In the cab to Daphne’s friend’s place, Justin realizes his phone is still on airplane mode. When he changes it, he hears two bleeps. Missed calls. He looks at the number and then presses his phone against his chest with a grin. But then his smile fades. He hasn’t been away for more than a few hours, and Brian is obviously already lonely. Fuck. He shouldn’t be doing this. What the hell is he thinking? He calls back. “Hey,” Brian says when he answers. His voice is scratchy. “Hey,” Justin replies. “I just wanted to remind you I love you.”
“So,” Brian says four days later, “are you settled into your roach motel?” Justin chuckles. “It’s not a roach motel and, yes, I’m unpacked.” Brian is brusque. “I’m not going to give you any money,” he says. “I’m not even going to offer.” Justin wants to hug him. “Thanks,” he says, marveling at how well Brian has come to know him and acknowledging how hard it’ll be for Brian not to know how he’s doing financially. Nonetheless, Brian buys him groceries and shit like towels, cookware, dishes, and blue 1,200 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets when he visits the following weekend.
Brian is being weird and distant. His infrequent phone calls are increasingly full of ominous wishes. Justin should “do the best work [he] can and live life to its fullest.” It makes Justin nervous. He hasn’t forgotten the catch in Brian’s voice that night when he’d raised the possibility of never seeing each other again. Brian has a habit of shoving the people he loves off cliffs if he believes he knows what’s best for them. Justin is pretty sure Brian thinks that what’s best for him is to break up. Brian believes he’s a burden. Suddenly, he stops calling.
Hours pass. Days pass. Weeks pass. Justin finally gives up – at least for the time being. It hurts like hell, but at least he understands this time. This isn’t like when Brian had cancer. Brian hasn’t vanished from his life out of fear, but love. The extent of his resolve is proof of the depth of his feelings. Justin sleeps wearing one of Brian’s t-shirts that he’d stuffed in his bag before he left and dreams of him almost every night. But he’s not miserable. He’s not ecstatically happy, but he’s not depressed. Living in New York is just lonely.
Needless to say, Thanksgiving rolls around, and Justin is not yet famous. Infamous, maybe (he’s pretty sure he’s quit more menial jobs in seven months than most starving artists quit in three years), but not famous. At his mom’s, he eats half the turkey, three helpings of mashed potatoes and more than his share of stuffing. When Brian shows up, Justin is so full he can barely get off the couch to hug him. They stay up all night watching T.V. and then fuck in the guest bedroom. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” Brian says. “It’ll just make this harder.”
Justin is crushed when he doesn’t see Brian at Christmas. He’s in Toronto visiting Lindsay and Gus. When Justin asks Michael why Michael tells him Brian was depressed after Thanksgiving. It makes Justin sad to know that spending time with him caused Brian pain. Brian didn’t forget him though. When he goes to Deb’s, she hands him an envelope. Inside is a $1,000 check. For art supplies and nothing else, Brian had written. Justin tries to call to thank him, but Brian doesn’t answer. He does text “love you” though when he finds the painting Justin left at the loft.
Got Hewlett-Packard account. That was all the email said. Nothing more. Three days later, Justin gets another email. Fucking cold as hell. Justin metaphorically holds his breath and hopes against hope that Brian will keep on emailing him. He doesn’t want to return to Pittsburgh, but not having Brian in his life has really sucked. See attached. Gus drew you a picture, the next email says. Justin doesn’t email back. He has a feeling it would spook Brian and he’d disappear again. Cynthia got engaged and pipes froze. Events allegedly not connected. Justin laughs. He’s missed Brian’s dry humor.
“I haven’t fucked anyone in six weeks, three days and fourteen hours.” Justin blinks blearily at the clock. It’s two-thirty in the morning. Is Brian drunk? “No,” he replies irritably. “I just want to let you know that you’re fucking up my sex life.” Justin has no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s nice to hear Brian’s voice after nearly four months. “I just don’t want to trick anymore,” Brian says mournfully. “And it’s your fault.” Justin still doesn’t see why and tells him so. “Isn’t it fucking obvious?” Brian snaps. “I don’t want to fuck anyone but you.”
When Brian finally shows up unannounced at Justin’s door on the anniversary of the day they’d planned to be married, Justin isn’t surprised. They fuck on the couch, only half undressed, even though Justin’s roommate is home and their apartment is the size of a matchbox. She wanders into the kitchen for a midnight snack and ignores them except for a “keep it down, you rabid sex weasels” and then wanders back to her bedroom. Afterward, they pass a joint back and forth and don’t talk. Later, after Brian leaves, Justin finds his watch. He smiles. Brian will be back.
“I forgot my watch,” Brian says when he calls the following night. Justin says he knows and refrains from suggesting he overnight it FedEx. “It’s worth a bajillion dollars, and I don’t want you pawning it for art supplies,” Brian elaborates. “I’ll need to come get it.” He sighs dramatically. “Clearly,” Justin replies. The next day, instead of sending the watch, Justin sends Brian a copy of his key. Just in case I’m at work when you get here, he writes on a Sticky Note. Don’t let the cat escape. Actually, on second thought, please do let the cat escape.
Justin comes home Friday evening from his shitty job to find Brian in jeans and T-shirt, lying on the couch, nursing a beer and reading Justin’s porn. “Hi, honey,” he says and then holds up one of the magazines open to the centerfold. “You appear to have a type,” he says, referencing the tall, brown hair, hazel-eyed model. “Except my dick is bigger than his. Wanna see?” Later, they make use of the couch again, except this time they talk rather than fuck on it. Well, they do that too, but only after they’d talked well into the morning’s early hours.
Justin doesn’t move back to Pittsburgh, and Brian doesn’t move to New York. But there are compromises. Justin quits his humiliating gig as a dishwasher for a swank midtown restaurant and lets Brian pay his rent so he can work on his art full time. Setting his own schedule means that he can spend a week now and then in Pittsburgh instead of the occasional weekend. Meanwhile, Brian finally acknowledged he was a control freak and agreed to work remotely once in a while, which meant they saw each other almost every weekend. It’s enough . . . for a decade.
They get married on Brian’s birthday in a low-keyed ceremony before a small audience. It was Justin’s idea. He wanted to give Brian a reason not to dread the date anymore. “Time to wake the rings from their long hibernation,” Brian says the night before, and Justin marvels again that Brian has kept them for all this time. They take the rings out of their box and try them on, but they’ve both gained weight and neither fits. They fall into a heap laughing their heads off. For some reason, it’s the absolute funniest thing in the whole damn world.