Julien tilts his head. “Did she what?”
“Never mind.” Greg weirdly grabs back his words. Things between them have never been this stilted. Not even after Julien spilled all those cocktail samples on him when they met. “Then I have something to tell you.”
“Everyone has something to tell someone it seems.” Julien came here with a mission, and now his head is all cluttered. “Do you, uh, want to go first?” He’s trying to be polite, unable to properly read the vibe.
“Sure.” Greg’s eyebrows knit together. “I took the job in New York.”
Julien is stunned but refuses to show it. He trains his face into a neutral mask, even though there’s an ambush raging inside his brain, a holdup inside his heart.
“The pay was too good to pass up. I even got to connect with some of my old friends while I was there.” Greg shifts from foot to foot.
Julien’s eyes dart to the watch. Of course. He was so hell-bent on making his lovelorn confession that he hadn’t considered who gave Greg that watch. It had to be the very same one Greg once mentioned that Stryker had gifted him.
Did they kiss? Did they sleep together?
Julien’s mind is a vat of Gorilla Glue.
Great, just great.“That’s great!” Julien says, hoping Greg doesn’t hear the crack in his voice. “I’m sure you’re happy to be going back.”
“I am.” Julien can’t quite tell if Greg’s lying. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Mouth agape, Julien fumbles for something plausible to say, something not pathetic. “Sangria.”
“What?”
Julien shakes his head to try to organize his thoughts. “While I was away, I saw a menu with a wide selection of sangrias. Made me wonder why we hadn’t done any of our own yet for happy hour. I...wanted to get your take.” It’s weak, and he’s only barely selling it.
Greg rubs a hand across his chin. “Uh, yeah, sure.Sangria.” God, Julien curses the wordsangria. “That’s really it? That’s why you made us come out here?” Greg outstretches his arms.
Julien’s eyes dip down to the asphalt, unable to take in the expansiveness of Greg. Desperately wanting to walk into those outstretched arms and have them curl back in around him. Damn Greg for seeing him too clearly, for knowing too well that he is flying by the seat of his pants.
This conversation could end one of two ways: Julien could come clean, or he could lie again. “I...” His mind might be a mess, but it supplies him with Carlos’s face and reminds him of the overly familiar hug outside the gate. “Met someone. At the class. While I was away.” It’s mostly truth.
“Oh,” Greg says, expression rewinding back to confusion.
“Ohis my thing,” Julien tries to joke, but it comes out more like an accusation.
Greg frowns.
“We didn’t do anything! Me and the guy. The one I met. Just so you know.” Julien’s tongue continues to disobey him, churning out more unnecessary words. “It’s okay if you did...stuff. With Stryker. You and I, we were just... It was just sex.”
Julien suppresses a sad, uncomfortable laugh. He had asked Greg to come out here because he realized in the last four days that it wasn’t just sex. That he wanted it to be more. This day has taken a hard right turn and is barreling toward Julien’s personal hell.
“We didn’t.” Greg’s voice is soft.
“That’s fine,” Julien says quickly. “But it would also be fine if you did.”
Greg looks the same way he looked when Julien accused him of sleeping with Braydon and the pilot and not needing Grindr. He isn’t trying to hurt Greg’s feelings. He is only trying to keep from crying in front of this man that he still, despite this terrible moment, wants to kiss and care for and cook dinner with.
“I just said we didn’t.” Greg folds his arms across his chest, punctuating his statement. “You and I made a pact. I wouldn’t go back on that without telling you first.”
“Okay.” Julien shrinks himself. Somebody should bag him up and drop him in the dumpster. He feels like trash.
Greg responds to that in kind, loosening a bit, probably trying to look less menacing. “I told Martin and Augustine earlier, about me leaving. I put in my two weeks.”
Two weeks.Lord, help him. Julien can’t survive two more weeks of work with the guy he’s fallen for who is choosing to leave him. He might like to be dominated in the bedroom, but he’s not this sadistic.
“Let’s do sangria for our last happy hour,” Greg says, almost as if he’s waving a white flag of truce with those words.
