“I went off to boarding school at around thirteen. Everything was structured and STEM-based, which I disliked. My brain isn’t wired for that,” Greg says. “I didn’t fit in with my classmates, but luckily we had clubs. The first club I found my footing in was an outreach club where we went to local senior living facilities and got paired up with buddies. My buddy’s name was Chet, and he had served, but he wasn’t one of those fanatics or anything. He was down-to-earth and honest and taught me to play backgammon. He’s the first out gay person I really connected with. He inspired me to join the not-very-well attended GSA at my academy.”
“Surprised they even had one there,” Julien says, not judgmentally.
“I know. Me, too. But I guess they were trying to keep up with the times or something.” Greg pauses momentarily as a kid holding a hot dog in one hand and a bun in the other runs between them, his mother rushing after, shouting nonsense. “Gosh, I really don’t usually talk about the academy with anyone.”
“Why’s that?”
“People either don’t understand or don’t care.”
“I care,” Julien says plainly, which makes Greg’s heart balloon inside his chest. “So you didn’t stick with it?”
Greg shakes his head. “That was never my plan. My dad wasn’t happy. My mom took on my dad’s emotions without question. I graduated, cut them off, and started fresh.” He still thinks about his parents from time to time, wonders what they say about him when they’re asked if they have children.
He calls his mom once a year on her birthday. She usually sends a card on his. His dad never reaches out. He’s mostly made peace with that arrangement. He wishes, against all logic, that families were like cocktails, always made of complementary ingredients. His family felt more like a whatever-is-around kind of concoction that leaves a sour, filmy taste in your mouth. Impossible to swallow.
“That must’ve been difficult,” Julien says. Their stories might not be the same, but their wounds probably feel similar. To have parents who can’t play their roles in your life.
“It was, but it gave me the motivation to make something of myself.” Being a TikToker isn’t exactlymaking something of himselfin Greg’s mind, but it netted him money, a following, and this new position at Martin’s Place. “I moved to New York and didn’t look back.”
Though, if Greg is being honest, which he mostly is, life in the Lehigh Valley has slowed down his pace quite a bit—his video output, his social life. He’s been reflecting more. In quiet moments, he wonders about the other paths his life could’ve taken, the other relationships he possibly could’ve had.
“Why did you leave New York aside from Martin’s offer?” Julien asks, and Greg hears it, but conveniently, the staff finishes hole seventeen, and everyone gets their game faces on for their final swings.
By the time they’re all convening in the small party room Martin and Augustine booked them for lunch, Julien has forgotten all about his question, which is a major relief. Greg is willing to share about his sex life, his anxiety, his time at the academy, but something about telling Julien about his debt makes him itchy all over.
Credit card debt isn’t like student debt. He didn’t learn anything for the burden. Instead, he bought bottle service and booked five-star hotel rooms and acted like a total ass who didn’t think to save a cent. With Julien, Greg wants to be seen as calmer and more settled.
Which is why after the pizza slices are passed around and paper cups are filled inexplicably with champagne, Greg’s mood rises ever more steadily.
“I know we’ve been skipping the staff outings in December for the past few years because money has been tight,” Augustine says, standing at the front of the small room with dark walls and funky carpeting. “But we wanted to treat you all because we’ve gotten some exceptional news.”
“That’s right,” Martin adds. “Last week, I got a call from an editor over at a prominent Lehigh Valley publication letting us know that Martin’s Place has not only secured a spot on the year-end best restaurants list...” cheers ring out in the room “...but we’ve also landed the number one spot in another category. Julien, Greg, would you mind coming up here?”
Greg walks behind Julien to the front of the room. When Julien turns to face forward, their eyes meet. They both crack smiles. They know what’s coming, and they’re a pair of kids on their way to Disney World for the first time.
“After only a couple months, thanks to these two fine gentlemen,” Augustine announces, “Martin’s Place is the number one happy hour spot in the Lehigh Valley!”
Greg barely hears the uproar. He’s too busy soaking this in. Number one happy hour spot means financial security for Martin’s Place. It also means job security for him. He looks around at all the kind faces—his coworkers who have become friends, his bosses who have become like mentors, and the man standing next to him who has opened his eyes and body to so much.
Finally. This means I can make a home here.
JULIEN
Thank God. This is my ticket out of here.
Julien knows how greedy that sounds, but it’s not like he’s saying it out loud.
Martin’s Place securing these small victories means an influx of patrons in Q1 of the following year. At the end of Q1—SKA results pending—he’ll be flying out to Texas to take his advanced sommelier course. The following year, he’ll sit the advanced sommelier exam. It’s only a matter of time before a master must spread his wings and go out on his own.
Some of the guilt Julien has been harboring over wanting to leave the Lehigh Valley swirls down the drain. He doesn’t need to feel dirty for wanting more than this. Wanting away from the place where his upbringing took a major detour. If business security comes of his work now, he can be free to leave later with very little resistance.
Snapping back to the moment, he soaks in the applause of his coworkers. Even Braydon is standing and clapping for them, and he’s wholly unimpressed by everything.
Julien hugs his aunt and uncle, and then, very publicly, he hugs Greg.
Greg doesn’t half-ass a hug. Every hug Greg gives is like that one outside Studio Artiste. It’s fierce, warm, strong. Everything a good hug should be. Everything Julien has never had.
But he refuses to harp on that. Or the fact that their sex is mind-blowing or that their conversations are more revealing than their sex. He never really understood “pillow talk” until Greg. Now he could stay up until three in the morning, waiting for the sheets in the dryer, sitting robed with Greg, talking about new cocktail recipes or the best wine regions of the world or movies they want to nostalgia-watch together.
