Marco’s voice was tender, and I knew he was being sensitive to my past. The pain of losing a parent is indescribable, but very few people understood what it meant to lose a parent who had already disowned you.
I wanted to run back to our car and drive to Grayson’s apartment right then. I wanted to pull the guy into my arms and tell him I understood, to feel his body held tightly between mine and Marco’s.
More than anything else, I needed him to know that he wasn’t alone.
“Let’s get going,” I said quickly. “The bank is going to be pissed if I cancel this appointment, but we can find a time to make it up. Do you want to drive, or should I?”
Marco clicking his tongue lightly and stroked the back of my head. “My man,” he said. “Always ready to help. But I think he needs time.”
It was like a slap in the face. Grayson must have been feeling so much pain, pain that we could understand and help him through, but we were supposed to stay away?
“He’s probably just saying that. He’s probably just shy about asking for our help. We can go there anyway, and maybe then—”
Marco threw his arms around me and pulled me close. “It’s okay,” he said. “We have to listen to him. We have to let him make these calls.” He pressed his lips close to my ear and squeezed me once more. “I’m sorry, my love.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m sorry we’ve lost our mothers. It’s a horrible thing.”
The need to reach Grayson was white hot. It was blinding and disorienting, dwarfing everything else. But as Marco held me close and kept whispering in my ear on the sidewalk outside our club, slowly, I let myself feel something.
Tears burned at the corner of my eyes. I blinked them back the best I could, but still, my chest rattled with emotion. “I’m sorry, too,” I finally said.
Sometimes, all you needed was to talk to someone.
And damn did it hurt when you couldn’t.
MARCO
We should have just asked Grayson to be our boyfriend already.
All day, I kept kicking myself. If we had asked Grayson to be our boyfriend, then it would have made sense for me to just head over to his apartment. To be there, sitting in silence together, or cooking him a meal with Demir.
Instead, we’d kept him at a distance. Sure, there were so many excuses. We needed to go slow, to get to know him. We didn’t want to promise what we couldn’t deliver.
And that all seemed right, sure. It seemed reasonable and mature. Right up until Grayson needed us, and we were left waiting on the side, like a couple of casual friends.
I closed the flyer I had been playing with on the computer. My mind was shot, and it wasn’t like I had gotten anything done that day anyway. Demir was just as bad, attending his meetings without bringing the right papers, then coming back to the office and staring into space, clearly consumed by worry.
I stood from my desk, then walked over to the wall of pictures. I traced my finger along some photos, then over the flyer advertising our first party, printed on a cheap photocopy machine. I kept looking, photograph to photograph, as though I was going to find something I had been missing.
He’s not in here, I told myself.You haven’t made the space for him yet.
Both of our phones beeped at the same time. Demir grabbed his first, and from the look of relief on his face, I knew it was time.
“He wants to come over,” he said. His voice was strained, but steady. “He asks if he can spend the night with us.”
My heart jumped. Demir rose to his feet, but before he could grab his things, I pulled him close. I kissed him on one cheek, and then the other.
This was going to be hard on him, I knew. He’d always claim that he was over the death of his parents, but no matter how strong he acted, I knew there was a part of him that would always grieve that loss.
And I knew that, when something bad happened to someone he cared about, he tended to feel it like it was happening to him.
“Let’s go home,” Demir said. “I can get some food ready. He probably hasn’t eaten. Maybe you can prepare the guest bedroom? There’s so much junk stored in there now. We can invite him to stay in our bed, of course, but he might want some more privacy.”
I stroked his arm, then took his hand in mine. Now wasn’t the time to lecture him about taking care of himself or encourage him to deal with his own demons. Now was just the time to support him.
For us all to support each other.
