Heisa man, too. Brady’s embarrassed about his dad showing up unannounced, but despite those small glimpses into Brady’s family life and what he must have been like as a kid, all the time we’ve spent together lately tells me he is very much an adult now. And yes, I’ve done a lot more living than he has, but fourteen years really haven’t made us all that different, except Brady’s doing things for the first time, and I’m doing many of them for the second.
But that experience only makes me wiser. I made mistakes with Dominic that I won’t make with Brady.
We’re going to the Distillery District. In the dead of summer, it’s jammed with tourists, but the restaurants—built into old barrel rooms and cellars—are actually pretty good, and the whole area makes for a nice hand-in-hand walk after dinner, if that’s something we want to do.
I’m surprised by how much the idea of holding Brady’s hand in public appeals to me. I’ve never been much for PDA—although Dominic always was—but something in the look on Brady’s face, the naked hope as he’d asked if I’d go out somewhere with him, makes me want to let him know I’m in. If he wants me to take him out for dinner or hold his hand or anything else, I’ll do it.
Although when Harpreet asks, “What are you up to tonight?” I take the easy way out and say, “I’m having dinner with a friend,” and leave it at that. Holding Brady’s hand in a historic district surrounded by tourists we will never see again is one thing. Looking my best employee in the eye and telling her I’m dating the IT guy is another entirely. I want to talk to Brady first about how we’ll tell the team at the festival.
The Distillery isn’t far from my apartment, so Brady comes to my place first. His smile as I open the front door is brilliant.
“Hey, you look great!” I say.
“Thanks, so do you.” His collared shirt of the day has motorcycles printed in rainbow colours, and he’s cuffed his jeans to show off tanned ankles and white sneakers. He looks fitted and pressed, while his hair curls over one eye, and the stud in his ear winks playfully at me.
It occurs to me we’ve never had sex at my place. I kissed him that one time my computer died, but we’ve never been naked and sweaty here.
His grin says he knows what I’m thinking. He reaches for me and—despite my earlier contemplations about hand-holding—the way he loops his arm around mine is a surprise. We’re always grabbing for each other. Handfuls of shirts, fingers in belt loops. He’s always rough and confident with me, so to see him with the grace and manners of someone about to go out in public is new.
“Come on,” he says, although he plants a soft kiss at the hinge of my jaw. “We’ll do that later.”
We’re past the hottest days of summer, where the air is a wall of humidity when you step outside. The walk to the Distillery is easy, the streets busy on a Thursday evening.
Brady glances at me nervously as we go. “I had to bring the football phone.”
“That’s fine.”
“If it rings, I’ll have to answer it.”
“Okay.”
“But unless someone’s computer is literally on fire, I’ll try to—”
“Brady.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. I understand.”
He still looks anxious, but he pats his pocket where the phone must be and squares his shoulders. I love his determination. So many people choose the predictability of a nine-to-five, and I get why. The steady paycheque. Evenings available to drive your kids to hockey or sit around the table together for dinner. But for Brady—and me—that structure is confining. I know the sacrifices he’s making to be his own man. I tried to have it both ways, but I failed, and I’m learning to live with that. His dad told me to look out for him, and I will, but the truth is, everyone’s balance is different, and if Brady’s involves bringing the football phone to dinner, I can deal with that. I’ve been that guy too.
“I’ve been trying something new at work,” I say, trying to distract him from the weight of the phone in his pocket.
“Oh?” he says.
“Yeah. I don’t like the word micromanaging, but it’s possible I’ve been too... involved... in decisions I didn’t need to be part of. So I’m attempting to let Doug and Harpreet run more of the day-to-day.”
He gives a short laugh. “Must be nice.”
I push on. “Well, I was thinking. If you wind up hiring this new person, and she’s as good as you think she might be, then we might have more time to see each other. Like this. Dates. Go out. What do you think?”
The question leaves me feeling strangely vulnerable. With Dominic, when he asked me to be home more often, I tried to move meetings. I tried productivity apps or working in the evenings after the boys went to bed. I never actually tried to do less. There might be something to it.
Brady slides his hand in mine. “If I can hire someone and she’s amazing, I will find a way to be with you as much as you want.”
The restaurant is a tapas place with high-top tables and brightly coloured walls lined with tiles that look like sketches from Pablo Picasso. The staff is... well, to be honest, if you’re a gay man, the staff is pretty nice to look at—mostly men with trimmed beards and neat hair, wearing button-downs even tighter than Brady’s and shorts that would be a fashion-forward choice out on the street and are definitely quite an ask of your staff.
We take a table by the window, which mostly faces the parking lot, but we get a glimpse of cobblestone sidewalks and tourists gawking at the redeveloped complex that was once a whisky distillery.
The waiter takes our drink order—I ask for a Tempranillo, Brady orders sangria—and we’re left alone. Brady’s hands are folded in front of him, and we let the buzz of the restaurant wash over us.
Brady gives me a quick grin. “This is the part where we actually have to talk to each other for once.”
