Denny
Denny looked at Jo curled up in the large hanging chair and felt a rush of affection. Of course that would be the seat Josiah would pick. Jarvis hadn’t told him what he thought the seat choices meant—apparently that was his trade secret—but at a surface level, yes, it was the only option for Jo, especially if he was a bit nervous.
“I haven’t talked with Denny much about what you two have discussed here, so I don’t really know where to start,” Josiah said from his little nest.
“Denny? Do you have any thoughts on that?” Jarvis asked, turning to him with an encouraging, compassionate expression.
Denny swallowed hard, took in a deep breath, exhaled and said, “Well, for one I kind of wanted to say that I’m scared as hell of losing you.”
Jo hummed in agreement. “I mean, that’s a valid thing. I feel the same way.”
“Do you want to talk about your point of view in all this? Denny has told me what he thinks has been going on, but nobody else truly knows but you, right? About how your feelings toward him have… well, felt.” Jarvis gave Josiah the same patented expression before adding, “I would also like to remind that you’re under no obligation to talk about anything you don’t want to. It’s completely up to you. If you’d like, we can also set you up for your own appointment.”
Josiah smiled. “Okay, I might actually take you up on that for my own shit. I haven’t been to therapy in a while and….” He waved his hand between himself and Denny, then sighed. “But this stuff, this stuff I can do. How far do you want me to go with it?”
“Wherever is comfortable,” Jarvis said, and Denny could tell that the therapist already liked Josiah, which didn’t surprise him at all.
Josiah looked at Denny with an unreadable expression, then closed his eyes. “He’s probably told you how we met when he started to come up to the open mic nights back in the beginning. And how we both met Sammie who came to those too, only she’d perform in them. She was one of the first ones he signed to his Number Three when he founded it soon after.”
“I was lucky enough to inherit some money from my grandpa so I could start the company,” Denny interjected, making Jo smile.
He didn’t open his eyes though. “It was pretty obvious from the start that the three of us were meant to be. We’ve lived through so many things together over the last almost fifteen years….” Josiah was quiet for a while, but the silence was contemplative and not uncomfortable. “I think I realized I was in love with Denny pretty gradually. It accumulated, all the reasons, over time. Then when one of my boyfriends, Nate, didn’t show up on a date once and I realized that Denny actually treated me better than any of my boyfriends had, I… I guess that was a moment. I understood that things could be different because there were men like Denny, but that they also never would be because Denny was straight.”
Denny folded himself smaller in the noisy, rustling chair and frowned.
“I guess I put him on this pedestal in a way, which is never a good idea. Finding out he had blind spots like Stacey was a relief of sorts. It was… I don’t know….”
“You realized that he was just a human?” Jarvis asked, smiling slightly.
“Yeah, but that didn’t help.” Josiah ran his fingers through his hair, opened his eyes, and looked at them. “Because I actually understood that it made him even better. See, I’ve dated guys I thought were perfect and obviously perfection is not real.”
Jarvis nodded. “That’s one of the realizations that means you have reached a more adult level of understanding relationships, I think.”
“And you know, it hurt, of course it did. But Denny has been married more than he’s been single since I’ve known him, so that’s helped in a way. He was straight, but I also never would’ve”—he seemed to search for a word—“tried anything, while he was with someone. Not that I would’ve anyway, because like I said, we all thought he was straight. It’s just….”
“It’s the possibility, the ‘what if’ our brain latches on when we’re feeling that unrequited kind of love,” Dr. Jarvis mused.
“Yeah. But it also gets so much worse because I’ve also loved him as a friend for longer and he’s loved me back. There’s never been a lack of love between us and that’s….”
Denny looked down. He let his hands catch his head, which suddenly felt heavier than ever.
“Don’t… don’t do that,” Josiah said. “It was never your fault, Denny. Even if you’d known, what would’ve changed? Like I said, it’s not something we could do anything about.”
“I think Josiah is right. It’s quite possible that if he’d spoken up, it would’ve damaged your friendship.”
“And now this thing, you figuring out your sexuality and us suddenly being compatible in that way, it’s fucking terrifying,” Jo murmured. “I got so used to the never-ever that the what-if coming back is—it’s like this boogeyman that lurks in the shadows around my heart. It’s… different kind of painful.” Before Denny could say anything, Josiah looked at him. “But it also has this terrifying sliver of hope.”
They talked a bit more, and then Dr. Jarvis asked, “So, what’s the worst case scenario here?” Dr. Jarvis glanced at them both in turn. “Going forward, I mean.”
“That we fuck up our friendship and wreck our circle with Sammie in the process. That we start to resent each other,” Josiah said immediately.
Denny nodded. “Yeah, that’s about it, really.”
“Okay, what about the best-case scenario? Don’t think of what the other would say, just what it would be for you.”
They were both quiet for a while, then Josiah seemed to come to the conclusion that Denny wasn’t going to go first—accurate—and smiled.
“I’d want us to go to a few dates, then see if there’s a physical spark there. See where that leads us. We know each other better than most people, but this is an avenue that’s completely new between us. This wasn’t an option, hasn’t been in the last fifteen years. That’s close to half of my life. It’s… weird.”
