Chapter 9 #2
At this point, the only place he was going to meet another man was through work or, evidently, by checking into a brothel.
“It’s probably not going to go anywhere,” Jensen admitted to his parents.
He didn’t want to get their hopes up. It was a bit careless to mention it at all.
Sure, Daniel’s note had told him to text and keep in touch, but Jensen doubted he meant it.
He must have told all the men he entertained to do the same, and Jensen shouldn’t allow himself to think he was special or anything would come out of it.
His mother’s face fell before her expression hardened. “And why not? Is he not good enough for you? Who is this man anyway? If he’s not willing to chase after you, then his loss. Give me his number and I’ll talk to him.”
“Angie,” his father warned with a hand on her arm. “Let the boy talk.”
Jensen sighed and pushed around the noodles on his plate. “I really like him. We spent hours together talking over the weekend, and I feel closer to him than anyone I’ve met in a long time. I just don’t see it working out between us.”
“Because of the distance? If he feels the same way, I’m sure we could convince him to move closer. Long-distance relationships can work out. You know, there’s an entire show about people who get engaged and they live in different countries. If they—”
“Because he’s a sex worker.” Jensen pushed his plate away, the small appetite he had from traveling swept away. “He’s a sex worker, and I suspect he only acted interested because it’s his job.”
“Well”—she twisted her mouth—“that’s not ideal …”
“Does he plan on continuing in that … line of work?” his dad asked.
Jensen blew out a breath and hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know, I haven’t asked.”
“But you like this boy?”
“Yeah, Dad, I do. I can’t explain it. We just click, and you know how rare that is for me.”
His parents stared at each other, silently having a conversation they’d had countless times over his life.
They were trying to decide if they were going to allow him to make his own mistakes or intervene.
But Daniel didn’t feel like a mistake, not to Jensen.
Even if his job was less than ideal, like his mother had so eloquently stated.
His father seemed to have won the silent standoff because his mother sighed and turned to face him first.
“A sex worker,” his mother mused, her long nails tapping on the counter. “We can work with that. I don’t like it, but we can fix it. Is he a stripper? My cousin Jolanda was a stripper to pay for beauty school.”
Jensen choked on his breath. “Jolanda was a stripper?” The woman in question preferred wearing housecoats in various floral patterns and specialized in giving perms to elderly clients.
Admittedly, she was pretty, but it seemed unbelievable that she would ever take her clothes off in front of strangers.
“Oh yes. That’s how she met her husband. Mauricio came in, and it was love at first sight. Of course, he needed some help opening his eyes. Anyways, Jolanda called him up a few weeks after they met, told him he gave her the clap and he needed to pay for her treatment.”
“Good God,” Jensen muttered into his hands.
“Which he did,” his mother asserted with a raised voice. “Was a real gentleman about the whole thing. And now they’ve been married for fifteen years. I’m sure we can get this man on board and you can get your happily ever after too. Preferably without the STD.”
“He sleeps with people for money. It’s a bit more than just being a stripper. He works in a brothel.”
“And you like him?” his mother asked, still wary.
It didn’t matter if Jensen liked Daniel or not. It didn’t matter that his chest was empty and his fingers itched to pull out his phone to text him. It didn’t matter that when he’d left the hotel that morning, he was accompanied by a sense of loss that had followed him across the country.
Things with Daniel would never work. If they tried, their relationship would be relegated to phone calls and text messages and stolen weekends where they could get away. Were they even together if they weren’t together?
Then there was the more obvious and glaring issue that no matter how close they got, Daniel would be intimate with other people multiple times a week.
Jensen had never been a jealous person, but he’d never had a reason to be jealous before.
His past boyfriends had lasted only a few months, and he wasn’t ever that attached to any of them.
He could see himself getting very attached to Daniel.
If he was honest, Jensen was already possessive of the man and craved him more than he had anyone else.
He knew that would only get worse if they continued to talk.
When he didn’t answer, his mother took his face in her hands and forced him to make eye contact. “Oh, baby. Put away that frown, we’ll figure this out. You’ll get your man.”
He resolutely ignored how she kept including herself in this scheme to get him a boyfriend. “I don’t think so. Not this time.”
His father cleared his throat. “Where’s the boy that had dreams? My son used to fight for things he wanted, even if everyone told him he couldn’t succeed. The boy I raised looked at challenges as puzzles to be solved. He never gave up when he started something. Where did that boy go?”
“He grew up, Dad.”
“It sounds like he gave up,” his father said, giving Jensen a meaningful look that had him shrinking in his seat.
“Graham!”
“No, Angie. He’s been working at that dismal excuse for a company for years now while we can all see it’s sucking out his soul. He’s stopped working on his house and has given up on his second book. And now he’s running away from love before giving it a real chance. What is going on with you?”
“I never said I was going to write a second book,” Jensen muttered under his breath. One was definitely enough to satiate his desire to spread his knowledge of art nouveau. When his dad kept staring at him, Jensen threw his hands up in the air. “What do you want me to do?”
“Live, Jensen. I want you to live. I want you to make mistakes and let your heart get broken, if that’s what it comes to. I want you to have a full life and not put yourself in a box where nothing can hurt you or make you happy.”