I got my plate out of the microwave and took it to the table, then finally poured the wine that had caused all this to begin with. I took a sip and sat down at the table. A minute later, Josiah came back into the room. His beard was still a little damp, and his eyes were a little red, but he looked calmer, more relaxed.
“You feeling better? Ready to eat?”
Josiah sat down beside me at the table and looked up at me with a shy smile on his full lips. “I’m better, yeah. Thanks for warming up the food. I’m…”
He was about to apologize again, so I gave him a stern look, and he stopped, realized what he was doing, then gave me that small smile again. “I’m starving. Is the wine good? You’re an expert, right?”
This time I smirked. “I’m far from an expert, but I know a little. I guess since you told me about your past, I’ll tell you about mine.”
“I would love that. What do you want to talk about first?”
I ate some chicken and a couple of bites of rice, then sat back and began. “I’ll start at the beginning. I was an only child to parents who never wanted children. I came along late in life for them both, and they resented the fact that I took up their time.”
I had thought about curbing this truth some, but in the end, I decided to be brutally honest. It was better to begin as you meant to go on.
“I was sent to a Catholic boys boarding school, Rostrevor, as soon as they’d take me. I got to go home for the holidays, but usually, the parents were traveling the globe, and I would be home with my nanny or the housekeeper. They were nice to me, but they had their own families, and I wasn’t part of it. When I got older, I would just stay at school, or sometimes I’d go home with one of the other guys. It was fun, but it wasn’t home. I guess I grew up knowing my parents were wealthy, and they just paid for me to stay out of their hair. I had decided that it was fine until I was about to graduate from year 12.”
Josiah had been listening intently and eating tiny bites while I spoke, but now he asked his first question. “What happened when you were about to graduate?”
I took a few bites and a sip of wine before I answered. “Well, they had learned about a relationship I’d been in at school. They had never had anything to do with my life to that point, so me being gay, well, I’d never even told them. My mother had called me a fruit and a sissy my whole life. No matter what I did, she’d made me feel ashamed for the things I liked or how I acted. At first, I think it was just her being cruel. She was a social drinker, but she was always socializing, so she was always drunk. But as I grew older, I realized they were slurs for being gay, and I knew that’s what I was. I tried to hide it, to act extra masculine, especially around her, but it was no use. She would find any reason to make me feel less than, no matter how hard I tried. Eventually, I stopped trying.”
“Seb, I’m so sorry you had to go through with that.”
“Thanks, Josiah. Anyway, I was about to graduate, and my mom found out I’d been seeing a guy at school. We’d broken up by the time she found out, but it was enough for her to freak out. She told me I couldn’t come home after graduation if I was going to live like a deviant. She told me I needed to get right with my God. So, she talked to the priest who headed up the religious studies at school and got him to talk to me about the priesthood.”
Josiah put down his wine glass and crossed his arms on the table to lean into my story. “Oh, so that’s what happened.”
“Yeah. I could have told them to fuck off and gone my own way, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life yet. They wouldn’t pay for college for me, and I’d been at a boarding school my whole life. Everything had been paid for and taken care of for me. The priesthood was just an extension of that in my eighteen-year-old mind. So, I went ahead and decided to join. As soon as I did, I regretted it. It took a couple of years to realize it was a huge mistake. When I decided to end it, I didn’t care how my parents reacted. I was just finished living a lie.”
“I’m sure that was scary for you.” Josiah reached out his hand and placed it lightly in my hand on the table. I turned my hand over and grasped his hand in mine. It fit perfectly.
“It was, but it was empowering to finally know what I wanted. I left and went back home to tell my parents. I wasn’t expecting them to care, but they did. My mom wasn’t doing well, so she didn’t say much. But my dad was the one who surprised me. He said he wasgetting older and had started regretting not spending any time with me. He had wanted to bring me into the winery and teach me about the business. It was nice while it lasted.”
“What do you mean? What happened?” Josiah’s concern was like a balm on an oldfestering wound.
“They died in a car accident a week after I came home. Mom had insisted on driving them into town for dinner. She had been drinking, as usual, lost control and hit a tree.”
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. It’s not like I really knew them. I had come home with no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and all of a sudden, I inherited a huge winery business and all of my parent’s assets. It was overwhelming. But I had the caretakers and all the employees to think about, so I put off thinking about what I wanted, again, and did what needed to be done. That was ten years ago now, and I’m finally free.”
Josiah was still holding my hand on the table, so when he heard me say I was free, he jerked slightly and squeezed my hand to get my attention. “What do you mean you’re finally free?”
“I mean, I’m completely free. I’ve agreed to sell the winery to a competitor. I need to go back to finalize the sale, but after that I’m free to go wherever I want, to do whatever I want. I can finally take some time to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m thinking Fairpoint, Alabama might be where I settle first while I’m trying to figure things out. Would you have a problem with that, Josiah?”
He looked disbelieving at first, but the longer I held his gaze, his face slowly morphed into a huge smile. “Are you serious? Really?”
I took his hand and pulled him toward me. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.” And then I finally quit playing and kissed him.
It was perfection. His full soft lips felt so soft on mine, and I loved the way his beard felt brushing against mine. I’d never kissed another guy with a beard, but now I never wanted to kiss anyone who didn’t have one. After kissing Josiah, I may never want to kiss anyone other than him. We kissed for a long time at the table, but as we heated up, I pulled him to me, so he was straddling me on the dining chair. I wanted him right here, right now, but I wasn’t sure about what he wanted. I let the kiss fade off, and we were both left panting. Josiah rested his forehead on mine, and we breathed each other in for a minute.
“Josiah, I want you more than anyone I’ve ever wanted in my life. Please tell me you feel the same way.”
Josiah stood up and turned his back to me. My heart dropped, thinking that I had read this situation completely wrong, but I shouldn’t have worried. He walked over to the sofa and pulled off the quilt, then spread it out in front of the fire. He then went to the linen closet by the powder room below the stairs and got two more blankets and dragged two of the dining chairs over to the pallet. He configured it all together exactly how he wanted it, then turned to me with a hand out. “Come play with me in my blanket fort, Seb.”
It was all the invitation I needed.
I went straight over to him and grasped his hand. Once again, I noticed how perfectly his large hand fit in mine. “I would love nothing more than to play with you, Josiah. But are you ready for how I like to play?”
