“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m basically undoing the past few years of my life because my entire marriage was a lie,” Trent snapped. “Okay isn’t a word I’d use, but it’s what I’m working toward.”
“My wife cheated on me,” he said. “It’s not the only reason we divorced, but it was the catalyst for things breaking down.”
“Shit,” Trent muttered. “I didn’t know, Mr. Fullier. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare.” Thomas didn’t feel as uncomfortable with the conversation as he’d feared, so he eased off his hands and refilled his wine, settling more comfortably into the couch. He studied the wall in front of him, the vines of the pothos plant snaking their way down the wall and around the entertainment center. He wanted to get another pothos for his room. The way the plant grew, and twined, and stretched spoke to something deep inside of him that he wanted to embrace more fully.
“I didn’t call you to talk about the disaster that is my life. I’m calling because some things about Dakota have recently come to light and…”
“Oh.” Trent’s voice fell, and Thomas knew that Ben wasn’t the only one to experience the brunt of his son’s attitude.
“We don’t need to have a discussion about it. I just wanted to apologize. For him or for me, or maybe both. If I would have known—”
“You wouldn’t have known,” Trent interrupted, “because I haven’t told anyone. I don’t know how you know.”
“I…I’ve recently met someone else that he’s mistreated.” Thomas didn’t think it important to go into the nature of his relationship with Ben. That wasn’t the point of the call.
Trent answered that with a doubtful noise that quickly turned into a tired sigh. Thomas could picture Trent sitting at his and Dakota’s dining room table, rubbing the bridge of his nose in the way he always did when he’d spent too many hours thinking about work.
“You don’t have to apologize because you haven’t done anything wrong. And Dakota won’t ever apologize because he doesn’t think he has. Or, rather, he’ll apologize to manipulate, not because he means it.”
“I’m sorry all the same,” he said.
“Well, I appreciate that.”
“Is there anything I can do to help you through the divorce?”
Trent exhaled a long breath. “Your son leaving me alone is all I can ask for at this point. I don’t want to deal with getting a restraining order. It…it wasn’t ever that bad, but it’s best he stays away. So if you see him, just remind him of that.”
“I will,” he promised.
“I’m moving back to Florida,” Trent continued. “I’m going to stay here until things are finalized because it’ll be easier, but I talked with my sister and she’s going to let me stay with her until I get everything sorted out again.”
Starting life over had been easy for Thomas. Sure, it had been an adjustment after an entire life lived, but in hindsight, it wasn’t so bad. He’d been able to see the good in the changes that life brought him, and he hoped Trent could do the same.
“That’ll be nice,” he said, but it didn’t feel like enough. He realized how Ben felt, apologizing for something that wasn’t his mistake. Thomas was near desperate for Trent to accept his apology or to let him shoulder some of the blame for what Dakota had done, much how Ben had acted the last time they’d seen each other. He recognized the root of the emotion, and his entire body ached again to hold Ben and console him. To help him. To love him.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Trent confirmed. “Was there anything else, Mr. Fullier?”
“No. No, Trent. That’s all.” He finished off the wine in his glass and debated the merits of finishing the bottle.
“If I do think of anything I need, I will call, though,” Trent said, quickly following up with, “Bye, Mr. Fullier.”
The phone beeped loudly in his ear before he was able to say goodbye and he let out a long breath, sinking back into the couch with his phone in his hand. He wasn’t delirious enough to think that his phone call had changed anything, but Trent’s unacceptance of Thomas’s responsibility had cast Ben’s reaction to the event in a new light.
He’d been trying his best to give Ben the space he asked for, even if the silence chipped away at him in almost unbearable ways. He’d sent himself a message whenever he wanted to reach out to Ben. He’d talked to himself in the mirror whenever he wanted to call. When he couldn’t sleep at night, he buried his face in the pillow that still smelled like Ben’s shampoo, and embarrassingly enough, he’d slept in Ben’s shirt every night for the past two weeks.
With Trent fresh on his mind, Thomas scrolled to the chat logs with Ben, fingers itching to send a text even though he knew better than to reach out. He wished he had Lara’s number, at the least, so he could check up on the side, so he couldknowBen was okay without him there. That was what really ate at him—the not knowing of everything. When they saw each other last, he’d been the one asking for it to not be goodbye. Ben was the one asking for space, asking for him to leave. He found himself faced with the very real possibility Ben would never come back to him.
It was with that miserable thought at the forefront of his mind that Thomas decided he wanted gelato. He wasn’t above moping and he had every intention of sulking his way to the gelato shop and getting mint chocolate because it was the one Ben had gotten the first time they went. He corked the wine and shoved the last of the bottle into the fridge, then put on a pair of pants that didn’t have stains on them and headed down the street.
He walked the long way, as to avoid Ben’s building, so when he walked up and found Ben and Lara at one of the cafe tables on the sidewalk, he almost turned around and went home.
“Are you stalking me, Thomas?” Lara asked, a little louder than necessary to get his attention. He stopped and shoved his hair back out of his face, the mirth and tease in Lara’s eyes bright under the neon signage of the gelato shop.
At her greeting, Ben turned around, his head snapping on his neck like a rubber band. He looked like hell, tired with more scruff on his face than Thomas had ever seen. He didn’t hate it, but it didn’t feel like it suited Ben in the least.
