Since Brian managed to upset Justin, his only help to get up the stairs without breaking his neck, Brian decided it was smart to sleep on the couch in the living room.

After a few more gulps from his bottle, he relaxed enough to sleep.

He wanted to accept the situation as it was, but a part of him couldn’t believe Justin had changed that much. No one, especially Justin, could resist him. They were going to live under the same roof. Something was bound to happen. They were either going to kill each other, or Justin was going to cave.

Brian decided to give Justin a week or two, before he put his plan on regaining his trust through action. Being around him for the past twenty-four hours had brought back so many memories, Brian was overwhelmed by their heaviness.

Justin belonged with him, and he was set to prove it to Justin too. Brian wanted to remind Justin how good they were together.

In the morning, Brian woke up to someone calling his name urgently. He couldn’t recognize the voice, but when he opened his eyes, he found Nick in front of him. Unlike the previous morning, he didn’t run off.

“Come on, Brian!” The child tugged at his hand.

“What? What’s wrong?” Brian yawned, sitting up. “Easy. I can’t walk fast.”

“It’s Daddy. Please, Brian.”

Brian’s heart stopped. “Where’s Justin? Something happen?” What has the twat done?

Nick steered him to the stairs, and Brian didn’t stop to think he might get hurt more than he was. He hopped up, stair by stair.

“In the bathroom. The door’s locked.” Nick chewed on his lower lip.

Brian could hear the loud sobbing through the closed door. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Brian wishing Justin would come back to him, and Justin crying after Ethan? He truly hoped not.

“Why don’t you go downstairs? There’s Cap ‘n Crunch on the counter and milk in the fridge.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go. Your dad is fine.” Brian pushed Nick back in the hallway, then knocked once on the bathroom door.

Justin sniffed loudly. “Leave me alone, Brian.”

“Pull yourself together! You’re scaring Nick. Come on, get out of there.”

“I can’t stop crying. You don’t get it.”

Brian tried the door handle. “Open the fucking door, Justin. What kind of example are you showing your kid? His father is a silly, little faggot who cries all the time.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Make me!”

The door was wrenched open. A tear-stained, bare-chest Justin glowered at Brian. “What the fuck is your problem?”

Brian’s argument died on his lips when he saw a purple bruise on Justin’s side, then another one on his arm. Since all Justin had on was a towel, Brian’s eyes checked everywhere for similar spots.

“What happened?” His voice was marred with concern. “Justin.”

Justin flinched away from Brian’s fingers on his ribs. “Don’t touch me.”

“Justin…”

“I’ll be downstairs. I’m fine.”

Brian kept the door open with his hand. “If these are from him…and you’re crying because he’s dead, I will surely question your sanity.”

“Not exactly from Ethan.”

“Why, Sunshine. Did you cheat on your husband? Apparently, you chose the wrong person to do it…”

“If you must know, the day it happened…that very morning, actually…we had a fight. It was stupid—about bringing Nick over to Daph’s for a few weeks in the summer. We wanted to go to Europe.”

“Daphne mentioned it.”

“Ethan said Nick would meet you, and I asked what was wrong with that? Despite the fact that we hadn’t talked in years, I wanted to believe we were still kinda friends…or we didn’t hate each other’s guts. Well, he got really mad…”

“And he hit you? For real?”

Ethan should be happy he was dead, because Brian was so angry he wanted to kill Ethan for hurting Justin.

“He…we…there was…” Justin gulped. “Fuck, yes. Okay? He said his son wasn’t going to be around you…He called you something I’d rather not repeat. I got upset. I have no idea what got into me, but I slapped him across the face. I regret it more than you know.”

“And he punched you back?” Brian led a shaky Justin to the bed, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders.

“He looked at me incredulously, then got this look in his eyes…like that time when we first broke up. He stated that I still love you.”

“We got that settled,” Brian said gently.

“Don’t you understand, Brian? I hate it when you’re right. My whole life in New York was a lie! All I wanted was to come back to you…then we had that fight…then I found Ethan again…and I hoped if I took him with me to my fake life, we could be happy. I could be happy. I broke all connections with Pittsburgh, besides Daphne.”

“You always liked to complicate your life. Still, you didn’t explain your bruises.”

“When he said I still loved you, I denied it. Suddenly our argument wasn’t anymore about Nick staying with Daphne, but about my feelings for you.” Justin took a shuddering breath. “Ethan accused me of indirectly cheating on him…with you. He asked if I ever thought of you when I said the words, when we made love…I tried to talk sense into him. He dismissed my attempts at talking rationally, and when he was on the way out of our room, I blocked his path. Ethan shoved me out of his way.” Justin gingerly touched his purple ribs. “The knob of the door handle did this. It hurt like shit at the moment. It also made him stop and check if I was okay.”

“Fucking piece of shit! Did I ever hurt you?” Brian took his hand. “Even during our worst fights, we never got physical.”

“I did once.” Justin looked down, ashamed.

“I needed that knocking down, besides you didn’t push hard. I couldn’t keep my equilibrium on my best days during Chernobyl. What about this?” Brian brought them back to the subject at hand, touching one finger to Justin’s arm.

“From the door. Both are from that shoving.”

“Christ! What the fuck was wrong with him? It’s been what? How many days? It’s still smarting, Justin.”

“I’ll live. The thing is, Ethan apologized for his outburst. When I wanted to talk again about our plans for the summer, he said we’d talk when he got home.” Tears sprung in his eyes. “He never got home again.”

Brian started understanding why it was hurting Justin so much to lose Ethan. He knew more about their relationship, and it was exactly like he had imagined—a huge lie, a fairytale in Justin’s head.

Justin wiped his tears, sniffing loudly. “I need a few more minutes. I promise we’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything. All I’m asking of you is to not mention this to anyone, especially Nick, and don’t talk bad about Ethan in front of Nick.”

“You’re asking a lot, Sunshine.”

“Try. For me.”

“I’m going to entertain your kid. Don’t take too long.” Brian made his way downstairs slowly, gripping the banister tightly.

He found Nick at the table, eating cereal from the box. “Didn’t you find the milk?”

“I don’t eat it with milk,” he answered, sticking his hand in the box, then shoving a handful of cereal in his mouth. “Is Daddy okay?”

“He’ll be okay. He’s sad because Ethan died.” Brian went to start the coffee.

“I miss Pappy, too. Is Pappy really never coming back?”

Brian froze mid pouring water in the coffee maker. He wasn’t sure what to tell Nick. He didn’t know how much Justin had explained to him about death.

“I’m afraid not, but he’s watching over you.”

When Nick didn’t answer, Brian turned to see the little boy in tears. “You mean I’m never going to see Pappy again? It’s not like his trips when he came back…”

Brian was saved from trying to explain by Justin’s appearance in the doorway. His somber mask was back on. The glimpse of honesty Brian got upstairs was gone.

“Daddy!” Nick rushed to him, hugging Justin around the waist.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He stroked his hair, before meeting Brian’s eyes. “What did you tell him,” he mouthed.

“Brian said Pappy is never coming back! He’s lying, right?”

Justin crouched to his son’s level. “We talked about this at the funeral, baby. Papa is never coming back. I told you about this. He’s in heaven.”

“What if I want to see him again?”

“You can’t,” Justin said through the tight knot in his throat.

“You told me I’ll forget about the people I don’t see. I don’t want to forget Pappy!”

Brian decided to salvage the situation, before Justin had another meltdown. “Nick, you can’t forget the people you love—no matter how much time passes. They will always live in your heart.” He maintained eye-contact with Justin as he talked. For a split of second, he thought he saw something in Justin’s eyes, but it was gone as fast as it appeared.

“Yes, Brian is right.” Justin pushed the hair out of Nick’s eyes. “Papa will be in our hearts, even though we’ll never see him again. It’s going be okay, you’ll see.” He kissed his son’s forehead, before crushing him to his chest.

The doorbell rang, breaking the tension that had settled around them.

“I’ll get it,” Brian offered, hopping to the door, bracing himself on the walls.

On the doorstep was the truck driver with his notepad. “Good morning, sir. I brought the delivery for Justin Taylor.”

“One moment.” Brian turned to Justin. “It’s for you. Do me a favor and punch him. He called me ‘sir’.”

Rolling his eyes, Justin went to sign for his stuff.

The delivery man checked if he was indeed Justin Taylor, before showing Justin where to sign. Then he took many boxes out of the back of the truck.

“What’s in here?” Justin stared in surprise at all the boxes in various sizes.

“Mr. Newman told me to bring you all these. Oh, and this.” The man gave Justin a slip of paper, before getting behind the wheel and driving away, leaving Justin surrounded by boxes.

He read the note, before crumpling it in his fist. “Fucking asshole!” He stomped inside the house. “I need help to bring everything in.”

“I can barely keep myself up,” Brian reminded him.

“You helped me with the suitcase last night. Come on. Please, Brian. The front yard is filled with my things. That asshole sent me everything—including Nick’s upright piano. And this.” He showed Brian the note. “He quits. I wanted to fire him…to have that satisfaction of firing someone…”

“Don’t be too disappointed. It gets tedious after a while—firing people.”

“Still. Help?”

Brian took his phone, dialing.

“What are you doing?” Justin demanded. Boxes were waiting outside, and Brian was making social phone calls.

Brian grinned when his phone call was answered in a sleepy voice. “Get your ass up, Mikey, and get here. Bring the Nutty Professor along.”

“It’s not necessary to bother him on a Sunday,” Justin groaned, lunging for the phone. All he managed was to knock Brian off balance, and both fell down with Justin on top.

“Ow, you little shit!”

“What’s going on? What do you want?” Michael’s voice came from the phone a few inches away from their sprawled bodies.

“Daddy?” Nick watched the scene in front of him curiously.

Justin sat up, straddling one of Brian’s legs, rubbing his knee. “I’m okay, kid.” He snatched the phone. “Sorry for bothering you, Michael. My things arrived and Brian can’t exactly help me, you know? There are many boxes. Did I mention that?” He squirmed away from Brian’s wandering hands.

“Of course Brian can’t. He has one hundred and sixty pounds of twat on top of him,” Brian sneered, taking the phone away from Justin. “So, if you’d be so nice to come help us? And would you fucking move off my leg? If it wasn’t broken before, you made sure of it now.”

“Don’t be a drama queen.” Justin stood, helping Brian up.

“Sure. We’ll be there. Try not to kill each other. At least not in front of that child,” Michael warned.

“Bye, Mikey.” Brian hung up, narrowing his eyes at Justin. “What’s wrong with you?”

“They probably had other plans. It’s Sunday, after all.”

“They were sleeping. Now they have plans—to help you. Coffee?” He made his way to the kitchen.

“What about my things?” Justin glanced outside.

“No one lives around for miles. Don’t worry. There’s no one here to steal your stuff.”

“You okay?” Justin noticed Brian was limping more than before.

“I’ll survive.”

By the time Michael and Ben arrived, Nick was installed at cartoons in front of the flat screen TV, Brian was dressed all thanks to Justin’s help, and they were outside looking through the boxes to know where to take them.

“Morning,” Michael greeted them, sliding out of their car. “These are all your paintings?”

“There.” Justin pointed to the piles by the front door. “Here are our personal belongings. Hi, Ben!” He hugged him, smiling.

“Hello, Justin. It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry for your loss.”

Brian cringed, expecting more tears, but they never came.

“Thank you. Take whatever you can.”

“Where are we taking them?” Michael hoisted a rectangular box off the ground.

“Inside. The piano can go into the living room, their things in the guest bedroom, and the paintings in the attic.” Brian shrugged.