“Thank you Gavin. I’m hungry so let’s leave the heavy stuff until after we eat okay?” I nod, because I’m the one that fucked up, so if he needs me to eat pasta with him then I guess I'm eating pasta.
My stomach rumbles deciding now it’s interested in what he puts in front of me. It smells heavenly. If I can’t talk I may as well eat. As I take the first bite, I moan in pleasure as my taste buds explode.
“It’s… wow, so good.” I don’t mean to sound so shocked but damn this is good.
“Jordan is a great cook,” he explains. “His mom is a chef, so it was her mission to pass it on to the next generation.”
“Really? But he’s not a chef?” I ask with curiosity. I try to imagine the guy in an apron with a chef’s hat on his perfectly styled hair standing in the middle of a big restaurant kitchen batting his fake eyelashes at his assistants and servers.
“No, he can cook alright, but he says that he was not born to stay behind the scenes, if you know what I mean.” He smirks and puts another forkful of the delicious pasta between those cute lips. I let myself remember, just for one moment, how they tasted.
“Yeah, it’s not difficult to guess where the spotlight should be directed where he’s concerned. And it definitely isn’t a plate,” I say half jokingly, trying to clear my head from the thoughts of last night. Was it really just yesterday I caught him dancing and kissed him?
“Unless he’s the dish,” Pete states like it’s a real possibility and we both stare at each other for half a second and then burst out laughing.
Noticing that Jordan is a safe subject to talk about, and Pete has no problem with elaborating, I continue our conversation. “So if he’s not a chef, what does he do?”
“He’s a paralegal.” My eyes widen in surprise and I almost choke on my food and cough loudly after swallowing.
“He’s what?” It’s hard to picture a guy like him in a suit and tie kind of situation.
“Yeah, yeah. That’s everyone’s reaction.” He waves his hand casually. “His father is a successful lawyer in California.”
“I did not see that coming. Guess you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” I say and mentally slap myself. Pete doesn’t miss a beat.
“Really? So you reserve judgment for your employees, I assume?” I wince at the jab as he puts his fork down and crosses his arms on his chest. I guess it’s time to talk now.
“I deserve that and you deserve an apology, and an explanation,” I say defeated. I hate talking about it, but it’s the only way he’ll be able to understand my reaction.
“Let’s go to the living room, it’s not going to be a five-minute discussion and we should at least sit comfortably for it.” He doesn’t wait for my answer, and I follow him without a word. Maybe he’s prolonging this moment as much as I am. Deflecting the inevitable. “Fine, I’m listening now,” he declares when we take our places on opposite sides of the comfy couch. I take a deep breath and begin.
“I started drinking heavily when I was twenty.” My chest tightens at the thought of why it started, but I’m just not ready to talk about Adam yet. “I was in a bad place, and I was alone. So I drank.” I don’t dare look at him, afraid of the disappointment I might see in his eyes. “At first I drank because I was sad and it numbed my senses, making the pain more bearable.
“I was a mess. I don’t know how I managed to graduate, I was drunk during most of my classes, if I attended them at all. If not, I was spending my time in shady bars that didn’t care if I was underage. Some nights I would go home with guys, just to wake up in the morning with no memory of the night before. After graduation I was so out of it, that sometimes I didn’t know what day it was or even where I was.” I drop my eyes to the carpet below my boots after my confession, not wanting to see the disdain on his face.
“You said that at first it was because you were sad,” I nod at his words. “Was it depression?” he asks carefully.
“Yeah, but then it wasn’t like it is now. Depression was something taboo, definitely not something men could admit to suffering from.” Just thinking about it makes my chest feel tight. It’s hard to imagine how depression affects every aspect of your life. There is no hope, no happiness, no joy. Everything is covered with a layer of thick fog. Everything is out of focus. There is just you and the sadness that surrounds you. And you feel like you’re drowning in it.
“What about your family? Didn’t they notice?” His voice startles me and I release a huge breath.
Shaking my head I keep my eyes focused on my hands wringing in front of me. “At the time it was only me and my grandfather.” He looks at me, puzzled. What the hell, may as well lay it all out. Maybe after listening to how fucked up my life is, he’ll understand why this thing between us is a bad idea.
PETE
“My parents died in a car accident when I was six years old.” I gasp at his words and cover my gaping mouth with my hand. “My grandparents took me in, and it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. I don’t want to think about how my life would be now if I had ended up in the system. Ten years later my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, she passed away a few months later.” Oh my God. This is getting worse.
I am fighting with tears. I didn’t expect him to have this much pain.
I can see how painful this is for him to talk about. He’s wringing his hands, avoiding my eyes and his breaths are deep and heavy.
“I started drinking after my…” He seems to be looking for the right word or maybe deciding if it’s something he wants to share with me. “Somebody I cared very much about… left. My grandpa was no spring chicken by then. He didn’t notice, or so I thought at that time. There was no one else. No one to talk me out of it. Tell me I was being a dumbass. No one that I could lean on.”
I think I know what he was trying to do today, he was trying to protect me from a future like his past. But it’s clear he isn’t finished, so I let him continue.
“I was partying at some dude’s house. I didn’t even really know the guy. Met him at a bar and just decided to party with him. I crashed there for a few days, we drank the whole entire time and when I finally sobered up, I had a voicemail from the local hospital. Grandpa had a fatal heart attack the day before.”
At this point tears are streaming down my face. I want to launch across the couch and hold him but I wasn’t expecting him to open up this much to me and I don’t want him to stop, so I stay where I am.
