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The second she got him dragged out from under the shrewd eyes of friends and family, Jess wheeled on him, enraged.

"Tony, how could you do that?" she hissed, and punched him in the chest - hard. Jess wasn't the kind of girl who slapped. "Did you think for a second about how much harder it's going to make both our lives when we tell them we're not getting married after all? My mum's going to kill me!"

He held his arms up in a gesture of peace, or really just a gesture of 'oh god stop hitting me' and waited for her to get it all out before he spoke, not even sure what he wanted to say.

Well. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, really, he just didn't know how he could possibly say it so it wouldn't hurt her feelings, so she wouldn't get that look in her eyes that was part anger and part pity because she'd known him too long for the former to ever come without the latter.

Jess must have seen something in his face, because she went silent, looking at him with big concerned eyes as she waited for his explanation.

"Look, we don't actually have to break up, do we?" he blurted out, and knew immediately that that was the wrong thing to say. Confusion flashed across Jess' face.

"I thought you were…." she started, and then stopped, apparently unable to actually say the word.

"Gay." he finished for her. She'd been his best friend since they were tiny things clumsily kicking a ball around in his backyard, and he wasn't going to let it hurt that she didn't want to call him what he was. He didn't want to call himself that.

"Yeah. Gay." Jess agreed, and didn't flinch as she said it. Her eyes narrowed. "So, what… you want me to be your cover? It seems like a good deal, yeah? You get to hide from your family, I get to play football, everyone's happy?" She was pissed.

"No!" he insisted immediately, and them amended it, "well, yes, sort of," because that was the crux of his plan. "But Jess, it's not just that alright? It's - I don't know if I can explain, exactly." and to his horror, he heard his voice wobble just a little. "It's - Jess, I don't - please, just think about it?"

"What is there to even think about?" she'd caught the emotion in his voice, he could tell, because she'd gone from angry straight into that concerned, solid, 'whatever it is, I'm going to solve it' mode that she went into sometimes, which comforted and annoyed him in equal measures. It was comforting now - this was Jess, and if he explained it to her she would fix it for him. "Why d'you want this so badly? You're not in love with me?" Leftover confusion from years of everyone believing it, no doubt. He was suddenly struck by the parallels between this conversation and the last time she'd asked him that - 'Well I am. I just don't want to marry you.'  - and had to check the inappropriate urge to start laughing.

"Well, no, but - I do love you, Jess." he reassured her instead. "I don't just want to marry you because you're convenient. I -" he tried to find the words for it. "I'm just…. I'm unhappy." it was odd to say it so straightforwardly; you were supposed to dance around things like that. He couldn't explain to Jess what it felt like, to know that everyone around him could hate him at a moment's notice, that at any moment, he could say or do the wrong thing without even knowing it, and someone would figure it out and everything would come crashing down around him. It felt inevitable, like all his relationships had expiration dates already written on them. He felt trapped, sometimes felt so wildly desperate for an escape that killing himself began to seem like a real option, and he didn't know how to make any of it better.

"I can't take this anymore - I need a way out." he admitted. To his immense shame, tears were pricking at the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away surreptitiously, and tried to ignore the thought that maybe they would make Jess more sympathetic to his plight.

"Oh, Tony." She leaned into him. "I didn't know things were that bad." They stood on the lawn outside her house, leaning into each other silently as the sun set, an unspoken agreement to take a break and get their thoughts into order.

"Look… it wouldn't be forever, would it." he finally started again, as darkness set in. "Only, if we could manage to be married for the next four years. You could get through uni, I could get established in a real job. We'd get away from home, be independent a bit, and then break the news when they didn't have so much power over us, yeah? It'd be a solution for both of us, and no harm done."

"Yeah, alright." Jess murmured into his side, still looking at the sky.

"And really, if you think about it - what?"

Jess laughed at him a little. "I said alright." she repeated, poking him gently. "I don't want you to be miserable. And I don't -  I've been lying all along. I feel guilty about it, but not enough to give up on this. It's not fair, but - what other options are there? I can lie or I can be unhappy? And before you came along, it was just the one option, of giving up everything I ever wanted. It's a good solution, you're right." she nudged him a little with her shoulder. "Though you owe me, mate. And I mean owe me."

He laughed with her, and was so grateful he thought he might start to cry again. Thank god and anything else people thanked that he had Jess in his life. Jess, who could practically read his mind through long years of practice, and never even made him say any of it out loud. She wasn't doing this for herself, whatever she said. He knew it, and she probably knew he knew it.

"I'll tell all the boys how good you are in bed, the moment we separate you'll have your pick." he informed her solemnly, and she punched him again.

**

They were married four days before they moved to Santa Clara, an insane whirlwind of packing and planning and ceremonies. Jess showed up to the wedding with dark circles under her eyes that not even the copious amounts of decorative makeup and jewelry could entirely disguise. "Jules insisted on throwing me a bachelorette party." she confided to him as they danced. "I can't even figure out if this headache is the hangover or if it's just what happens when you go from loud club music to even louder wedding music without a break."

He laughed at her and held her close so she could hear his response. "We'll have to experiment - get you this drunk again next weekend and see how the headache compares." It must have seemed terribly romantic to onlookers, the way they were clinging a little closer than the dance really required, so they could whisper in one another's ears.

The three of them met up at the airport with their respective families. Jules and Jess said tearful goodbyes to their parents, and Tony clasped his grandmother's hands in his own.

"I'm just a phone call and a plane ride away." he reminded her. "If you need anything…"

"Ach, you're a good boy." she interrupted him. "You don't worry about a thing, your cousin will take very good care of me."

"Alright, well - call anyways." he told her, suddenly feeling preemptively homesick. "I'm going to miss your cooking, you know." She threw her head back and laughed.

"Ahh, your Jess can cook for you now." she told him beaming. "Enough of my lifetime has been spent cooking for other people, I think."

He couldn't argue with that. She'd cooked  for his grandfather, and then for his parents every Thursday night when he was young, and then when he was seven and they'd died she'd started cooking for him. And if she knew the truth about him she would cry, would be ashamed, would maybe disown him. He didn't know whether to feel angry or guilt or sorry.

"I'll still miss yours." he told her, and she smiled at him, pleased.

"Tony, look!!" Jess shrieked from behind him, grabbing his shoulder. Behind her Jules was jumping up and down ecstatically. "It's Beckham!"

The three of them watched as David Beckham made his way across the upper floor of the airport, flocked by paparazzi and security. It felt like a sign.

**

"Aah, this is gorgeous, I'm so jealous!!" Jules whined, flopping dramatically down onto Jess' bed. Jess flopped down next to her, while Tony watched from the doorway, amused. "I can't believe the two of you get to live in this gorgeous apartment while I'm in the dorms. How are you even affording this?"

"Tony's got a trust fund from his parents coming to him now that he's 18, he gets £10,000 a year until he turns 41 and it runs out."  Jess explained cheerfully. "We're more or less blowing the whole thing on rent, and getting our groceries out of my living stipend from SCU."

"Yeah, well, I hope you know I'm planning to basically live on your couch." Jules announced. "I haven't met my roommate yet, but she's a right slob; she can't have been moved in for more than 3 days, I get to the dorm and her dirty laundry is already scattered around the floor. I kicked it all over to her side, so clearly we're off to a good start."

"Our apartment is your apartment." Tony informed her grandly.

Despite Jules' enthusiasm, the apartment wasn't actually very nice. £10,000 a year was more than he'd ever had in his life, but it could only take them so far against California's living expenses. They'd managed a two-bedroom, at least, but it was old and small and far enough from campus that Jess would have to take the bus every morning.

Still, it was theirs, and the novelty of that was enough to make it a palace. They'd spent four days running around furnishing it, laughing and giddy. It had felt a little like playing house. Tony thought they'd done alright; it was a mismatched collage of things they'd found at yard sales, at goodwill, and at ikea, but somehow it came together to look like a home. Jules certainly seemed to like it; she flipped over on the bed, arching her arms to catch herself as she landed, so that she was lying knees bent, with her feet on the bed, forearms and the top of her head touching the ground.

"So what are you going to do while Jess and I are off becoming star football players?" she asked, before her arms gave up and she collapsed to the ground.

Tony shrugged. "I'll find something to do, I suppose. I'm going to apply for every football-related job in the city."

With groceries and rent already covered, it was tempting to give himself a bit of a vacation, but four days after Jess and Jules started practice, boredom had him keeping his word, looking through employment options online.

Something called the YMCA was looking to hire 6 seasonal coaches for a kids' soccer league, and that seemed like his best hope if only for the sheer numbers. He sent in his resume, with a polite cover letter in which he found multiple ways to rephrase "I play soccer in the park a lot." He was shocked when they called him in for an interview only two days later.

**

"Look, I love your enthusiasm, but I can't hire someone without any experience." the guy at the YMCA told him sympathetically, and Tony gave an emphatic nod of understanding, hoping his disappointment didn't show on his face.

"Yeah, absolutely, I completely understand. Well, thanks anyways for your time." he babbled, rising from the chair.

"Wait, hang on. Are you interested in pursuing a career in coaching?" the man asked, and Tony nodded, trying not to look embarrassed. It felt a little bit like being asked 'do you want to be an astronaut when you grow up, little boy?' The interviewer seemed to take him seriously, though. "Why don't you apply for one of the assistant coach positions, if you've got time? It's a volunteer thing, you won't get paid, but it'll be experience on your resume, and then maybe you can reapply next year." He gave Tony a frank look. "I'll be straight with you - you're not going to get a paid coaching position anywhere without something better on your resume. If you're serious about making a career out of this, you're going to have to find the time to start as a volunteer somewhere."

Tony blinked at him. He hadn't been especially serious about a career - it was just that soccer was the only thing he liked, and so a job that involved a soccer ball sounded better than anything else. But the teams only met for 8 hours a week, it wasn't as though he'd have trouble fitting a part-time job around it, and he wasn't desperate for money anyways. "That sounds brilliant, how do I apply?" he asked, and the man grinned at him.

"Excellent, we can always use more volunteers! Don't even worry about it, you're in, I'll move your resume over to the right file and process your paper work - we'll be in touch."

He shook hands with the guy and left in a haze of triumph, which was only dimmed a little when he stopped at starbucks for a celebratory coffee and abruptly remembered that, while it was interesting and fulfillig, a volunteer position would not actually keep him in frappuccinos.

He applied the theory of 'job involving a soccer ball' a second time and managed to get hired for a part-time retail position at a sports goods store a few days later.

"All the students quit their summer jobs at the same time, so we've got like 6 new employees coming in at once - prepare for a few weeks of incompetence-induced chaos until you all figure out what you're doing." his new manager, Greg, informed him dryly. Tony decided that he wouldn't repeat that part when he announced his triumph to Jess.

"Tony, congratulations, that's brilliant!" Jess cheered from the couch she had sprawled across when she finally got home from her pre-season practice. She was freshly showered, hair still wet even after the bus ride home, and when she hugged him she was warm and smelled like cheap locker room soap. "We're going out to celebrate this Friday! Drinks are on you, since you're the one with a steady income!"

"Yes, well, I suppose I am the man of the house." he agreed, and she flung a pillow into his chest. She didn't like marriage jokes, which was all the incentive he needed to tell them constantly. "Oi! A wife should show her husband a bit more respect, yeah?"

"I am currently devoting 6 hours a day to forming new muscles, Tony, and as soon as I have enough energy to move my legs I will use them to beat you into the ground." she threatened without lifting her head to look at him, and he laughed, happy.

**

"Get into your finest clubbing clothes, husband, we are going out on the town!" Jess announced as she burst through the door at only 8:00 Friday night.

"Is Jules coming?" Tony asked her, looking up suspiciously from his book. She was a vibrating ball of energy, which was odd, because she'd come back from practice and collapsed onto the couch with a pathetic whimper every other day that week.

"She is not." Jess responded cheerfully. "She has pre-reading to do for one of her classes, and she decided it was a good idea to put it off until the weekend before, so we get to go out and have a lovely time, and she gets to be a stressed out mess." She sounded very satisfied with that state of affairs; presumably she'd spent the month reminding Jules to get her reading finished, while Jules had spent the month rolling her eyes and ignoring her.

"Alright. Where are we going?" he shouted behind him as he went into his room, shucking his sweatpants and digging a pair of jeans out of the hamper.

"I got the name of a bar that doesn't card from another girl on the team, can you believe we finally turned 18 only to move somewhere where you've got to be 21?" Tony jumped as Jess' response came from closer than he was expecting, and he whirled around to see her lurking in the doorway.

"How about warn a guy before you walk in on him in his boxers!" he demanded.

"These are my wifely privileges, I get to not care whether you are wearing pants." Jess informed him unrepentantly. He gently but firmly shut the door in her laughter-filled face.

Between the inexplicable energy, and the sudden enjoyment of marriage jokes, and her insistence that he go back and change into his other, tighter pair of jeans, he probably should have realized that Jess was up to something, but he didn't figure it out until they got to the bar and he saw the large rainbow flag hanging over the front door.

"Jess…. did you bring me to a gay bar?" he asked her incredulously.

"Yes. Yes I did." she answered firmly. "And we are going to go in and get a drink."

"Jess…." he hung back, uncertain how to explain his reluctance.

"Look, Tony - it's safe, alright? There is no one in this entire city who knows anyone in our family. There is no one in this bar who is going to judge you, because they are all the kind of people who spend their Friday night in a gay bar." His doubt must have been showing on his face, because after a brief pause she continued. "We've got a solution for right now, Tony. But in four years, you're still going to be gay. That means that you have four years where it's safe for you to explore this, and figure out what it means to you. Don't you think you should take advantage of that?"

"Don't you think it's my choice where and when I do that?" he retorted. "You can't just spring stuff like this on me, Jess."

"I think you made it at least a little bit my business when you fake-married me, mate." she teased, and then more solemnly added, "besides, I'm your friend. I want you to be happy." She was using her big eyes to good effect, it was shameless of her, but he felt himself caving in the face of her good intentions.

"Yes, fine - one drink." he agreed.

"Excellent!" Jess beamed at him, taking his arm and dragging him into the bar. "I'll find us a table, you grab us a couple beers."

"When did you become someone who was comfortable in a bar, anyways? Didn't you used to freak out about this sort of thing? Like a month ago, even?" he called after her, but she just waved him jauntily toward the bar.

Two beers later, he was slightly buzzed and feeling a lot more comfortable. He was, he supposed, a bit of a lightweight. The bar had been almost empty when they'd come in, but it had filled up over the past hour. No one had paid them any attention at all, and Tony had slowly relaxed, until he could sit contentedly and watch people go by as Jess chattered happily in his ear about the other girls on her soccer team. An attractive blonde man with… oddly spiky hair caught his eye and winked as he walked past, and Tony blushed a little and turned his attention back to Jess.

"Mindy, she's our goalie, she's a senior this year, she's pretty good but she says she's not likely to get scouted, there aren't any teams on the lookout for a new goalie right now, she says it's a hit-or-miss position to pursue if you're really looking for a career, it's just not dynamic enough, you can't move where you're needed, but when they need you they need you - hey, you're out of beer!"

"So are you." he pointed out patiently, because apparently Jess was an even cheaper date than he was. She looked surprised.

"Well then! You'd better get us another one!"

That sounded pretty good, actually. He was enjoying the way that the world's edges had been blurred soft, he didn't want them to go hard again. "Yeah, OK." he agreed, even though he wasn't starting his job until Monday, and wouldn't be paid until the Friday after next, and this was, technically, cutting into some of the money they'd set aside for rent.

He pushed his way through the crowd up to the bar, and waited patiently for the bartender's attention. It was harder this time around; the bar was packed now, and there were louder, more colorful people demanding drinks.

"Hey, you're never gonna get served if you just stand there looking hopeful." said a voice in his ear, and Tony turned to see the spiky blond boy from earlier. "What're you trying to order?"

"Er, two coronas." Tony admitted, a little thrown. The blonde wrinkled his nose attractively.

"Corona? Really? No. We can do better." He waved the bartender down imperiously. "Two boont ambers and a cuba libre, please."

"Uh, thanks." Tony managed, fumbling for his wallet.

"No, no, it's on me. Who's the 2nd one for? Your boyfriend?" the man asked.

"No, my… roommate." Tony answered, deciding abruptly that no, he didn't want to tell the cute blonde boy buying him a drink that he was married. He pointed at Jess, who was beaming at them with all the bright force of a thousand suns.

"Eww, living with vagina in the house. Well, to each their own I guess. I'm Kyle." he stuck out a hand to shake, and Tony took it, bemused. He wondered if he should be offended on Jess' behalf, but there was something… refreshing about Kyle's shamelessness, even if it did come in the form of sexism. He'd never met somebody who clearly got so much enjoyment out of being gay.

"I'm Tony. It's nice to meet you." The bartender came back with the drinks, and Kyle paid for all 3 of them.

"It's nice to meet you too." he responded, letting his eyes sweep over Tony's body in a deliberate emphasis of the statement. "Listen, I can see you're here for a roommate night, far be it for me to interrupt. But I did buy you a drink, so I think," he tilted his hips appealingly, "that you owe me your phone number."

Tony dutifully entered his brand new american phone number into the proffered smartphone, and Kyle beamed at him.

"Well, I'll see you around then?" he asked uncertainly.

"Count on it." Kyle promised solemnly, and then wandered off with his drink, leaving Tony with two beers and the inevitability of Jess' drunken excitement.

**

Monday brought his first shift at Morton's Sporting Goods, which was every bit as disastrous as Greg had promised. A surly 19 year old by the name of Jenson managed to knock an entire shelf of american footballs onto Tony's head in a cascade of fake leather - it felt like a scene from a slapstick comedy.

Worn out by 8 hours of incompetence, and facing the prospect of 8 more hours of the same the next day, Tony wasn't so much walking as he was trudging home when his phone announced that he had a new text message. He flipped it open fully expecting it to be Jess asking about dinner plans, and saw that it was from an unknown number.

Panic immediately swamped him, with a strange thread of elation woven through it. It had to be from Kyle. It was probably not, however, a photo of the other man's dick with the text 'i no u want this' written beneath it, and it probably had not been delivered to his grandmother and his 20 closest friends in England either. It was just a text message from a guy he'd met, and with that firmly in mind, he tamped down on his hysteria and opened it.

'hey, this is kyle - hows ur day goin?' it read, somewhat anticlimactically.

It took him the entire rest of the walk home to come up with, 'not too bad, urs?'

Jess was proud of him.

**
Wednesday morning was the first meeting for the YMCA coaches. First practice for the kids would be on Thursday. Tony showed up at the field five minutes late after a bus schedule mishap and was relieved to see that a group of people still aimlessly loitering around.

"Is this the YMCA group?" he asked a short sandy-haired man standing at the edge of the crowd. The man gave him a friendly smile.

"That's us. I'm Chris." he held out a hand, and Tony took it.

"Tony. You one of the volunteers?"

"Yeah, this is my 2nd year doing it. What about you?"

"My first. It sounds like fun."

"It is." Chris agreed enthusiastically, dimpling at him. He was cute, in a way that wasn't exactly handsome. There was something about his round, smiling face, and the lines around his eyes, that suggested that he was transitioning from 'young boy' to 'old man' without ever actually hitting any of the stages in between. "I haven't got any talent for the game, but I love working with kids and having an excuse to run around in the park 3 times a week."

"I'm in it mostly for the soccer." Tony admitted. "If I can't play as a career myself, I can at least be coaching someone else."

"Oh, you play though? You any good?" Chris asked.

"I'm alright. Not good enough that I'd join a team at this point or anything. It's just always been what I do for fun." Tony admitted.

"Same. We should get a casual pick-up game going some weekend."

Conversation cut off at that point as Lee, the league supervisor, got their attention and began outlining schedules and logistics. A lot of the actual practice methods were left up to the coaches' discretion, so coaches and assistants paired off afterwards to discuss their individual practice plans. Tony was working with a guy named Craig, who'd apparently been working for the YMCA for the past 8 years. He already knew what he was doing, and filled Tony in with a kind of laid back confidence that set him at ease - Craig would clearly be easy to work with.

As he left the field two hours later, he found the courage to catch up with Chris and exchange numbers. He was filled with a strange sort of confidence - this was a step toward shaping his adult life into something he could be happy living. The sense of contentment was only increased when he got home to find Jess and Jules collapsed on the couch. Jess was watching a WUSA game on the television, and Jules was lying with her head in Jess' lap, purportedly reading a textbook and getting distracted every time the fans roared.

It felt like it could be home.

They looked up when they saw him coming into the room, all smiles.

"Tonyyyy…" Jules practically sing-songed. "I hear that you have a new lover." Jess elbowed her.

"Shut up, I told you not to tell him I'd told you!" she practically hissed, and Tony had to laugh.

"No, it's fine - it's definitely not a, uh, lover, though. We've hardly even met, just exchanged some text messages."

"But he asked you on a date Friday night, didn't he?" Jess asked, just to make him confirm it for Jules, not because she didn't remember every detail that they'd giggled excitedly over for the past 48 hours. Coming out of the closet was apparently a lot like being 13 again, in that every aspect of romance suddenly became new and titillating.

"I don't know if it's a date. We're going to get coffee." Tony admitted, and Jules grinned at him.

"I'm happy for you, mate. It's nice that you're away from home and can, y'know…."

"Yeah." he agreed.

"How was your meeting?"

"It was good - I think it'll be a lot of fun." Tony answered truthfully. "Why are you two home? It's barely past noon."

"Our afternoon class got canceled - the Professor's kid is home sick from school. Practice isn't until 7 tonight, we figured it was worth coming back to the apartment." Jess said. "I'm going to make a curry for lunch, I miss real food."

"Just wait 'til I tell your mum." Tony teased her and she grinned at him, accepting the hit.

"You should tell her, you'll make her cry with joy."

They sat and watched TV and made fun of each other and ate curry, and then Tony got ready for his half-shift at Morton's. His phone buzzed as he left the apartment. 'Wats ur fav coffee place?', it said.

Tony smiled.

**

Jess did her best not to fuss over him Friday as he got ready for his date. He was glad; he was doing enough fussing himself, checking the line of his jeans in the mirror and surreptitiously sniffing at his armpits to make sure he didn't smell. If she'd started talking about what shirts set off his eyes, he'd have been too embarrassed by himself to go on with living.

"You going to be here later?" he asked her as he left.

"Nah, I'm going to the library, Jules and I want to do our chem questions together. You'll text me if anything exciting happens, yeah?"

"Yeah." he promised dutifully, and left.

He met Kyle at some independent coffee shop that was clearly popular with the college students. It had a little waterfall fountain and new-age music playing and a menu with items like "soybean vanilla matcha latte - vegan friendly".

Kyle greeted him with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, and the panic set in heavily in Tony's gut as he swung around on sheer instinct, expecting to see Taz and Sonny behind him, their faces scrunched up in disgust.

Instead all he saw was a group of college girls with textbooks who hadn't even looked up to notice, and Kyle giving him an odd look, opening his mouth to ask what the problem was.

"Coffee?" Tony squeaked, eager to cut him off. Kyle kept looking at him for a moment, and then shook his head and laughed.

"Yeah. Coffee." he agreed.

Tony paid for the coffee, which seemed only fair since Kyle had bought the beer, and he didn't comment on how the low-cal frothy caramel monstrosity that Kyle ordered was ridiculously overpriced. Kyle was good company, even - he talked cheerfully about restaurants and bars in the area that Tony should try, about his courses at university, and seemed genuinely interested in Tony's new jobs.

It was extremely gracious of him, given that Tony couldn't seem to pay attention for more than 5 seconds at a time.

"Are you OK?" Kyle finally asked him, as they drained their cups. "I know I said you owed me for the beer, but I didn't mean to pressure you into this if you're not interested, or…"

"No, no, it's not that!" Tony reassured him instantly, embarrassed by his own bad behavior. He should probably just come clean, and let it scare Kyle off and save him the effort of doing that with the force of his apparently extremely rude personality. "It's, y'know - culturally, this isn't something that's really, uh, OK with my family or friends back in England. This is my first time going out on a - a date or whatever with another man."

"What, ever?" Kyle looked at him, wide-eyed. "But you are gay, right? I mean, I just assumed because you were at Gary's…"

"I am. I am definitely gay." Tony reassured him a little too emphatically, and Kyle laughed. "But I am also, uh, married."

Kyle spat out his mouthful of coffee.

"Oh! Sorry, I could've timed that better, sorry, here." he passed his napkin over.

"That was my last mouthful, too." Kyle announced plaintively, and then turned his attention back to Tony. "So, married. The 'roommate' at the bar, right?" he waited for Tony's nod to continue, "but she was at a gay bar with you, she saw you give me your number, so she's cool with it, right?"

"Yeah… she's probably more excited about it than I am." Tony admitted dryly, and Kyle gave a delighted laugh.

"Ohmygod, your wife is your faghag? That's adorable." he announced, and Tony filed away the term 'faghag' for later consideration.

"Yeah… anyways, I'm sorry, I should've told you all this before. I'm probably a little higher maintenance than what you're looking for right now, and.."

"What? No." Kyle waved that away with an imperious hand. "You haven't been out long, you're nervous about being all 'we're here, we're queer' in public, I get that, you're not the only one. I think it's kind of cute, really - it means I get to see you blush a lot. You look good with a blush." He gave Tony a coy look from under long blonde lashes. Tony, somewhat predictably, blushed.

"Thanks." he muttered, not sure what else to say in the face of such blatant flirtation. Kyle grinned at him.

"I'll try to tone it down a bit in the future." he promised. "And hey, maybe I can be good for you, y'know? I'll show you the queer ropes, help you get comfortable with yourself." He put on a very earnest expression. "If there's one thing I'm really good at, it's being out and proud. Let me teach you, young grasshopper."

"That, um - I can try." Tony answered, somewhat at a loss. He wasn't sure he wanted to be 'out and proud' the way Kyle was, but it was nice having somebody who was willing to work for him, who thought his blushes were cute and told him so. It felt like another thing that could slot nicely into the future he was building himself. A job he liked, Jess to come home to, an attractive boy to go out with. That could be OK.

"Excellent. I guess this is probably a good place to wrap this one up, right? It's always weird having a really serious conversation and then going back to lighthearted small-talk, right?"

They walked down the road together to Tony's bus stop, and then Kyle made an exaggerated show of looking around to make sure the street was deserted. "No one here but us. See, I told you I'd do a better job about being tactful." he announced smugly, and then delivered a chaste peck to Tony's lips. "I'll text you later." he announced, and then sauntered off, leaving Tony vaguely stunned.

**

Saturday morning Tony, Jess, and Jules went to the farmer's market in search of fresh vegetables. They got local cheeses they'd never heard of, and Jules purchased a bottle of locally made wine from a stall that didn't bother checking her ID, and that night Jess made homemade bread and they ate it with cheese and split the bottle between them.

Sunday morning he worked a half shift, and in the afternoon, he met Chris at the park to get together a pickup game. In the absence of other players, they ended up playing one-on-one, and found themselves to be surprisingly equally matched.

Monday he had a morning shift at work, followed by an afternoon soccer practice with the kids, followed by a 2nd date with Kyle, which ended in a longer, more involved kiss by the bus stop.

Things settled into a routine more easily than he could have imagined. He called home twice a week, worked a job he didn't hate and another job that he loved. He had days with old friends and days with new friends, and a smattering of confusing but exciting kisses. September rolled into October which rolled into November without his even noticing.

He liked each separate element of his life, but none of it ever crossed over, much.

"You know," Kyle murmured to him one night, "if we went back to your apartment, we could get a little further than this." They were taking advantage of a convenient dark corner in Gary's Bar. Tony was more than a little buzzed, enough to throw caution to the wind and just enjoy sloppy kisses and the feeling of Kyle's teeth against his neck. "It's not that I object to what we're doing now, of course - it's just that I've been dying to see what you look like naked."

Kyle's words made him hesitate, though. Kyle seemed to think that the reason he hadn't been invited back to Tony's apartment was that Tony didn't want him to meet Jess, and Tony hadn't contradicted him. It was easier to let Kyle believe whatever he came up with himself than to admit that he was reluctant, that going further than kissing felt like an enormous step, that he wasn't sure he was comfortable enough yet with his identity to let his hands wander below Kyle's belt.

Kyle's hot breath hit his neck just below the pulse point, followed by soft lips and clever tongue. Whatever protest Tony had been about to make was lost in a breathy moan.

"Let me," Kyle murmured against his neck, "convince you." and then before Tony could even snicker at the cliche line, clever hands were undoing his zipper and belt, and pulling him out through his boxers.

"Ohmygod, we are in public." Tony hissed, an unholy mixture of turned on and mortified.

Kyle grinned mischievously at him. "Don't worry so much." he suggested, and dropped to his knees. His mouth was hot and wet and talented and it was over far too soon, ecstatic sounds escaping Tony's lips against his will.

They got kicked out of the bar.

Kyle was laughing so hard he could barely stumble forward, breathlessly hanging off of Tony's arm, until Tony had to let go of his mortification enough to laugh too. They leaned against the brick wall of the next building over, getting ahold of themselves, and then Kyle leaned into him, a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Well now you have to take me back to your apartment. We lost our corner before you could return the favor."

"…. yeah, OK." Tony agreed.

**
Jules was lying on the couch the next morning studying what looked like Jess' chemistry notes when Tony came stumbling out, running 10 minutes late to catch the bus for his kids' Saturday soccer match. Kyle came sauntering out behind him. He'd pulled his jeans on but left them unbuttoned so that his boxers were visible, and Tony had seen him looking in the mirror, deliberately arranging his hair into an artfully rumpled 'I just woke up' look.

"well hellooo." she drawled, looking absolutely delighted. "You must be Kyle."

"Actually, I'm Steve." Kyle said. He put on an indignant look, and poked Tony in the arm. "Who's Kyle? Have you been sleeping around?"

Jules laughed incredulously, and Tony winced, able to see that she was laughing at his taste in men rather than at the joke. "Ohmygod, he's a comedian. Tony, why didn't you bring him round ages ago?"

"Because I knew you lot would embarrass me." Tony shot back. "And you don't really get to meet him now, because I'm running late as it is, so - "

"Just because you're running out the door doesn't mean Kyle has to!" Jules insisted. "Jess is making that sour bread stuff that I like,"

"Idli." Tony supplied automatically.

"Yes, Idli, so Kyle should stay and have some." She looked like a predator lying in wait.

"That sounds like fun." Kyle said brightly, unaware of the danger.

"I hate you all." Tony informed the room at large. "I am going to work. Try not to destroy the place before I get back."

He sprinted all the way to the park from the bus stop and was only two minutes late to the game, but the kids had already started playing, and Craig shot him a disapproving look.

Even after he got there, he had trouble concentrating. It was just - he'd been seeing Kyle for months, but he didn't feel like he really knew the guy. They met at coffee shops and bars, made small talk for a polite amount of time, and then found a quiet spot to make out for awhile. He didn't know him well enough to predict what Kyle would say to Jess and Jules over the course of a breakfast.

Possibly he was sitting at the breakfast table at that very minute saying, "Tony is terrible at sex, I could really tell he'd never done it before."

A referee whistled and Tony was yanked abruptly back into the game, where little Charlie was in trouble for tripping again.

They lost the game, but only by a point, and that was in overtime, so the kids were both more and less disappointed than they might have been. They trudged off the field, too exhausted to be terrible little monsters, giving Tony half-hearted fist bumps as he congratulated them on a job well done. It wasn't until Charlie sullenly wandered over to his mom's van and left the field empty that Tony realized that Lee, the league supervisor, was waiting for him.

Oh god. Was this because he'd been tardy? It was the first time he'd arrived late, maybe it was a fireable offense.

He walked over to the man and mustered up what he hoped was a convincing smile. "Good set of games today, right?" he offered, and Lee grinned at him.

"Yeah, it was! Four of our teams won their matches, so we must be doing something right. Your team was pretty good about losing, all things considered."

"Yeah, they're good kids." Tony agreed, ducking his head to hide the magnitude of the lie. "Uh, can I help you with something?"

"I just wanted to say that you've been doing a good job for us." Lee told him, and Tony was floored.

"Thanks." he managed. "I really like doing it." And he really did, even though he'd never worked with kids before and they could totally smell his fear and never listened to a thing he said. He liked helping them improve, it was satisfying.

"Our spring season starts January 15th - you should put in an application for a paid coaching job."

Tony stared at him. "Really?" he asked incredulously, and then firmly shut his mouth. Lee just laughed.

"I can't guarantee anything - we try to give preference to returning coaches, if they've done well in the past, so it depends on what space we have leftover for new talent. But yeah, if there's an opening, I'd love to have you for the job."

"That'd be brilliant." Tony managed. "I'll stop by with an application tomorrow morning."

"Good, do that." Lee agreed. "I'll see you Tuesday." He left with a friendly wave.

**

"I don't like your boyfriend much." were the first words out of Jules' mouth as Tony let himself back into the apartment.

"He wasn't so bad." Jess said. They were sprawled on the living room floor, chemistry notes spread around them in some form of organized chaos.

"You're just saying that because you want to stay on your roommate's good side. He's a complete twat."

"What did he do, exactly?" Tony asked, choosing to roll himself over the back of the couch and onto the cushions, rather than trying to navigate the chemistry maze in front of it.

"It's not that he did anything, he was just - I don't know. Smarmy. I don't like him." Jules answered, and then visibly relented. "I guess I'm not the one who has to. Anyways, it's good that one of us is getting shagged, and it's certainly not going to be me or Jess anytime soon, so -"

"Jules!" Jess and Tony exclaimed at more or less the same time, and she threw her head back and laughed.

"Anyways, guess what happened to me today?" Tony offered casually, and told them about Lee's offer.

"That's brilliant Tony, congratulations!" Jess beamed, getting up to give him a hug.

"We should celebrate with food!" Jules declared. "Do you realize that this Thursday is American Thanksgiving? We should have a 'you lot totally committed genocide against a native population and now you celebrate it by eating too much, and also Tony's got a new job' party."

"Catchy." Jess answered dryly. "But alright, that sounds like fun."

Tony showered while Jess and Jules wrapped up their study session, and then they put on a bad movie and squeezed onto the couch together, eating popcorn in lieu of an actual dinner. Somewhere halfway through the movie Tony's phone buzzed, and he didn't even look at it. The thought of talking to Kyle opened a pit of dread in his stomach, although he couldn't say why. They'd had sex, and it had been… nice, if a little outside Tony's skill set. But it was - their dynamic was changed, Tony was sure. Kyle would want to do it all the time, and it felt like now that he'd said yes once, he'd lost the right to say no again. It made him want to avoid Kyle entirely, and that didn't seem fair. But he was squashed onto a couch with people he loved, and Jules was throwing popcorn at the screen every time her least favorite character came on. It was warm and comforting, and he resolved to enjoy it and deal with everything else later.

**
Sunday Tony had his usual one-on-one soccer match with Chris. Monday and Tuesday were full shifts at Morton's, and Wednesday he helped Jess cook a ridiculous number of things for Thursday's fake thanksgiving. Thursday was a holiday, so it involved Jules on their couch, which meant that the entire dynamic of their apartment changed.

Jess, Tony suddenly realized on Thursday, was a very different person around Jules than she was around him. She was always sweet and funny, but around Jules she became a little more extroverted, a little more touchy feely. She put her arms around Jules' shoulders from behind while they cooked, and Jules let her, leaning her head back into Jess so they could laugh together at a joke.

He didn't know what to make of it. It had been building slowly, so that it wasn't noticeable until he actually stopped and compared it to the way Jess had been a year ago. He supposed it just meant she was happy - or maybe she'd just never had many girl friends before, and she was taking her cue from the more outgoing Jules.

Altogether, it wasn't until Friday that he bit the bullet and called Kyle.

"Hey! Are you OK?" Kyle's voice came over the phone after the second ring. It was concerned and reassuring, and reminded him that he liked Kyle, there was no reason to avoid him.

"Yeah, I'm good, I've just been really busy, sorry."

"No, it's cool - I've been busy too, actually, I drove home for the holiday." Kyle told him cheerfully. They made small talk for awhile, made plans to hang out again on Sunday. It was all anticlimactically easy after a week of build-up.

"My roommate's still out of town for the holidays; want to come back and see my dorm room while you've got the chance?" Kyle asked smoothly at the end of the date.

"I suppose." Tony answered uncomfortably.

They had sex again, and it was more fun than Tony had remembered it. He thought he was better at it the second time around, and that if they did it a third time he'd probably have the hang of it.

He was often comfortable and at ease when he was with Kyle - it was only afterwards, when he was on his own with his thoughts and anxieties that he felt nauseous with it all. It was too much to fast, and his sense of self couldn't change quickly enough to keep up. He thought it was that disconnect that made things so difficult. He would get used to it all.

November became December, and they purchased tickets home for Christmas. The soccer league went into a two week final tournament, and Lee pulled Tony aside on the 3rd day.

"Hey, we've got an opening for a coach next season, you've got the job if you still want it."

"I do! I definitely do want it." Tony said immediately, and Lee grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Excellent! The season starts January 15th, come by my office the 12th and we'll talk a little bit about the job."

"Yes sir." Tony pulled away as the teams started gathering on the fields, jogging out to the far one where his kids were failing to get into order. Chris grabbed him on his way.

"Hey, what was that about?"

"Oh, uh…" it occurred to Tony suddenly that his friend might feel slighted, since he'd been here longer without a job offer. "I just, well … I applied for a paid position next season, and Lee was letting me know that they had a slot for me." He decided to leave out the part where Lee had requested that he apply. Chris didn't look insulted at all; on the contrary, he grinned widely.

"That's great, man!! Congratulations! I'll still be around as a volunteer - we should get a drink sometime and celebrate!"

"Yeah, sounds good." Tony agreed, smiling back. He and Chris met once a week to play soccer, but they hadn't really ever sat down and conversed. "Give me a call, we'll get it sorted."

**

Kyle was equally pleased for him that night. They met in a coffee shop, curled up together on one of the couches with iced coffees. Tony was getting more comfortable with that; he'd stopped waiting for the other patrons to glare or for the barista to come over and ask them to separate.

"So are you going to quit your job at the shop?"

"Yeah, I reckon I am." Tony said, cheerful at the prospect. "It's higher pay with fewer hours, so it's still a drop in income, but we'll get by. It'll be nice to have the time - I don't think I've sat down more than twice since I got to California."

Kyle laughed at him. "Well then I feel super privileged that you're taking the time to get coffee with me." he teased, and leaned in gracefully for a kiss.

It was nice - warm and friendly and familiar, and Tony leaned into it, savoring his own hard-earned comfort with the gesture, and then he leaned back and saw Chris coming away from the counter, coffee in hand.

It was a surreal moment, after all his paranoia. Tony just stared for a moment, waiting for his brain to catch up with his eyes, waiting for something to fix it, because there was no way that after 4 months of running around town being scandalous, this was when disaster struck.

Chris gave him a little smile, waved, and exited the shop.

"Who was that?" Kyle asked, from the great and terrible distance of a foot away. Answering him across that divide suddenly seemed like a great deal of effort. "Tony? You OK?"

"Yeah, guy from my work." he finally managed to stammer.

"Oh." Kyle looked a little worried. "Well… he didn't seem to care, did he?"

That was true, he hadn't.  But Tony's mind was racing ahead - Chris mentioning the incident to Craig, to Lee - the job offer getting revoked, accusations of being attracted to the middle school boys he was working with, a warning to every other soccer league in the city not to hire him.

"Tony, you look like you're freaking out." Kyle said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Tony shook it off.

**

He spent the next 2 days in a haze of anticipation, waiting for disaster to strike. Jess called him to ask if she should bring home takeout for dinner, and he shrieked and dropped the telephone before he realized that it was her.

"It's going to be alright, mate." Jess assured him, curled into him on the couch yet again. Jules was absent for once, and Tony was secretly grateful, although he'd never say so - Jess was always so clearly happy to have her around. Tony liked her when he was at his best, but when he was at his worst, he didn't want anyone to see him but Jess.

"How can you possibly know that?" he asked, not as an accusation of false support but in the hope that she might actually have an answer.

"Because it always is eventually." she answered solemnly, and then broke the mood with, "and in the meantime, I bought beer." 

By the time Tuesday dawned, he was just grateful to finally get things settled one way or the other. He got ready for practice, caught the bus, and watched his kids gleefully trounce one of the beginner teams. Charlie didn't even kick anyone, which Tony decided made the game a win for Craig and him too.

Chris found him after the game, which saved Tony the effort of tracking him down.

"How was your game?" he asked casually,and Tony couldn't even bring himself to answer.

"Are you going to tell?" he asked instead. Chris looked startled.

"Tell what?" he asked, and then understanding dawned on his face. "You mean, that you're gay?"

"If you're going to tell Lee, just tell me now," Tony continued, a sense of disastrous calm settling over him. "so that I know not to quit my other job."

"You think you'd be fired for being gay?" Chris asked. "I mean, I'm not going to tell!! It's totally your business man, I wasn't going to mention it to anyone. But, even if I did, Lee wouldn't fire you or anything, god. It's not that big a deal, you know?"

"Yeah, people keep trying to tell me that." Tony answered. He was suddenly filled with a kind of unrepentant rage; he thought maybe it had been building inside of him for awhile, without his notice, while he played at being calm and accepting of all the shit life threw his way. "And you know what? I'm really fucking sick of it. Don't you dare tell me that it's not a big deal, when my family would disown me, would be heartbroken over it, when my entire life could be destroyed by it. I am so sick of pretending that it's alright when it's all so fucking unfair."

He was shouting by the end. The field was mostly empty, but the remaining stragglers were giving him odd looks, and Chris looked absolutely flabbergasted. Tony didn't wait for a response; he stomped home, and Chris didn't try to follow him.

His phone lit up with texts from both Kyle and Chris, and he deleted them all without looking at them, curled up miserably on the couch around a pillow while Jess brought him tea and sat silently on the floor next to him, radiating sympathy.

"Do you want to go out?" she asked eventually, when she judged (accurately) that he was starting to bore himself with silent brooding.

"Yeah, alright." he decided abruptly. "I could stand to be drunk."

"You have to shower first." she told him, poking him gently in the chest and wrinkling her nose. "You're kind of… damp, still."

"You love it." he retorted meaninglessly, and ambled over to the shower, suddenly eager for the distraction.

They went to Gary's, because it had become habit, and because it was still the only bar they knew in town that didn't card. It wasn't crowded on a Tuesday night, but it had its crowd of regulars. Jess sent him to save them a table and came over with two shots and two beers precariously balanced in her arms.

"Alright." she said firmly. "Your life's a mess and I have finals that I'm not studying for, so let's do this properly." Tony raised his shot at her in a mockery of a toast, and downed the cheap vodka in two painful swallows, watching Jess do the same.

"Gah!" she gasped, and chugged about a third of her beer trying to get the taste out of her mouth while he laughed.

Three drinks later, they were feeling no pain.

"We should've asked Jules to come along." Tony said generously. He was glad she wasn't there, actually, but Jess beamed appreciatively at him, which was all he was looking for.

"We should have!! She is studying chemistry, and that is way less fun than this." She fumbled out her phone, and concentrated on it, scowling. "I should call her and tell her to come."

"I don't think she'd like that, if she's studying." Tony decided, and handed over the rest of his fancy cocktail in a successful distraction attempt.

"Ooh, tasty." Jess burbled delightedly. "I'm glad you turned out to be gay, man, even if you're not. I'm glad that my best mate can play soccer with me in the park and also drink fruity cocktails with me."

"M'pretty sure that's not how it works." Tony told her sternly. "M'pretty sure that liking fruit and sucking dick are actually, y'know, entirely unrelated concepts."

Jess giggled. "Dick." she repeated, and he realized that as drunk as he was, she was about 3 steps drunker. "Hey!!" Jess suddenly exclaimed, pulling at his shirt sleeve. "Isn't that Kyle over there?"

Tony squinted in the direction she'd indicated. "Yeah." he realized. "It is." Kyle was sitting at a booth around the corner, his back toward them, laughing with a group of his friends. They looked like they hadn't quite caught up with Jess yet, but not for lack of trying.

"You should go say hi." Jess said. "I won't be offended if you want to abandon me for your boyfriend." she giggled. "After all, I don't have a dick for you to suck."

The world rendered soft and comforting by vodka shots, it suddenly seemed silly that he'd been avoiding Kyle's texts all week. It wasn't as though Kyle had done anything to deserve it. He'd just wanted to be angsty in private, and trading mundane conversation with his blonde boyfriend would have completely disrupted the pathos.

"I think I will." he decided, and pushed his way to his feet, wobbling only slightly. He made steady progress toward the other booth, which he thought was impressive, all things considered.

"… how're things with your latest indian boy?" Bits of conversation from the table trickled into his consciousness, and he came to a halt as he realized that they were talking about him.

"Eh, it's fine." he heard Kyle answer. "He's been avoiding me for the past couple days - some guy from his job saw us in a coffee shop, he's crazy paranoid about being outed. Did I tell you he's got himself a fake wife? It's fucking ridiculous." The others laughed.

"Why put up with that shit?" one of them asked.

"He has to - he's already slept with every Indian boy on campus." another one said slyly, evoking a burst of laughter. "If he doesn't lower his standards he might have to start fucking white men."

"What can I say?" Kyle asked, elaborately casual. "I like'em exotic."

There was an odd buzzing sound in his ears. For a moment Tony felt like he couldn't move, and then he got ahold of himself enough to turn, stilted, and make his way into the bathroom.

The room was grimy but not overtly disgusting; grey blue tiles lined the floor, broken around the single toilet, and the pipes were entirely visible under the porcelain sink. He felt hyperaware of it all as he leaned over to splash water into his face, hoping it would help clear some of the suddenly unwelcome fuzziness from his mind.

'Exotic.' He'd never been called that before, although he'd heard white men calling indian girls exotic. He supposed that that was what happened when you entered gay culture - it just became white men objectifying other men, instead of objectifying women.

He sank to the ground and leaned his head against the wall, abruptly depressed. It occurred to him, suddenly, that there were just too many things about him that other people wouldn't accept. He wasn't straight enough for the Indian community, and he wasn't white enough for the gay community, so where did that leave him? Alone on the bathroom floor, he supposed, with nowhere left for him to try to fit in.

He wanted Jess. Jess, who did't always understand everything and said the wrong thing as often as she said the right one, but who would accept every bit of him, even if he came home with a cat ears headband and announced that he'd changed his name to Muffins.

He steeled himself and went back into the bar to look for her, but the table they'd been sitting at was now occupied by a couple of burly middle-aged men.

She should've been easy to spot, because there were so few women in the bar, but he didn't see her anywhere. There was a lesbian couple making out in a corner, and a group of probably-straight girls hanging out in a booth with fruity cocktails. He was just about to conclude that she must have left him for Kyle and gone home, when he took a closer look at the lesbian couple and realized that the one closer to the wall was in fact Jess.

He blinked twice, but the image didn't rearrange itself into something less surreal. Jess was leaning against a wall, her hands tangled in the hair of a butch blonde woman as they enthusiastically exchanged spit. In fact, blondie's hand was slowly making its way up the inside of Jess' shirt, and far from looking uncomfortable, she was arching into the touch -

He went home and went to bed, because he was out of other things to do.

**

Tony woke up the next morning to a splitting headache and the smell of apology pancakes. He rolled out of bed, found a pair of clean boxers, and ambled into the kitchen.

"Good morning…" he drawled, doing his best to get across 'why yes, I did in fact see you making out with the blonde last night' with just his tone.

"Morning." Jess answered sheepishly, and handed him a plate of breakfast.

"So are these 'it turns out I'm a lesbian' pancakes?" he enquired, giving up all thoughts of subtlety now that breakfast was safely in his possession.

"No, they're 'oh god my hangover has its own hangover and I bet yours does too' pancakes, so how about you shut up until I've made it through my morning coffee?" Jess retorted crabbily.

They didn't talk anymore for the next hour, just downed a pot of coffee and glared blearily at the kitchen window together. California was its bright and sunny self, and the slightly bent blinds they had purchased from a yard sale didn't keep the light out very well.

Later they curled up on the couch together, and Tony poured the whole sorry story about Kyle into Jess' sympathetic ear.

"That's the worst thing I've ever heard. Tony, I'm so sorry." The outrage written across her face calmed his own a little, made him feel validated in his hurt and anger, soothed the small part of him that wondered if the problem was him, not Kyle.

"I feel gross about it." he admitted. "I feel…. I feel the way I always thought you girls must feel about it, when Taz and Sonny and everyone made comments about your chest instead of seeing you as football players." He wished he'd spoken up a little more fervently - but it was always a choice, he supposed. He could fight or he could maintain the status quo, and so far he'd been choosing the latter.

Jess didn't seem to blame him, though. "Yeah, I get it." she said instead. "Being someone else's fetish, being the thing they want because of their idea of what you are. It's gross, and it sucks, and it makes you feel so badly about yourself that you have to be angry because the alternative is to curl up in a ball and never leave your bed to face the world."

"Yeah." he agreed, and looked sidelong at her. "Is that why you're giving women a try?" She groaned and let her head flop against him. "So that wasn't a planned thing?" he guessed.

"Not exactly. I mean… I guess I've been thinking about it. I don't know." she muttered. "I am still interested in men, though - probably make my life a lot easier if I just stuck with that. But I think I'm interested in women too, at least a little."

"Women like Jules?" he asked as gently as he could.

"I don't want to talk about it." Jess answered immediately.

They watched saturday morning cartoons until their hangovers faded, and then Jess reluctantly got out her notes to study for finals, while Tony cleaned the bathroom and went grocery shopping.

It was nice. It felt comfortable and safe, and he thought it could be an OK life, even without any sexual aspect. He wasn't sure he wanted to divorce Jess - she was his best friend. Sex with Kyle had been fine, but it was just sex. Jess was his family.

He said as much to her that night, and she looked like she was giving it more thought than she had the first time he had brought it up.

"I don't know, Tony." she said. "It's hard to figure out, isn't it? I feel like there's always been a - a story to follow, that ends in Happily Ever After. It's been the story on television, and in books, and all around us all the time, and it's been about a boy and a girl and true love and monogamy and weddings and babies. And I don't want that story anymore, I don't feel like it's about me, but I don't know what other stories there are."

"I still want it." Tony admitted. "It's all I've ever wanted, and it hurts so much that I can't have it. But what I have with you, here - it's close enough. It's making me happy."

"Yeah." Jess said. "Me too. I'll think about it, OK? We have three and a half more years to think about it, there's no decision to be made now."

**

Tony turned in his two weeks' notice at the shop. His manager seemed likely to kill him for quitting just before the Christmas rush, so the next two weeks were spent avoiding him at work, avoiding Kyle's calls until they slowly petered out, deleting Chris' texts without reading them, and mostly just hanging out in the apartment with Jess and Jules while they panicked about finals. They were a pretty good two weeks, overall.

Then he, Jess, and Jules were at the airport, catching a plane back to England.

"Three cheers to being homebound!" Jules cried out merrily. She'd gone to a post-finals party the night before and was clearly still feeling the effects as they settled into their seats, sprawling out so that her leg knocked into Jess, who promptly pulled away with a frown. Jules frowned back. "I'm sorry, did the crazy not go away with the end of finals?"

"Sorry?" Jess asked, looking startled.

"You've been avoiding me for weeks." Jules replied, her tipsy cheer rapidly transforming into surliness.

"I've… spent the entirety of the past two weeks sitting next to you sharing notes." Jess pointed out in a very reasonable tone.

"You know what? Never mind." Jules muttered, and she deliberately angled herself towards Tony, closing her eyes and laying her head back against the seat in an attempt to nap. Jess crossed her arms over her chest and curled back into her seat as well.

He knew what Jules was talking about, and he knew Jess did as well. She might not have been avoiding Jules' company entirely, but their relationship had changed - they'd stopped cuddling on the couch, stopped hanging onto each other as they laughed, as they cooked. He thought it was probably a conscious decision on Jess' part - after their conversation, she'd decided to deliberately pull back a little and protect herself.

Seeing the unhappiness on Jules' face, though, it occurred to Tony for the first time that Jess' situation might not be as entirely hopeless as she thought. It was a little hard to consider, given the disaster that his own love life had recently become. And on top of that, too, was the concern that if Jess entered into a real romantic relationship with someone, especially Jules, it might disrupt this fragile balance that they'd finally come to. If Jules wanted a real relationship, with a house and a baby and the works, would Jess want to give it to her? It was nothing she wanted for herself, he knew. But she wanted Jules, and he wanted her to be happy, wanted them all to be happy.