Chapter Thirty-One
“Oh my God,” Connor’s mother said, pulling out a hanger from the closet with the plastic garment bag still attached.
“This was your dad’s prom outfit!” She held up the mustard-yellow suit, and Connor cringed, setting them both off laughing.
His mother lifted the plastic to stroke the sleeve of the blazer beneath.
“He was such a catch in this. Drove over to my house in his old pickup truck with a corsage and everything.”
Connor and his mom had been trading off stints at the hospital, and that morning, she’d called him in tears, saying she couldn’t decide what to pack in the bag she was bringing his father.
They’d moved him out of the ICU, but he was still in a high-dependency unit, and it was difficult to know what he needed.
Connor had come straight over, and they’d ended up taking a trip down memory lane, rummaging through his father’s side of the closet.
It was nice to step back from the heaviness after the week they’d had.
He took the hanger from his mother and laid the mustard monstrosity down on his parents’ bed beside his father’s wedding tuxedo and favorite Huskers jersey. “Dad must have been a real charmer to pull this off.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” his mother said with an unfamiliar giggle. “There was a reason I broke curfew that night.”
Connor wrinkled his nose. “Okay, no thanks, we’re not going there.
” He shifted the pile of sweaters they’d assembled on the bed to make room for shirts.
“Never would have picked yellow for his color. Sam knows all this stuff about warm and cool tones and which colors go with which. He’s like a wizard—” Connor stopped, realizing he was gushing.
His mom studied him with a curious expression.
“He looked very dashing the other night at the award ceremony,” she said, tugging absently at the collar of the shirt in her hands.
“From what I’ve heard from Lily, he’s a lovely young man.
And he’s been so wonderful staying with you at the hospital and helping with those meals. ”
Sam and Brian had dropped off a trunk load of homemade meals the day before, filling up the fridge and freezer at his parents’ house and sending Connor home with enough to feed a small army. It was a far sight better than the toast and instant noodles he’d been subsisting on.
“Yeah, he’s been great.” Connor caught his mom’s look. “A great friend.”
“Right, of course.” She sat down on the end of the bed and smoothed the fabric of her pants. “Your father told me you two talked.”
“We did.”
Sam had made it clear there was no future for them if Connor wasn’t able to live as himself.
But even that hadn’t been enough for him to come clean with his parents.
Instead, it had taken his father almost dying to knock some sense into him.
After they’d removed his dad’s breathing tube, Connor had waited until he found a moment to speak with him alone.
He’d sat in the chair beside his bed and clenched his hands together on his lap to hide the shake.
“Well, that was a ride.” His father’s voice was husky from the intubation, and his skin remained deathly pale.
“The doctors said you were lucky to make it through.”
Despite their ordeal, Connor waited for his father’s predictably cavalier reply. But he only gave a solemn nod. He seemed shaken, older and more fragile than Connor had ever seen him.
“It got me thinking,” Connor went on. “There are a few things we haven’t talked about. Important stuff, like what you want us to do if you ever end up on life support.”
“Cut me loose.”
“And what about your funeral? What do you want for that? I don’t even know if you have life insurance.”
His dad cracked a smile. “With a disease like this? Insurers won’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. As for the funeral...” He shrugged. “Keep it simple. Save the money for your mother.”
“Okay.” Connor tapped his foot against the floor, rigid with nervous energy. “Then there’s the thing about me being gay.”
That shut him up. His father’s face crinkled into a frown, and Connor sat, completely still, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm.
“Is that right?” his dad said finally.
“I want to be clear. I’m not asking for your approval. I will do right by this family and make sure you and Mom are taken care of, but I am done worrying about what you think of me. And if who I am changes what I mean to you, that’s on you.”
The silence stretched between them. His father shifted slightly in bed. “How long have you wanted to tell me that?”
“Probably since I burned down Krazinski’s shed.” A tear slid down Connor’s cheek, and he roughly brushed it away. “Turns out committing arson is easier than talking to you.”
His dad looked at him for a long time. When he spoke, he didn’t say what Connor expected him to say—what his father had drilled into him as a kid afraid of the dark and scarecrows and the big dog across the street: “Harden up. Don’t be such a sissy.”
Instead, he reached out to grasp Connor’s wrist. “I don’t have much to show for the past fifty-six years,” he’d whispered in his rasping, raw voice.
“Just you. And your mother. That’s what’s important.
The rest?” His shoulders had risen in a weak half shrug, and his eyes had glittered.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry I didn’t see that. ”
Perched on the end of the bed, his mother waited expectantly, her eyebrows raised as if to say, “And...?”
“I think we understand each other a little better now.”
“I’m glad.” She busied herself rolling several pairs of his father’s underwear and placing them in the duffel they were packing. “Do you want to tell me about what happened between you and Sam?”
Connor wasn’t naive enough to think that coming out to his dad would serve as a magical reset.
After all, Sam was leaving town. He’d only postponed his departure on Connor’s account.
He was moving on to bigger and better things—the life he deserved—and Connor was glad for him.
But that didn’t mean everything Connor felt would just go away.
He’d always be left wondering what Sam was doing and who he was with, like he’d done all those years after high school.
Back then, it had been because Connor wanted to imagine Sam was living the life he’d dreamed for himself.
Whereas now it was because Connor was hopelessly in love with him.
Connor brushed his fingers over the scratchy woolen fabric of his dad’s tuxedo jacket and gave his mom a wan smile. “It doesn’t really matter anymore.”
Connor’s van was parked outside the office when Sam arrived early that morning.
It was raised about a foot off the ground by two jacks, but there appeared to be no sign of the man himself.
Perhaps the van had broken down and he’d set off in search of help.
Sam took out his keys and walked to the office door.
He would give Connor a call when he got inside and see if he needed to make an appointment at the garage.
Connor rolled out from under the van while Sam was turning the key in the lock, and Sam jumped in surprise. “Jesus! You scared me.”
“Sorry. I heard you walk past and thought it would be weird to just lurk under there without saying hello.” Connor’s face and the front of his overalls were streaked with black grease.
“What is that?”
“The van was due for an oil change.” Connor held up his filthy hands as if to demonstrate his point.
“You can do that yourself?”
Connor let out a little laugh. “You sure can. I’ll teach you if you like.” Then something flickered across his face. “When you’re next in town, that is.”
During those long hours together in the waiting room, Sam had briefly mentioned the flight to Chicago and the second interview.
The new life waiting just out of view. He’d been meaning to find a time to talk with Connor since then, but the man had so much on his plate, and the last week had been such a roller coaster of emotions that Sam didn’t want to burden him with his own hard-won revelations.
“About that... hang on. What are you doing here? I thought you were at the hospital.”
“My mom’s covering for me today. I figured it was about time I dropped by work and assessed the damage. Which, as it happens, isn’t so bad.” He gestured at Sam by the door, key still poised in the lock. “Someone must have beaten me to it. Know anything about that?”
Sam had been coming into the office for the past few mornings to follow up on voicemails and push out pending jobs in the booking calendar. He shrugged sheepishly. “I must have forgotten to give back my key.”
Connor smiled softly. “Thanks, Sam.”
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s improving little by little. They were saying he might even be able to come home in a couple days.”
“That’s great. That’s really good news.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “What about you—why are you here? It’s not that I don’t appreciate all your help—believe me, I do—but you’ve got your own stuff going on. What happened to Chicago?”
Sam ran his teeth over his bottom lip and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
He guessed this was as good a time as any.
“Right, so, I don’t know if I told you this, but I used to manage six-figure contracts where the terms were always changing and the clients were impossible to deal with.
I’d work late, skip lunch, rely on coffee and Xanax to get through.
If a campaign tanked or we didn’t deliver, my boss would single me out in front of everyone.
And then my sister found me this job, which promises to be all of that—the anxiety, the belittlement, the long hours, the Xanax—except now in Chicago. ”
Sam was rambling. He paused and tried to summon some of the clarity he’d gained since Maureen had called the house.
After days spent sitting with Connor at the hospital with little to distract him but his own thoughts, Sam had gone over and over his reasons for leaving.
What had seemed like the most obvious solution at the time instead felt rash and ill-informed.
Chicago was just another Austin. He didn’t want to head blindly to a new city to find his sense of purpose; he wanted to cultivate it here, among the people he cared about.
And then, if the mood struck, maybe one day he would see if the other kind of life still had any appeal.
“I’d forgotten what it was like to actually enjoy my job.
To wake up in the morning and look forward to coming in to work,” Sam continued.
“Working here was good for me. I loved hanging out with my boss—perhaps a little too much.” They exchanged a look.
“And I cared about doing my best, not for the chance of a promotion or a raise but because I wanted the business to succeed. I wanted you to succeed.”
“Sam...” Connor looked conflicted. “But Oakdale...?”
“It’s kind of grown on me. I spent so long focusing on everything I hated about the place I forgot how much there was to like.
More than that, I have people here who’re in my corner.
” Sam’s eyes darted to Connor’s face. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’d like my old job back if it’s still available. ”
Connor’s expression oscillated between shock and elation before turning serious. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather be anywhere else, doing anything else?”
Sam shook his head. It was weird how certain he was about this.
“I was thinking we could give the business a real shot—see what we can make of it. I have a few ideas that might give you more breathing room. So you have time to explore some of the things you’ve put on the back burner.
We only get one life, right? And if that doesn’t work out, you can always sell it to that guy in Henderson, and we can move to South America. ”
Connor’s face had gone slack. “What? I don’t... ‘we’?”
Sam’s hands trembled in his pockets. Not in the frantic way they’d done leading up to a panic attack but in a giddy, nervous way. “That is, if you want to give us another chance. The job’s not the only reason staying felt like the right choice.”
Connor stood deadly still, his arms hanging limp by his sides.
Sam took a deep breath and went on. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said—about figuring out what I want.
And while being able to hold your hand across the table at Jenny’s would be the dream end goal, I was forgetting about the more important stuff.
Like being with someone who has my back, who respects my choices, who makes me feel like I’m enough.
I have this bad habit of putting myself second, but that’s impossible with you because you always want to know what I think and what I like and what I feel.
It’s harder for all the crap I think about myself to stick when you’re there denying it.
All of this to say, maybe it’s not ideal, keeping things from your dad, but I can’t give you up for that alone. ”
“I told him,” Connor blurted.
Sam blinked. “What? Wow. Connor, that’s... how do you feel?”
“Relieved. Stupid. Angry for waiting this long.”
Sam was flooded with an overwhelming tenderness. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I don’t think I could’ve done it if it weren’t for you. I mean, I didn’t do it because of you—but I think the courage came from you.”
The warmth in Sam’s cheeks spread to a full blush. “No.” He shook his head. “It was yours.”
“Him getting so sick, being so close to losing him...” Connor’s breath caught. “I realized that if he died not knowing, a part of me would always have kept that secret. Because I’d never been honest with him. And I couldn’t bear having to live with that for the rest of my life.”
“Connor,” Sam whispered.
Connor stared at him, his eyes shining. “Sam, you know I’m crazy about you. Nothing’s changed there.”
Sam couldn’t fight the smile that swallowed his face. “You’re pretty hard to shake yourself.”
Connor lurched forward to embrace him but stopped as he remembered the coat of motor oil. “Let me go wash this off. I want to put my hands on you and not leave marks,” he murmured, making a dash for the office door.