Chapter 33 #2
“I get that,” he says quietly, like he’s ready to listen. Which means I have to talk.
I push some hair out of my face and lean back in my chair, needing some distance.
“When I went back to work—after a few months in the field being mostly by myself all the time and not knowing what I’d be coming home to, I met her, and I thought—I could be coming home to someone.
And she indicated she’d be happy to be that person. ”
“Oh.” His soft sound lands like lead between us.
Guilt threatens to choke me.
The first time I’d come back to New York a few months after leaving the “sick bed,” I’d intended to reach out Matthew—to Dick and Donna and Maggie, too, but once I arrived in Manhattan—once I’d taken literally one look at the bed he and I shared for the better part of a year, and saw no sign of him in our apartment, I couldn’t bring myself to.
I had a lot of shame about needing him the way I had—keeping him from living his own life, and also the less than innocent thoughts I had about him that I’d kept to myself. Before I’d gone overseas—before the bomb blast—I’d been practically addicted to Grindr—to sloppy hook-ups with pretty men.
And I’d hated myself. I hated the way it felt to use someone to get off and not give them a second thought the next day.
And yet, the pull I’d felt to sink right back into the habit once I realized Matthew had moved out made me feel like an alcoholic staring down a bottle of vodka.
Just walking down the street to the deli meant I’d see a half dozen men and picture them on their knees.
The act itself wasn’t the trigger—it was the memory of self-loathing.
I hated myself for wanting Matthew, and I didn’t know what I’d do if I saw him. If I’d even be able to have a normal conversation with him. If I’d be able to stop myself from making a pass at him. If he’d find me disgusting.
While I don’t remember ever purposefully coming onto him in the middle of the night, Matthew is objectively attractive. But it isn’t just that he’s easy on the eyes.
Here’s the thing about my brother. While he’s the shier of the twins by far, he and his sister are both capable of filling a room with their presence, and they have a story for everything.
I’ve always worked in journalism. Facts. Bias. Truth. Lies. Black. White. Worthy. Not worthy.
Matthew’s never looked at the world like that. He sees meaning. Poetry. Beauty.
And he’s the embodiment of all those things, too. A heart still pure. A body capable of both grace and strength. And eyes that never judge or criticize. At the most, they make a geometric analysis.
He’s just different. Different from me. Different than anyone.
And he’s always had the ability to make me feel things right along with him.
Yes, sometimes things that made my dick inconveniently hard, but deeper things, too.
Like that part of me that always felt disconnected to everything reached out finally and found a way to ground itself in his way of seeing things—in him.
And those were not the kind of thoughts I was supposed to be having about Dick and Donna’s baby boy. “Remember, Matty, please—you were so young.” He’d barely turned twenty-one on my first visit back to the city.
He breaks eyes contact and nods.
“The right thing felt like letting you live your life. I thought about us, though. Too much, maybe. That first week back, I was so alone. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and reach for you.
It made me realize a couple things. I didn’t want to die alone like that, and I wasn’t about to put that kind of pressure on you. ”
I give him a moment to take this in. I hope he knows that was then. Now—we’re something new, and my feelings for him are shifting in a different direction.
“So that’s why Nicole,” he says.
My voice is a choked whisper. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t want a relationship with a man?” he asks.
“My feelings about men are complicated.”
His brow furrows. “Okay…”
“I have a lot of shame,” I say, wanting to clarify and realizing too late how inadequate those words are.
“About being bi?”
I shake my head. “It’s not that. I can accept that about myself. I didn’t like who I was when I was hooking up with men. I was cold and selfish and…I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt like an addict. Like I didn’t care who it was or how I got off—I just cared about getting off.”
“I get that, Fischer,” he says, finally meeting my eyes.
I sense an understanding deeper than I expected. It makes me brave enough to say what comes next. “I wanted you. And I felt disgusting for how much.”
“Because I was young or because we’re…”
“Brothers? Both,” I say.
“And now?”
I take a deep breath, needing to touch him, but unable to think of a way. “It doesn’t feel as wrong knowing you want me, too.”
“I do want you,” he says firmly, validating me. “If you’ll have me.”
“Are you asking if I want to be your boyfriend?”
“Do you?”
“More than I want most things,” I say.
He leans forward, elbows on the table. “I get that I can’t come first. I know you have Vaughn and your work—”
“You’re more important to me than my work.”
He snorts. “Since when?”
I lean in, too, bringing our faces closer.
“Since I decided I couldn’t be away from you any longer.
You’re half the reason I’m home. Your emails.
It was hard to be away from Vaughn, but we were used to it.
But when I couldn’t stop thinking about you and what it might be like to have you in my life again—it made me realize how much I was missing out on. What I could have, if I let myself.”
“Is this what you pictured?” he asks softly.
I let out half a laugh. “Not at all. I mean, maybe in my dreams. In reality, I felt like I’d be lucky if we got to have lunch together a couple times a week.”
“That’s not what it seemed like when you got back,” Matthew says.
I know what he means. I was all over him for the jump. “Everything changed when I saw you again,” I admit quietly.
“For me, too,” he says.
Impulsively, I stretch my neck out and press a quick kiss to his mouth. His hand grips mine as I sit back with a heavy breath. “Did you mean to do that?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Can you be out?”
Fuck. Here’s a perfect sign I’m a mess. But I refuse to let his hand go even as I say, “I’m not sure. I could run it by the network.” I frown and shake my head at myself. “That’s a terrible answer. I’m sorry I said that.”
“Why?”
“Well, because there are plenty of queer people on the air, and what the fuck do I care what they think? I have an appearance clause in my contract, but I don’t have a sexuality clause.”
“An appearance clause?” he laughs. “Like what? If you gain weight or something?”
“It’s actually about my hair,” I say, grinning prematurely at the mockery I’m about to be subject to.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the clause?”
“That I have to get approval for anything other than a trim.”
He laughs softly. “I want that clause, too.”
“You want hair cut approval?”
“Fuck yeah. I love your hair. I’m crazy about it actually.”
“I thought you were gonna make fun of me.”
“I would never joke about your hair.”
I flash him a smile.
“What about being my boyfriend?” he asks.
“I thought we already had the monogamy talk once already.”
“Not the same thing,” he says, his expression more serious.
“Yes, I want to be your boyfriend. Your one and only,” I say.
“Good. Be patient with me, though,” he says. “I’ve never done this before.”
“I like that,” I say. “We’ll figure it out together.”