“Why? Why can’t you let it go and trust my judgment?”
“I don’t know,” Austin cried out. “You know me. I don’t trust easily. So when I hear you saying how great everything is, all I wonder is what youaren’ttelling me. And my mind goes to that terrible place.”
We faced off, Austin red-faced and me shaking.
“That’s ’cause there’s nothing badtotell. I’m happy now. I think it’s gonna work this time. Want to know why?” At his nod, I continued. “Because now we don’t only talk to each other, we listen. Aaron listens to me and doesn’t brush me off. And since we’ve been together, we ain’t had sex. I mean, yeah, a couple a blowjobs and stuff, but not, you know…and I told him not until I’m ready.”
“And he’s okay with that?” Austin asked, incredulous and a bit hesitant, his brows knitted together.
“Yeah, he is. He’s been trying so hard to do what’s right, but you refuse to see it. You’re my best friend, and you need to give him a break.”
I loved Austin’s fierce loyalty, but now he had to listen to me. And so I stood, unwilling to back down, pinning him with my eyes, begging him to understand. Finally he nodded.
“I’m sorry. I promise to be a better friend to you and try harder with Aaron.”
“Good. All I’m asking is for you to try.” My conversation with Cort popped into my mind. “Oh, listen. How about we arrange some time and take Cort out? He’s feeling kinda down since you’re not dancing anymore. I know he really wants to meet someone. He said he was gonna try some dating sites.”
“Shit. I really have been living in my little bubble lately.” Biting his lip, Austin shook his head. “I hate that he feels like I’ve forgotten him.”
“Well,” I teased and elbowed him. “All that hot loving with Sexy Pants will do that to a man.”
Blushing, Austin fake-punched me. “Stop it. I feel really bad for Cort. He’s all alone here. Last thing I knew, he was talking to some homeless guy by the bookstore near his apartment. He hangs out there a lot. Let’s call him now and meet for lunch and maybe a movie?”
“Yeah, he was telling me about that guy too. Sounds good. I finished all my work for class.”
Austin hit Speed Dial on his phone and put it on speaker. Cort’s voice filled the room. “Austin? That really you?”
“Yeah. I’m here with Frankie, and we were thinking of lunch and a movie. You up for it?”
“Hell, yeah.” He could barely contain his eagerness, and I met Austin’s eyes and mouthed,See?
Giving me the thumbs-up, Austin continued. “Awesome. Me ’n Frankie always get lunch at the diner on Union Square, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Eighteenth Street. If that’s good, we can hit up the movie theater after and see what’s playing.”
“I don’t even care. Just wanna hang out with you guys. The three of us.”
“You got us. See you at one? That good?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
Austin clicked off. “Thanks for getting after me. I’ve been so busy with the shelter and the other apartments I’m designing, I’ve forgotten where I came from.”
I kissed his cheek. “Nah. You lost your way a little, and I’m here to bring you back. Now lemme see what you’ve been doing.”
“First tell me more about you and Aaron. What’s his job exactly? I didn’t know he liked gardening.”
We left the kitchen and walked into the living space to sit on the sofa. I tucked my feet under me.
“Yeah. Since he was a kid, he told me. I don’t know much about his family. He don’t like to talk about it ’cause I think his father used to beat him up. I’m not sure. But he used to say that when things got ‘too much’”—I made air quotes—“he’d go out in their backyard to dig and plant the seeds he bought with the money he made shoveling snow in the winter. He’d buy magazines on gardening and stuff and read them in bed at night.”
“Wow.” Austin twirled the string of his hoodie around and around his finger. “I’d never guess.”
“Most people don’t. They think he looks so tough, he can’t be interested in flowers and pretty shit. But he changes when he’s working with them. When he used to help my mom in her garden, it was the only time I think I’d ever seen him truly happy. And I want to see him like that all the time.”
“You really love him, don’t you?”
I grew hot under his probing gaze. “Yeah. I do.”
It took a moment, but then to my surprise, Austin hugged me hard, his voice breaking on a whisper. “I’m sorry. I love you and want you to be happy. And before today I didn’t understand how much he really meant to you. And that’s on me ’cause I wasn’t really listening. I kept thinking of Chris and how he treated me, and I assumed Aaron was the same.”
“He never hit me like Chris did to you. All I want is for people to give him a chance. Especially you.”
“I promise I’m gonna try to do better.”
“Do you get it now?” I asked, clutching him around his shoulders. “Are you hearing me?”
“I am.”
But as we cleaned up our breakfast and Austin showed me all the work he’d done on the homeless shelter he was designing, my mind kept wandering back to that scar on Aaron’s side and how evasive he’d been when I asked how he’d gotten it.
