pressed to the other man’s hairless pelvis. Maybe the twink is why this isn’t working. Not my type.
Wait—do I have a type?
Silas’s deep voice and lean, muscled body come to mind uninvited. Broad shoulders, thick thighs, big, rock hard ass. He may keep himself virtually hairless, but there’s nothing feminine about his body or his bearing.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” she says, rubbing a hand comfortingly across my chest. “What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve heard that sometimes when it gets real—like when sex could actually result in a pregnancy—it can freak guys out.”
I nod, not that I’m agreeing, because while she’s still going through the motions of acknowledging my sexuality—hence the porn and the easy forgiveness—I think there’s some part of her that’s beginning to believe she has the ability to turn me on, too. That I might not be as gay as I claimed, or she’s opening my mind. Avery—above all else—wants to be special.
And she is, God bless her. At this point, I don’t know how I’d survive without her. To be clear, I’ve been on my own in my life more than not, but without her, I’d probably have six cats, order take out every day and try to publish a book about constitutional law—which wasn’t my primary specialty. I might have let my life become so small, I would have collapsed in on myself.
“I’m ready, I promise,” I tell her. “For kids.”
She smiles and gives my cheek a gentle pat. She strokes her thumb over my cheekbone and looks deep into my eyes. And then she leans in.
I close my eyes and let her soft lips brush mine. For a long, painful second, all my muscles seize, frozen in place. Then I turn my head, and she draws away. “Sorry,” I whisper again.
“I’m just excited,” she tells me. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. ”
“I might take a walk. Clear my head.”
“Yeah, okay. I get it.”
I don’t need her to get it. I just need to get out of here. But I nod, letting her have the last word as I shove my feet into some old sneakers by the door and pull on a coat. Grabbing my keys from the hook on the wall, I leave the apartment. I feel disheveled and gross. I wish I’d thought to grab a beanie or something because my recently showered hair has likely dried in a way that makes me look like a mad scientist. I don’t know. Don’t want to know.
And yet, when Silas spots me in the lobby, I’m hyperconscious of all of it down to the remnants of Avery’s saliva on my dick.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
I haven’t seen him since the morning we spent in Chelsea. I tend not to come and go from the apartment often at night, and on the odd occasion I have, he hasn’t been here. It’s been one week. Not long, and yet, I wondered if I’d never see him again.
“You all right?” he asks as he takes me in.
“More or less,” I tell him.
He stands like he plans to walk me to the door. I rake my gaze up his long legs clad in black slacks, his chiseled torso in a slim-cut black sweater with his name tag. He looks like he’s had a haircut and a beard trim. All his angles are sharp and appealing.
“You don’t look all right,” he tells me.
“Wow. Thank you. I’m just going for a walk.”
“It’s twenty-seven degrees outside.”
“Is it your job to know that?” I ask.
“Yeah. That and this,” he says as he pushes open the door and the icy air blows into the warm lobby.
“You’re good at it,” I tell him. “At all your jobs.”
His laugh is short and abrupt. “You know you’re the only person besides my ex who knows about all three of them.”
“Have you seen him again?” I can’t help but ask .
“No. Or maybe I should say not yet. I don’t really know what’s happening.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I face the blustery wind. “Yep. Feels exactly like twenty-seven degrees.”
“You sure you wanna go out there?”
I think about what’s waiting for me upstairs. I also think about the man standing in front of me and how everything I wasn’t feeling with Avery is now about to bubble over inside of me. Distinct, focused lust. Longing. Aching. Want .
Followed rapidly by crushing unease and guilt. “Yeah.” Without another word, I go, setting a brisk pace on the sidewalk. A few blocks later, I’m convinced this is the most miserable I’ve ever been. The phrase “living a lie” has never rung truer. And my marriage of convenience doesn’t feel nearly so convenient anymore.
I walk about ten blocks until my fingers are so cold, nothing short of holding them over a fire would warm them, and I double back. My head isn’t clear. If anything, it’s more cluttered and frozen.
Silas looks relieved to see me, something slightly resembling a smile twitching up a corner of his mouth. “Learn your lesson, Senator?”
“I did. Yeah.”
“My offer from before still stands, you know?” he asks as I press the button to call the elevator.
“Which—?” And then I remember. Any time . “Oh.”
“I’ll take that as a no thanks.”
We’re speaking around a corner. I can’t even see him from where I’m standing. “It’s not a no,” I whisper, hating myself. It’s not loud enough for him to hear. I’ll be so much better off leaving him with an assumed no. But when the elevator fails to appear, and the silence stretches out like a rubber band about to snap, I say it louder. “It’s not a no. ”
Half a second later, the elevator door opens, too late to save me from myself.
He’d told me I could text him any time, but he beats me to it. Silas’s text comes at five a.m. Thursday, the week before Thanksgiving, which is later in the month this year. I’m awake already, or again. Another restless night nearly behind me. Avery isn’t here—or at least not in my bed. She went out with friends last night, and from what I could hear, she went straight to bed in her own room afterward.
Silas
Can I see you?
My heart lurches at the words on the screen.
Me
When?
Silas
I can meet you. Please?
The texts surprise me. They’re vulnerable, and it’s not Silas’s vibe at all. It almost feels like a trap, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Me
Can you get to the Chelsea apartment or do you need an address?
Silas
I’m already here.
I don’t remember standing up, but I’m in my closet, pulling out clothes. Lots of them. Layers. A Lyft is waiting for me when I get downstairs, and it’s a quick ride downtown at this hour. Silas, as promised, is sitting on the stoop of the apartment building. He’s in an expensive wool overcoat. Leather gloves cover his hands, and a black beanie is pulled down over his eyebrows. He stands when he sees me get out of the car, and I blink in surprise when I see the tuxedo beneath his coat.
I hustle us both inside even though it’s still dark and relatively quiet on the street. “Nice tux,” I mutter.
Our eyes clash, and it’s like he’s daring me to ask for more information.
I plan to. But not in the lobby. His jaw is so tense, I’m not sure he can loosen it enough to talk.
Once we’re in my apartment, he shrugs off the overcoat. I take it from him, planning to hang it up somewhere, but I wait while he removes his jacket, cummerbund, and loosens his tie, finally sliding it off too. Part of me thinks he’s gonna keep going, strip naked and make me an offer I won’t be strong or smart enough to refuse, but he stops after he rids himself of his shoes and untucks his shirt. “Thank you,” he says. “For coming.”
“Any particular reason you thought of me?”
He walks toward the couch. “I’m always thinking of you. Whether I want to be or not.”
“Maybe I should be more specific…” I follow him and watch him sit in a sprawl on the couch.
He looks up at me expectantly. “You can sit with me. I won’t try anything.”
I scowl.
He raises his brows. “Did you want me to? I figured you were settling into your baby making days since I haven’t heard from you.”
“I—yeah—no—Silas, what are you doing here?”
“I had a terrible fucking night, and I didn’t wanna go home yet. ”
“Why not?”
“My apartment sucks, and I’m restless, and I don’t fucking know, I just—didn’t want to be there.”
Suddenly, he bends forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands and he lets out a harsh, jagged breath. Again, I move without remembering moving. I’m on the couch beside him. My hand is on his back. I rub up and down with a firm, hopefully reassuring, pressure.
“Sex doesn’t mean anything to me, you know? It can’t. If it did, I couldn’t…”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”
“I’m not saying I don’t want it or I don’t need it, I’m just saying it’d be like having a meaningful relationship with protein, which I don’t. It’s not easy to rattle me.”
“What happened?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I don’t really want to know.
“They filmed me.”
“What?” They?
“It ended up being this couple, and I think they were using me for content or something. It was just…”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No…nothing like that. It was just so fucking degrading. I felt like a whore. I mean—if I wanted to be online, I’d make an account, you know? This is the most private thing in my life, and I…”
He trails off and breathes heavily into his hands again. “It was so much money. And I am a whore. I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
“It’s…not.” Of all the eleven thousand thoughts running through my head, that isn’t one of them.
“I couldn’t even stay hard.” He says that like his inability to maintain an erection was the real humiliation of the night. Not that he was catfished or filmed with dubious consent .
I run my hand up his back and position myself so I’m bent over with him. “Hey.”
He looks at me, and there’s a plea in his eyes. I don’t know what it’s for, but I do the first thing it makes me think of. I hug him.
He melts into the embrace, sighing and digging his face into the place where my shoulder meets my neck. I run my fingers through his hair and continue rubbing circles on his back. He digs his nails into my shirt and hangs on tight.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I ruffle his hair. “No, I’m sorry that happened. I’m glad you texted.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You were the only person I wanted to see, and I can’t explain it, but this was exactly what I wanted. Just this. While I was waiting for you to show up, I was praying you’d hug me.”
“Silas…”
“I know it’s pathetic. I know I should be pretending we don’t know each other, but I think about you all the time. I can’t stop.”
My hand stills in his hair.
He begins to pull away, and I’m so stunned, I let him move a few inches before stopping him from going too far. We’re staring at each other, and he apologizes again.
“Silas, what do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why me?”
“I already told you I don’t know.”
“But I don’t believe you,” I say.
His gaze drops to my mouth, and a pained look crosses his face. He swallows and ducks his head. He moves his hands to my hips like he means to leverage himself away. This time, I let him.
I’m desperate and confused. Desperately confused. “We can’t… ”
“I know,” Silas responds quickly.
“I was going to say be anything.”
“I know that, too.”
“Why would you want any part of that?” I ask.
“I think I might be a little self-destructive,” he says, bending over his knees again. His hair falls into his face, a wreck from what my fingers and his hat did to it. “But I know you’re not like me. You have a plan and shit. And you’re a surprisingly good guy, at least for now.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means who knows what’s gonna happen to you once you start spending half your time in DC. They say power corrupts. And you’re still pretty innocent as far as I can tell.”
A huff of a disbelieving laugh escapes me. “I’ve had sex almost ten times now,” I tell him.
“Oh, well, then. Never mind.” He laughs, and it feels a little like a miracle.
“Porn is even involved. It’s very kinky.”
“Ugh. Stop. I don’t want to think about it.”
I smile and lean back on the couch. “I need coffee.”
“There’s not any here?”
“I make terrible coffee.”
“It’s pretty hard to mess up.”
“Tell that to anyone who’s ever had my coffee.”
“I’m willing to risk it,” Silas says.
“Your funeral,” I say, heading into the kitchen to make a pot of flavorless tar.