Someone answered. Someone who wasn’t Jesse.
“You must be Mr. Hughes,” the man said, his voice tinged with obvious irritation.
“Yes, I am. And Imustspeak with Jesse. It’s important. Extremely important. Are you Jesse’s friend, Giuseppe?” Arthur asked, to which the man only pursed his lips. “Giuseppe... Caputo?” One of the man’s eyebrows ticked up. Arthur took that as a “yes” and pressed his hands together pleadingly. “Please, Mr. Caputo, I need to speak with Jesse. I’m not sure what he may have told you, but the other night, the two of us had a misunderstanding and—”
The man threw his head back and laughed.
“Misunderstanding?!” he spluttered. “Sorry, Mr. Hughes, but from what Jesse told me, there was nomisunderstanding.”
“Argument, then,” Arthur said instead. “I came here to apologize.”
“Jesse isn’t interested.”
He began shutting the door, but Arthur caught the edge.
“Giuseppe, Mr. Caputo, please, I have to make things right between us. I know I was wrong. I know I hurt him. I simply want to explain the reasons behind—”
“Excuses, excuses,” Giuseppe said before beginning to pull on the door.
He seemed intent on shutting it, even if that meant crushing Arthur’s fingers. Determined not to be turned away, Arthur lunged forward, wedging his shoulder between the door’s edge and the frame.
“Mr. Caputo, it’simperativethat I speak with my friend. I refuse to leave until I see him.”
Giuseppe curled his lip and spat, “Every one of you in Chicago’s upper crust is the same. Overly privileged hypocrites. Jesse respected your wishes when you asked him to leave your house the other night, and yet here you are, shoving your way into our home.”
Giuseppe’s words knocked Arthur back a step, their immediate truth curdling in his stomach like spoiled milk, but then he thought of Jesse and realized that he couldn’t let Jesse’s friend prevent him from making things right. Even if it made him a hypocrite.
“It’s not the same,” Arthur rationalized. “I had company.Importantcompany.”
“Jesse isn’t important?”
“Of course Jesse is important! He is themostimportant!”
“And yet you sent him away.”
Anger flared to life in Arthur’s chest, setting his heart ablaze, its flames fed not by the fury he felt toward Jesse’s roommate and his uninformed rebuttals to every little thing Arthur said but by the fury he felt toward himself for having hurt Jesse in the first place. He pushed forward, squeezing more of his body between the door and the frame while Giuseppe continued to try to close it.
“Mr. Caputo,please—”
“Arthur.”
The sound of Jesse’s voice fell from the top of the landing, cutting him off, and the raw pain in the one simple word he uttered crashed onto Arthur’s shoulders with the force of a heavy stone. Arthur winced. All three men were silent for a moment, and then Jesse heaved a sigh.
“Just let him in, Giuseppe,” he said.
Giuseppe let out a huff as he took a step back, and the sudden lack of resistance caused Arthur to stumble forward. Giuseppe started up the stairs. He patted Jesse’s arm twice as he passed.Arthur waited to be invited up, but instead, Jesse came down to meet him.
“Why are you here?” Jesse asked, his voice wrought with such exhaustion and pain that Arthur had to fight to keep its weight from sending him to his knees.
“Because I know that I was wrong,” Arthur said. “And I needed to tell you that I was sorry.” Hesitantly, Arthur took a step forward, meeting Jesse on the same stair. “My God, I never meant to hurt you. I was simply following a stupid, invisible set of rules. Blindly. And I shouldn’t have. Not without explaining them better. Not without promising to make it up to you, either.” Arthur took Jesse’s hands. “And I want to, Jesse. I want to make it up to you somehow.”
Jesse lowered his eyes and ripped his hands away.
“Arthur . . .” He paused to inhale a shuddering breath. “I’m not . . . interested.”
Arthur’s breath caught, the harsh finality in Jesse’s words cracking his heart in two.
“What?!” he blurted out, his eyes immediately filling with tears. “Come on, yes you are. Don’t tell me that your feelings toward me have changed simply because of one simple, terrible misstep.”
