Chapter Text
“Are we really going to do this, Sean? The fact that he’s right here, in town, and you’re not going to see him?”
“Allison, I can’t.”
“Why though?”
He pressed his lips tight. “Because, I told you. He hurt me.”
“Sweetie…”
“If his coming to town is meant to be somehow good for me, then Allison, it’s coming too soon. And I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Kiddo, I don’t think you have a choice.”
He stared at the floor of the truck.
“G’night, Sean. I gotta get to bed.”
She had hung up.
He restarted the truck, drove half another mile from her place and pulled over again.
Bending over, he cradled his head against the steering wheel. Why was Holden doing this? Why had he come?
But what he was truly struggling with was a need to call Holden. He had missed him so terribly, and knowing he was just minutes away and could comfort him was making him so needful he could barely move otherwise.
This was the cause of his dilemma. Going back to Holden again and again, unresolved feelings be damned.
It was the habit he was trying to break. It was what he wished everyone in his life would understand. Being in love with Holden wasn’t the problem. He wasn’t not running from that. It was the taste of bitter failure he couldn’t stomach anymore. Being unable to stop doing something even when it wasn’t good for him. He was trying to have a backbone.
Reaching into his winter vest, he pulled out his phone and tapped Holden’s number, bringing it to his ear. He listened to it ring just once.
“Holden, why’d you come?” he whispered as soon as Holden answered.
“I’m not here to make things difficult for you.”
“Then why’d you come?”
“I’m here to show you support,” Holden said, speaking matter-of-factly, unfazed by his lack of preamble. “I didn’t think I could do that from L.A.”
“I don’t need support.”
Holden sounded different. Surer. Nothing like how he had been when he had left L.A. The thought didn’t bring him comfort.
“I need—”
“I know,” Holden said. “Time. And I get that. I’m not here to force anything. We’re not here on a schedule.”
“We’re not here at all. I’m here. You don’t have to be here. Don’t you have work? How long do you plan on being here?”
~*~
Stationed in front of the mirror brushing his teeth, he listened to Sean try to talk his way out of their inevitable next few days together. And he realized one thing. Petey had been right.
The only things that scared him were true unknowns.
He had been paralyzed when he had seen nothing but a specter on their horizon. But now that the problem had shown itself in the cold light of day it need only get ready to be solved.
It boiled down to Sean needing time to get over his anger. Though he wasn’t allowed to call it that since Sean was insistent that he wasn’t angry. He was just…blocked.
However, he had no problem looking difficult facts in the face. So he wasn’t going to pretend it was anything else.
“Sean,” he said, lowering his toothbrush. “I’m not letting you do this alone. You’re going to have to accept that.”
“Holden—”
He spat into the sink, licked his lips. “No. It’s happening this way. Granted I don’t have the first clue about managing a long term relationship. But I do know my part in all of this. And I’m a pro at being in love with you. You don’t have to see me, talk to me, or be anywhere around me if you don’t want to. But if and when you do need to talk, you’ll know where to find me.”
There was silence.
He quietly resumed brushing his teeth.
“Are we good?”
Sean quietly hung up.
Perfect, he sighed, lowering the phone. Finishing up at the sink, he went back into the suite’s bedroom.
Allison’s visit, on the other hand, had been fantastic.
Having only ever seen pictures of her on Sean’s computer, and not having a single clue as to what her perception of him might be, he had been deeply moved when she had warmly hugged him as if she had known him all her life.
She had asked about his flight and whether he’d had any trouble settling in, and he had confirmed that everything had gone well. And had tried not to seem too enthusiastic, seeing as she had just met him and had no reason to suspect that he might have instantly fallen in love with her.
She was short, plump, round everywhere like a Vargas girl, and looked nothing like her forty-three years. Aside from a few strands of grey hair falling becomingly at her temple, she could easily have passed for a woman in her thirties. She certainly had the energy to prove it. And though she looked a lot like Sean she seemed to have a personality opposite of his.
She was forceful where he was placid, sharp with her words where he knew Sean would phrase himself mildly. She had been strong, thoughtful, and unafraid.
It had been exactly what he needed to see.
Pulling back the covers, he got into the blaring empty king-sized bed. He got comfortable and brought up his phone.
Dr. Markham had said to give Sean time. And part of him was worried that he might be crowding Sean, the very thing he had been afraid of in the fall. That the staccato nature of their relationship was causing him to become needy without his being fully aware of it.
But he didn’t believe, however, that his presence in Johnston was necessarily contrary to Dr. Markham’s recommendations.
It was time Sean needed, not space—though he was getting plenty of that too. But he could give Sean time, no problem. The rest of their lives if that was what Sean needed. He was in no rush— just as long as Sean didn’t think the answer lay in going off and finding himself a replacement boyfriend who did as he was told.
Going through his messages, he saw that there was one from Kate who was thrilled for him that he was spending the Super Bowl with Sean in his hometown.
He smiled at the exclamation point-filled text, thinking that she was probably beside herself with the idea of being in Johnston for the Super Bowl. She would have loved to have brought her family along. For years he had ignored the event, and now he respected it if only out of appreciation that others would kill to be in his position.
There was voicemail from his dad, which he deleted without listening to. After the disaster that had been their dinner he was more than fine with not talking to him for a while.
He set the phone on the nightstand and turned onto his back. Staring up at the ceiling, he let out a long breath.
Elliot had been right when he had said that Sean was high maintenance. And that might be putting it mildly. He had never met anyone so in need of special handling. But the fact was that, and this was despite what anyone might have to say, he found that fucking sexy. And that was damn lucky for Sean.
Closing his eyes, he visualized himself with Sean at his happiest. Sean was grinning at him for reasons his mind didn’t think it necessary to fill in, seated low in an armchair and staring attentively at him. He was sitting on Sean’s knees, facing him, recounting some indecent that seemed interesting enough from the day. He knew Sean could die of boredom listening to strategies in real estate markets, but Sean always like to hear him tell a story, as though it was some crazy adventure the two of them were on. So Sean would sit there listening, his hands moving on his hips, his world decreased to just two.
It was what they had. What they were. Simply happy together no matter what their issues. For three years they had done it without a single guarantee. And now that they had actually committed he saw no reason at all for them to fail.
Positive thoughts logged firmly in mind, he turned, pulling one of the body pillows to him, and flung his leg over it. Then closing his eyes, he fell into a very peaceful sleep.
~*~
He had a fucking horrible night.
Sleeping fitfully, he tossed and turned like the bed in his old bedroom was suddenly full of rocks. Before dawn he was fully awake and had swung his legs out of bed.
He sat staring groggily at the floor, feeling as though he had just hiked the Himalayas.
He got up and pulled on jeans and a warm jersey and found a warm pair of house slippers, and headed downstairs to get himself more coffee than his body would know what to do with.
In the kitchen he rumbled a greeting to his mother, who was getting stuff ready for the day. The Super Bowl cookout was in three days… but he didn’t want to think about that.
Focused on searching thorough the cabinets for the biggest mug he could find, he wasn’t conscious that she hadn’t greeted him back, until she spoke.
“Allison tells me Holden is in town.”
The words involuntarily stopping him. He realized he had never contemplated hearing Holden’s name from her lips.
Holden was L.A. This was his real life.
And as soon as he had the thought he wondered what in God’s name it meant.
“Yeah,” he replied to her, his voice barely above a croak. He found the mug he was looking for and closed the cabinet. He poured himself a gallon of coffee.
“Did you ask him to come?” she asked, quietly.
“Hell no.”
“He came on his own? Without you asking?”
“He does that.”
His mother was silent, only the sounds of her moving around the kitchen indicating her presence.
He set the carafe back into the coffeemaker and lifted the mug to his lips, taking a breath.
And then he stood there staring out at the backyard, at the melted snow and grass, contemplating the things he was about to do right and wrong. Or not at all.
He had all but forgotten he wasn’t alone in the kitchen when suddenly he felt his mother’s arm going around his waist. She dropped her head to his shoulder and remained silent. And he was glad she wasn’t one to make him talk if he didn’t want to.
“Be nice to him, dear,” she then said in her quiet voice.
It made him take a deep breath.
And after a while he said, “I should go get ready to take Deena to school.”
Pressing a soft kiss into his shoulder, she wordlessly let him go.
~*~
Davey, however, was choosing to be a real asshole about the turn of events.
He kept sending him homoerotic texts all morning.
Dropping Deena off at school and promising to be there to pick her up at the end of the day—it broke his heart each time knowing it was his random disappearances in her life that made her paranoid like that—he kept having to delete the ridiculous messages.
They were coming in consistently every half hour or so, like spam. And they were all signed “the Inn five seconds from you.”
Propping himself against his dad’s truck, he nodded to a passing mother who, son in tow, was undressing him with her eyes.
He deleted the latest one before tapping Davey’s number.
“How about I forward these to Michelle and tell her you’re hitting on me?” he asked when Davey answered.
Davey chuckled. “She already thinks we did it in high school, loser. Plus she knows your guy’s in town. And that you’re being a dick about seeing him.”
“I’m being a dick,” he said pointedly.
“You’re being something.”
“The guy who’s hanging up on your ass, for starters.”
He disconnected, his heart having skipped too many beats for him to continue comfortably. He opened the truck and got in. It was only Thursday morning. He needed to conserve his strength.
Holden was having dinner with Kay and Allison tonight, where, he was sure, they would have lots to talk about. All the years of his talking about Holden coming to a wonderful climax.
It wasn’t that he was feeling spiteful or ungrateful. He just did not understand how any of this was good for him, when even the doctor had said he needed time.
~*~
Thursday morning for him dawned warm and toasty. At least in his bed.
According his weather app it was thirty degrees outside.
He took a moment and laid there staring out at the dreary, snowy scenery outside the picture window, contemplating the fact that in L.A. it was going to be seventy-six degrees. And sunny.
Sighing, he pushed back the covers and got out of bed. Work and something sweet to eat usually went a long way.
He had gone over to the writing table and picked up the room service menu when his phone buzzed once. It was a text.
Telling himself not to get his hopes up, and therefore willfully ignoring why he had left it on all night in the first place, he picked up the phone and checked the message.
It was a text from Sean’s sister-in-law, Kay. It said, “Hey you! This is Kay! Wanna grab breakfast?”
He smiled with pleasure. Allison, who had invited him to pretty much everything they were doing for the Super Bowl weekend, and now her, uninvited. Score two for him.
He texted her back, “Definitely,” with a smiley face.
~*~