“Okay.” Thomas lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender and leaned back in his chair, putting some space between them. “So how are you going to tell your mom?”
Rhys groaned and scrubbed his face with both hands. That wasn’t a conversation he was eager to have because he knew his mother would be disappointed, perhaps even upset to learn Rhys wasn’t dating anyone. She was the one who had encouraged him to go to grief counseling after Andy died — a suggestion he had ignored — and she was the one who had worried about him being too isolated and lonely, despite his assurances that he got enough socializing through work and had plenty of friends.
“Having friends is good, but it won’t take the place of having a partner,” she said.
There were times when Rhys did miss having a partner. He missed cooking dinner with someone, snuggling up on the couch with someone to binge watch all the shows he’d missed while filmingPlague Z, sharing a shower. He missed the moments of little intimacies as much as he missed sex. Hook-ups didn’t appeal to him; he wanted a connection and familiarity as well as passion. But he wasn’t willing to take the risk involved in having a partner, so he had watched a lot of porn and done a lot of masturbating over the past five years.
“No clue,” he said at last. “I wish I didn’t have to tell her.”
“You could always take me home with you,” Thomas said, his familiar teasing smile returning at last.
Rhys was on the verge of dismissing Thomas’s words as nonsense, but then he paused. He was going home to Waynesville, North Carolina, for a few weeks before his gig as stunt coordinator on an indie horror movie started in mid-November. What if hedidbring Thomas with him for a few days? They could pretend to be a couple, and then they could “break up” later.
“Would you do that?” he asked, regarding Thomas speculatively.
Thomas almost spit out his iced tea, and he shot Rhys an incredulous look. “You want me to go home with you as your boyfriend?”
“Fake boyfriend,” Rhys said. “But yeah, why not? We pretend to be dating for a few days, then stage a break up after you leave. Mom would gain some peace of mind knowing I’ve dived back into the dating pool, and she’d stop bugging me about it.”
“But youhaven’tdived back into the dating pool,” Thomas said, his expression turning dubious. “Do you think she won’t figure that out after we break up and you go back to avoiding the mere thought of a relationship?”
“I can argue that I tried it, and I didn’t like it.”
“You make it sound like dating is on the same level as turning up your nose at lima beans.” Thomas rounded on Rhys, sounding as exasperated as he looked. “All you’re going to accomplish is buying yourself a little time before she figures out you’re notreallyemerging from your hermit hole.”
“At this point, I’ll take it. I’d like to go home one time and not have to listen to a litany of concerns about my mental and emotional wellbeing.” Rhys paused and glanced away. “I hate to disappoint her too,” he admitted softly. “She sounds so happy for me, and if I have to tell her it was a misunderstanding….”
Thomas gazed at him steadily. “You realize you’re going to owe me big time if I do this.”
Rhys unlocked his phone with a touch and opened the text message from his mother. “I know this reveals how much of a mama’s boy I am,” he said as he held up the phone so Thomas could see the message, red heart emoji and all. “But I can’t stand to see the look on her face when I tell her I don’t actually have a boyfriend.”
Thomas stared at the screen, seeming to waver, and then he nodded. “Okay, I’ll do it. I don’t have anywhere to be until after Halloween, and it’s not like I’ve got family to visit.”
The edge of bitterness in Thomas’s voice reminded Rhys that not everyone was as lucky as he’d been when he came out to his family. He had a few relatives who shunned him, but they were the minority. Based on what little Thomas had revealed about his family, he hadn’t fared so well.
“You’ll like my mother,” Rhys said, offering a reassuring smile. “She’ll probably treat you like royalty just because you’re helping draw her baby boy out of the lonesome desolation of bachelorhood.”
Thomas let out a derisive snort. “How long do you want to keep up the charade?”
“Maybe a week?” Rhys said. “I’ve got a house in Waynesville, so you’ll have some space and privacy, but if it gets to be too much, we can always say your agent called with a new audition for you.”
“And then?”
“And then we give it a few weeks and announce a break up.” Rhys spread his hands. “Easy peasy.”
Thomas snorted again and returned his attention to his chile rellenos, and Rhys started answering all the text messages. He felt a slight twinge of guilt over the deception, but he considered it a white lie told for a good cause. His mother would be happy, he would get some breathing room, and Thomas would get a week of being spoiled by his family. It was a win-win for sure.
