By Monday, he’ll be ensconced in the wide world of wine and stewarding, brushing elbows with his fellow certified sommeliers, swilling some incredible wines and soaking in knowledge. It’s not the airplane that has him on edge or the fear that he’s not up for the challenge. Instead, he’s coming to terms with the worry that this will be his first time away from Greg since he arrived at Martin’s Place.
Julien prides himself on not being reliant on others.Tooreliant, he means. Even as a child when he first came to live with Uncle Martin and Aunt Augustine, he tried to be as self-sufficient as possible by figuring out how to work the washer and dryer so his clothes weren’t getting mixed in with theirs and how to fix his own lunches, so nobody else’s hands were touching his food. Some of this was an effect of his undiagnosed OCD, but most of it was rooted in his fear that these parental figures were seconds away from splitting like his last.
Those feelings resurfaced when, post-orgasm wooziness still strong, Colin told Julien that he was moving to South Carolina to be closer to his parents and their friends-with-benefits arrangement would be ending.
“How soon are you going?” Julien had asked.
“Two weeks.”
“That’s sudden.”
“It was inevitably going to happen.”
Those words ping-ponged around inside Julien’s head. What Colin said rang true in more ways than one. Colin’s parents retiring and moving south was inevitable, him following was inevitable, and so was Julien getting hurt after becoming too reliant on someone with a nice smile, a respect for his boundaries, and wondrous hands.
Julien is brought back to the bar when he narrowly misses the glass Greg is sliding over to him. “Bring this over to Augustine. She’s been begging for one all night.”
Julien doesn’t spare Greg a look as he fulfills the request on autopilot.
Aunt Augustine is not one to let a wandering glance go uncommented on. “Where are you right now, Julien?”
“Uh, here?” Julien gestures at the floor between their feet.
“Yeah, no duh. I meant where are you in here?” She gives his forehead a little nudge with the heel of her palm before sipping Greg’s cocktail. “Damn, he’s good. That’s fuckin’ tasty.” Seltzer, lemon juice, cherry, and... Julien can’t recall the other ingredients. He was too busy pining away over the veins that braided themselves along Greg’s forearms as he used a wooden spoon to stir. “Ah, I know that face.” Aunt Augustine has been emboldened by a single sip of Greg’s cocktail; Julien can tell. “You’re thinking about a guy, and that guy is Greg.”
“Actually, I’m thinking about how I get you less interested in my love life,” Julien says with mostly playful snark.
“Oh, it’s alovelife now, is it?” Aunt Augustine sips, her eyes fixed on him over the rim.
It’s obvious she’s reading too far into his word choice, except Julien’s whole body flushes hot. It’s been, what, six months since Greg arrived in the Lehigh Valley? Aside from those first few weeks of discomfort and avoidance, they’ve basically been inseparable.People have fallen in love in less time.
But also, love feels messy. Like a melted chocolate bar you forgot about in the glove compartment during the sizzle of July. He doesn’t want love all over his hands. There aren’t enough wet wipes in the world to rid him of that sticky, goopy stuff.
“I take it things have heated up since New Year’s?” Aunt Augustine asks.
He resolutely does not love hearing his aunt use the phraseheated upunless it’s about the food they serve here. “Things have been a normal temperature.”
She exaggerates her frown. “You’re so sparing with your feelings, Julien. You definitely don’t take after me.”
He prickles at this because he’s observant. Hypervigilant, some might even say. Which means he’s always been uniquely keyed into the differences between him and Aunt Augustine and Uncle Martin, constantly wondering which traits were embedded in his DNA and which he developed as he grew. Did his unusual circumstances make him the man he is today?
“It’s not like we’ve made anything official. We’re nottogether-together.”
“Because...?”
“Because...” Julien can’t come up with an answer. Over the last month or two, Greg may have been seeking to initiate that conversation, but every time he did, Julien initiated sex instead, choosing to use his mouth for blowjobs instead of the exchange of feelings.
It is easier to make Greg come than to make Greg his boyfriend. Recently, Greg talked to his psychiatrist about his ED, which led to a supplementary prescription meant to combat that side effect, and with limited data, it seems to be working. Not that this was ever a problem to be fixed—their sex without it was equally fantastic—but Julien enjoys that Greg took this step, broached the difficult topic partially because of him. Partially, Julien chooses to believe, because his feelings are so all-consuming and intense that he wants to display them by being inside Julien without a barrier.
They’ve discussed it—the PrEP, the STI testing—and each time they do, this sexual boundary of Julien’s is only deconstructing itself because he trusts Greg so effusively. Maybe that level of trust does mean that he is falling for Greg in a way that could lead to honest, real love.
“If you can’t come up with an answer, I think it’s because you’re standing in your own way.” Aunt Augustine has always been blunt with her advice. “Do you care about him? Do you see a future with him?”
It scares Julien, but he still says, “Yes, I do.”
“Then go for it, Julien. You two are a dream team.”
Julien remembers all the dreams he had as a puberty-stricken teen, how he sketched out his ideal relationship. The man in his imaginings was Mr. Potato Head–ed out of various traits and parts of guys he knew from school, and Greg magically fits that bill perfectly.
