“Welcome to New York.” Harlan lounged with his legs stretched out. “The only place you can pay fifteen million dollars for a place to live and not have a space to park your car.”
“I couldn’t live here. I don’t know how you do it. Where me ’n Cort come from, you can walk out and breathe the air and see the sky.”
“And yet you’re here in Cort’s living room.”
“Cort, is there someplace we can talk? In private?” Ignoring Harlan, he directed his question to me. “I didn’t get a chance to say everything I wanted to earlier.”
“Let me guess.” Harlan stood and paced back and forth in front of Bobby, and for the first time I could see him as a lawyer, making his case in court. “You want Cort back, but you also don’t want to give up the little wifey back home because Big Daddy will kick your little gay ass out the door without all that lovely money you’re used to. So you think you can come visit Cort whenever you get the urge to have your dick sucked, then trot back to your stick-up-the-ass town, where you probably fuck your wife with your eyes closed, thinking—no, let me correct myself—wishingit was Cort.”
As Harlan spoke, Bobby’s face turned pale under his bronzed skin. Dead silence reigned, and I wondered if I’d be calling the paramedics before the evening was over. He stood and faced off against Harlan, who raised a brow, his body tense and at the ready.
“What the fuck do you know about anything? You’re a grown-ass man living in a dump, working some dead-end job to nowhere. You’ll never have any money in your pocket. What do you know about family pressure? Cort knew I could never be with him in a normal relationship. He always knew what we had would be a secret. But we have our history. We’ve loved each other for ten years. That don’t go away so easy.”
“Fuck that history. And fuck you. You had the chance to be a man, and you blew it. You had that chance to stand up to your parents and say, ‘Yes. I’m gay and I love him.’ But you chose to be a coward.”
“You have no idea how hard it is.”
It was like watching a ping-pong match, and I couldn’t wait for Harlan to return the serve.
“I have no idea?” His laughter rang out, and I winced, hearing how false it sounded. “Bobby boy, you have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve fallen farther than you’ll ever begin to climb. You failed him.” Harlan’s finger poked the air in front of Bobby in short jabs. “I don’t give a shit about your life. But Cort? You hurt the nicest man you’ll ever meet and still only think of how it affected you. You never loved him. Not the right way.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course I loved him. We were together—”
“Ten years. So I heard,” Harlan said drily, and I almost had to laugh. Almost. Because when Harlan came over to me with his eyes so soft yet burning with a passion I’d never imagined he possessed, my brain short-circuited and I forgot anything and everyone else. I listened to him in wonder.
“If Cort was mine, I’d grab him by the shirt and pull him close.” He followed suit and drew me near enough to feel the heat rising from him. His breath hit my cheek while I lost mine and stood frozen.
“I’d look him in the eye and say, I love you. I love you, and I’m never giving you up. No matter what anyone says, I want to be with you. And no one else.” His chest heaved, his face flushed bright red, but his eyes shone bright and clear. The warmth of his hand settled against my chest. “I think Shakespeare said it best inMacbeth: ‘A heart to love, and in that heart, courage to make one’s love known.’”
Stunned, I began to shake. Did he mean what he said, or was he playing up to Bobby? I couldn’t tear my gaze from the honesty in his eyes.
“Cort knew. He knows I still do.”
At those words, Harlan’s lips twisted in a cruel smile. “News flash, Bobby.” The disdain dripped from his voice. “You don’t tell someone you’ll love them forever, then marry someone else. You don’t leave your wife at home and make plans to sleep with someone else.”
“Why’re you speakin’ for Cort? Let him talk.”
The two men standing before me couldn’t have been more different. Bobby, tall, dark, muscular, in possession of that easy confidence and good-time smile he used to get him through life. Harlan, lean, blond, with eyes that spoke of past hurts, lost confidences, and a life never to be trusted or taken for granted again.
“Go home, Bobby.” I was tired of seeing him standing in my home, making excuses for being a miserable human. “I don’t want you no more.” I walked over to the door, relieved to see him follow me. “I want you gone.”
His face dark with ugly anger, Bobby sneered at me. “What? You’d rather jerk off on camera and be with this loser than with me? I could get you out of this dump. Or you could come back to High Creek and we’d work out an arrangement.”
“You got it all figured out, don’tcha? Makes me wonder if you had these types of arrangements before. Did you? Did you see other guys when we were together?”
“It didn’t mean nothin’. Sex is sex. But I always came back to you.” His voice took on that wheedling tone. “I loved you…needed you. Still do.” He reached out a hand, but I jerked away.
“No. You love having someone love you and look up to you. You loved the thought of me waitin’ around for you, needing you while you slept around. You loved yourself and no one else.”
“Fine,” he spit out. “I just figured you’d wanna be able to come home and see your family. I don’t get the point of what you’re doin’ here in this crummy place. You could be livin’ at home, be with your family and friends. We could make it work.”
“And all I’d have to do is hide my life and who I am. I’m not willing to do that. No more. I can’t pretend to be straight during the day, then sneak away behind dusty barns or in cheap hotels at night, waiting for you to make excuses to your wife and child why you need to run out for a while.” I felt nothing for him but sadness at his choices in life. “My love is worth more than that.I’mworth more, but you don’t understand. I may shake my ass for money, but I have more self-worth than you do in your suit and tie. At least I’m being true to who I am. I can walk down the street and be proud to be the real me. Too bad you can’t do the same.”
The cocky sneer had vanished, and Bobby no longer seemed like the man who’d meant the world to me. The man who’d been my world.
“I thought once I saw you in person, we’d be able to go back.”
“We can’t go back. We ain’t the same people, at least not me. You need to go home. Go to Heather and live your life and try to be a good husband and father. And if you can’t, then for the love of God, leave her and figure out who the hell you are and where you’re going. All I know is that it won’t be with me.”
