Chapter 4 #3
Maybe Gabe’s opinion, while different from his, wouldn’t have bothered Ren so much if it didn’t feel like a copy of Gabe’s boyfriend’s opinion.
Like somehow, Sean had stolen away a part of Gabriel, a part that Ren was never going to get back, but now he was intruding in something that had always been about the two of them.
“You’re being really quiet,” Gabe said as they walked back home.
Ren never hoped that Gabe would go spend more time at Sean’s, but it turned out that the couple had decided to meet at the new bar for the opening.
So when they closed up the food truck for the night—early, per Tony’s message to the owners’ group chat—Gabe and Ren had left for their loft apartment together.
“I’m not being quiet,” Ren said. Though he knew Gabe wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t been talking much—at least not to Gabe he hadn’t. He had been talking to Jake.
Gabe didn’t reply, just shoved his hands into his pockets.
So many times over the last twenty-four hours he’d considered asking Jake to meet him at the party.
What had stopped him?
Not Jake.
Ren was incredibly charmed by the man. Intrigued and interested, on a whole different level than he’d experienced in a long time. Maybe forever.
But what had stopped him wasn’t Jake at all, but Seth.
Ren knew Seth would be at the opening night party.
It felt mean in a way that Ren had prided himself on never being, to bring a guy he was actually really, truly interested in to a party where Seth would be present. Even if Seth had a guy that he liked, that he was bringing too.
He wasn’t going to flaunt his date in front of Seth’s face.
Maybe they hadn’t worked out. Maybe Seth had never agreed to come to his bed. But that didn’t mean that Ren didn’t give a shit.
He hadn’t been able to give Seth what he wanted. He still didn’t know if he was going to be able to give Jake what he wanted.
But he wasn’t going to mix the two.
So he’d be going to the party tonight, as a third wheel, again, with Sean and Gabe.
Normally, he wouldn’t mind, but tonight, he was still pissed off at Gabe.
They climbed up the stairs to their loft, and Gabriel unlocked the door.
Ren had looked forward to this evening for awhile. He considered both Jackson and Shaw to be good friends, especially Shaw these days—and Shaw’s boyfriend, Ross.
This was a moment of triumph for both of them, but especially for Shaw, and he didn’t want to mar it with his bad mood.
Maybe he needed something to soften his sharper edges. They felt so much sharper, today. He stalked over to the fridge, and pulled out a beer.
“You gonna get me one?” Gabriel asked from behind him.
“Are you going to be an asshole?” Ren asked archly, not turning around.
Gabe’s sigh echoed through their place.
“I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m trying to make good decisions.”
“Well,” Ren said, shutting the door with a decisive click, “so am I.” Gabe could get his own fucking beer.
“Yeah, but you’re being stubborn.” Gabe shot him a reproving look as he opened the fridge himself, pulling out a bottle and opening it using the opener magnet on the freezer.
“Because you’ve never been stubborn in your whole life,” Ren said. “Remember when you said you weren’t in love with Sean? Remember when you said you’d never, ever change the name? When you told Luca to fuck off?”
“I did tell Luca to fuck off,” Gabriel said, sipping his beer and ignoring the other two points, which absolutely illustrated just how goddamned stubborn he was.
“Yeah, but it didn’t stick,” Ren said. Not like he’d ever believed it would. Gabe was loyal, bone deep, to his family. And Luca was his brother and the leader of the family.
“With you either,” Gabe said with a smile.
“I just wanted to steal his manicotti recipe,” Ren pointed out. Though Gabe wasn’t wrong. Despite Luca’s overbearing nature, he meant well.
Also, the manicotti was so goddamn good, Ren could’ve cried if he hadn’t gotten the filling recipe.
He still wanted to turn that into a sandwich. If Gabe would let him.
Fuck Gabe.
“Okay, so I’m stubborn. You’re cut from the same cloth, so if I’m stubborn, so are you.” Gabriel sounded so reasonable Ren wanted to get him yelling again.
“I never said I wasn’t.” Ren knew he was.
Gabriel sighed. “What I was saying yesterday was that we always intended to start with a wider menu and narrow it down, once we figured out what worked and what didn’t.”
“But it all works,” Ren claimed.
Gabe shot him a look, and it shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. “There’re some things that aren’t selling as well. You know that. It’s wasteful to prep for so many different kinds of dishes. You know that too. It’s time and it’s energy and it’s money.”
“Yeah,” Ren said, hating how sulky his voice sounded. “Doesn’t mean we can’t adjust them to make them better.”
“We’ll see,” Gabriel said, and Ren knew he didn’t mean to be patronizing.
But well, sometimes Gabe couldn’t fucking help himself.
Ren drained the rest of the beer. “I’m going to get in the shower,” he said.
“You meeting someone at the party?” Gabriel asked, like they hadn’t just been fighting.
Ren wanted nothing more than to say fuck it to the party, but this meant so much to Shaw—and by extension, Ross—and he was their friend. He couldn’t skip it, just because he was in a bad mood.
“No,” Ren said shortly.
He was wishing again that he didn’t give a fuck about Seth, that he could be meeting Jake there, and something good might come out of this after all. But he couldn’t change that, same as he couldn’t change the way Gabriel always thought he knew best.
On the way to the bathroom, Ren pulled his phone out of his pocket, and typed a quick message to Jake.
Ren: Guess I still haven’t cooled down enough. I haven’t stopped wanting to wring Gabe’s neck.
Jake answered back almost immediately.
Jake: You’re both passionate about the business. It’s not all that surprising. Did your grandmother also teach Gabe how to cook?
Ren shut the door behind him, and leaned against it, squeezing his eyes shut. Hating that Jake knew him, even though he couldn’t possibly.
How had he known that Gabe, almost two years older than him, had always gotten permission to stir, his short stature boosted with a little worn three-legged stool, while Ren had always sat on the counter, Nonna between them.
She’d taught them both.
And when Gabriel had gotten sick of Luca being the overbearing older brother, and had left Napa and the family chain of restaurants, Ren had never hesitated. Of course he’d gone with Gabe.
He’d never considered staying, not for his own family or for anyone else.
Because where Gabe was, that was where he needed to be. Where he wanted to be.
It had been good, great even, until Sean had shown up and puffed Gabe up with all these ideas that he knew best.
The food truck belonged to both of them.
Ren had even convinced him to change what they were doing, had come up with the new name, the new concept.
They’d been doubly successful since.
But Gabe had conveniently forgotten that part of it. What made Ren more annoyed than anything was that it was just like Gabriel to forget that anyone but he and his boyfriend existed.
Ren’s fingers hovered over the keyboard on his phone.
He typed out the message one letter at a time, slowly. Do you want to meet me at a party tonight?
For a long moment, he stared at the words.
And then he erased them, one letter at a time, too.
He didn’t want to use Jake as a prop, just because he was in a bad mood over Gabriel’s bullshit.
Instead, he said: Yes. Which is why I can’t really hate him.
Jake: You guys seem close. You’re gonna figure it out.
Ren didn’t have Jake’s faith, but maybe he’d borrow it, just for tonight.