I thought we’d got past this.
TEN
CARMINE
“Will you stop obsessing over it?” Samantha asked. “You’ve got to admit. It is unusual for a guy in his late thirties to still be in the closet.”
Carmine leant back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I am not in the closet. I simply haven’t told my parents.”
“Or brother.”
Carmine got up and walked over to the window.
“I knew sharing a space with you would be a mistake,” he muttered. “A few more clients and we’re moving. Then I can have my own office.”
Samantha steepled her fingers and stared at him.
“Like you’d be able to keep me out. I’m serious, Carmine. Don’t fuck up something that’s really good because of a silly comment.”
He sighed. Mainly because she was right. Yet Noah’s words kept popping into his mind over and over again.
“I won’t,” he said. “But honestly, let’s be real. If we end up going public, people will wonder why is Noah with that old guy?”
“You’re hardly ready for the retirement home. Who cares about other people’s opinion anyway? Fuck them.”
Easy for her to say. Samantha had been dating a doctor around the same age for a week or two. She hadn’t stopped banging on about him.
“Come and sit,” she said. “You need to talk about it and I’m here. I promise I won’t try to shut you down.”
He perched on the edge of her desk and picked up a pencil. She immediately swiped it out of his hand.
“No fidgeting. It’s annoying.”
Carmine grabbed it back. “That is shutting me down.”
“Go on then. Unburden yourself.”
“Sometimes I make jokes and he doesn’t get it,” Carmine began. “The other night I threw aGremlinsreference out there. It sailed right over his head.”
Samantha appeared as if words were fighting to come out. To her credit she stayed silent and simply nodded.
“My ex cheated on me all the way through our relationship,” Carmine said. “I was the last person to find out. When one of his friends told me, it set off an avalanche. Literally everyone in my life had a story or had heard something.”
Samantha squeezed his knee. “That’s shit.”
“It was. People were so fucking two-faced about it.”
“Is that why you came home?”
Carmine shrugged. “Partially. When Dad had his heart attack, it really made me think about time and how much we have left.”
“Then all the more reason to apply that thinking to your relationship with Noah.”
“What if he cheats?”
“Then he cheats. What if he doesn’t?”
