Come On

LaVieEnRose

So...okay.

In the middle of April, I had to head back to Pittsburgh to take care of some last minute tax bullshit. Ordinarily Justin probably would have come—he was at the point where he could do some light travel and he generally likes the occasional trip to the homestead—but he was anxious still about leaving Evan, though he'd settled into a pretty comfortable routine with this dialysis shit, and even though Justin had been getting better about not completely fucking annoying his own self in favor of staying up all night worrying about kidneys, he ended up getting hit with another round of allergic bronchitis a few days before I left. He was mostly okay, and his breathing wasn't that much more abysmal than it usually is, but he was so wiped out by it, the way he usually was when he got sick since last fall that I was apparently taking my time getting used to. He just didn't have the energy to power through acute stuff the way he used to. Which, believe it or not, is a fucking relief a lot of the time, when I feel like half of what I do is (metaphorically) sitting on him to get him to rest, damn it, but it's still unsettling to see your kid who's usually wound up like an Energizer bunny reduced to a bit of blonde hair peeking out from under the comforter for two days straight.

So I got his prescriptions filled and kissed his germy self goodbye and hightailed it picturesque Pittsburgh on my own. Ted had managed not to burn our Pittsburgh branch to the ground for another year, so thank God for small favors, and it turned out it was actually thriving. And combined with the year we'd had in New York...he had ideas.

London, specifically.

“At this point you're leaving money on the table not going international,” he said.

“It's not like we're hurting,” I said.

“I doubt any of your employees would complain about a raise,” Ted said. “Jane might need braces. Weren't you talking about a summer home? And you know you want a good-sized emergency fund, for Justin.” He showed me some paperwork. “I've been doing the preliminary legwork here. You've got the interest. This would work.”

“And I'm assuming I'd have to be in London for this.”

He shrugged. “Six weeks. Eight, tops.”

I shook my head.

“Where's your sense of adventure?” he said.

“Immunocompromised.”

He rolled his eyes and told me to think about it, which I did not, for a few hours anyway. Ted and I went to Woody's to meet up with the crowd. I hadn't been there in almost a year. Exactly nothing had changed. Ben and Michael were having some conversation that Ben thought was a philosophical debate and Michael thought was a genuine argument and I didn't have the energy to clue either one in. Emmett was single again, this week, and mourning into his Cosmo and eyeing boys ten years too young who were too busy eyeing me, thank you very much. They asked me how Justin and Evan were doing, but in that quick way where they wanted me to say that they were fine so we could move on, so I did, and then they had some choice comments about our living situation and some rather invasive assumptions about our sex life that I avoided by ducking into a bathroom stall with a short, dark stranger and invading his mouth instead. They were discussing Melanie and Lindsay's relationship problems when I got back, who were not present, to clarify, rolling them around and dissecting them and jumping to conclusions and generally acting like they were a fucking panel of experts, and the whole thing was just...how the fuck did I used to stand this all the time? Christ, and Justin says I complain too much.

Ted at one point said I looked tired, and Michael's eyes got all melty and sympathetic and he said, “Of course he's tired, he has so much on his plate,” and then, of course, they wanted to talk about poor Justin's lungs, when it was in the context of me looking like I was going to fall asleep at the bar. Anything to divert the blame from themselves for being boring as shit. They'd put someone with that insomnia disease Justin's obsessed with to sleep.

I realize I'm being uncharitable here, but I'm trying to prove a point. Or, more accurately, prove a line: how I got from point A to point B. Lord knows I have some explaining to do.

I was staying in a hotel that trip; normally I would have stayed with Gus and the girls, but they were on some sort of southwestern road trip, and Michael and Ben and Jen had of course all offered their guest room but Christ, I'm an adult, I can get a hotel room. I ducked out of the festivities fairly early and went back, savored a cigarette on the balcony, and then called the mothership.

The boys were cuddled up in me and Justin's bed, the comforter bunched up around them. Justin had a mug of tea in his lap and Evan was wearing Justin's MoMa hoodie and lying with his head on Justin's knee and my green tea face mask smeared inexpertly over his face. They said “Hi Brian!” in unison and then giggled like teenagers.

I bit my lip. Hi, girls. Having a sleepover?

They laughed again, which led to Justin coughing, that soft, deep, rumbly one he gets when he's sick. Like a cat purring.

You know you're supposed to keep your distance, I told Evan.

He stretched his arms around Justin's waist. “Oh well.”

And how could I argue, really? It's not as if I wanted Justin alone. How's he doing?

Hundred and two, Evan said. No seizures.

He's tired, I said, and Justin nodded heavily.

We've been sleeping on and off, Evan said. Watching movies. He looked up at Justin. He looks nice, though, don't you think?

Well, he was wearing one of my old black tank tops, so his skin was milky and almost translucent, and his hair was fluffy and mussed up and there was a feverish flush across his cheek and a red tinge around his nose, and he was sleepy and smiley and there's nothing wrong with my eyesight, so...

I'm just trying to explain how I got to point B. And you need to understand how much easier it is to sit on FaceTime with these boys than to stay at Woody's with the crowd.

It's night and day.

What's on your arm? I asked Evan.

Just a rash, he said. Dialysis thing.

We put calamine on it, Justin said with a yawn, and a cough. He stretched and said, How is everyone?

So I regaled them with anecdotes from the gang, exaggerating for effect where necessary, and they egged me on and asked questions and laughed in all the right places, and it was just...listen, I don't want to beat the dead horse here, you get what I'm saying. It was different. They were tired—they were sick—and they were curled up in bed and they were hundreds of miles away, but Christ, was this the most awake I'd been since I left.

And maybe you understand why that meant that, after they'd fallen asleep on the phone, the nebulizer mask over Justin's face and the two of them curled up together like kittens, it took about a minute and a half after I'd hung up for me to call Ted and tell him yes, okay, let's do it, I'll go to London.

Maybe you'll understand it, because fuck if I did at the time.

**

I got home a few days later and, in vintage-Kinney fashion, avoided the topic for as long as possible. I fucked my wheezy-ass husband and gave him his antibiotics and helped Evan with dinner while he filled me in on what I'd missed at work here. I called Derek and consulted with him about bow ties. I sent Molly flowers for her graduation I'd missed when I was gone. It wasn't until after we'd finished dinner, when Justin was sprawled out on top on the floor cushions, his limbs bent at the kind of strange angles only a flexile epileptic can pull off, and Evan was hanging backwards off the armchair, stretching down to the floor and making us decipher his upside-down signing, that Justin said, So did Ted have any brilliant ideas to run by you?

And I'd been feeling this nagging fucking guilt since I told Ted I'd do it, coupled with being pissed off at myself and a little at the two of them for the fact that I felt guilty when all I was doing was getting us more money that I, let's be honest, essentially just funnel right into the two of them, so maybe I was ready to talk at this point.

He wants to open up a new office, I said.

Justin wrinkled his forehead. Ted's leaving Pittsburgh?

I rolled my eyes. No, not him personally. He wants Kinnetik to open another office.

One glance at Justin and I knew he already knew what was happening. Christ, this kid's mind is frightening. He sat up all snippy and took a sip of my wine glass without saying anything, which didn't do a lot to ease me down.

Evan, who may be brilliant but has not, thank God, learned the art of burrowing into my every fucking thought, didn't suspect a thing. “Where?” Evan he said.

I watched Justin. London, I said, and Justin snorted humorlessly.

So who would run it? Evan said. Isabel?

No, there are some ideas for that already, I said. Essentially a pre-existing firm we would buy, train, re-brand. They'd get to keep their leadership and run it themselves but with the Kinnetik name on it. We get a cut of the profits.

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Evan said, walking his hands back and forth over the rug.

For a lot of money.

“You don't need more money.”

Everyone always needs money.

So would Isabel go to London and train them? Evan said, and...

“Yes, Brian,” Justin said, that wine glass held rather carelessly over rug that cost almost, but not quite, as much as his last painting had gone for. “Would Isabel go to London?”

I couldn't look at him, and I hated myself for that almost as much as I hated him. I turned to Evan. I wouldn't trust anyone but me to set it up.

He straightened up, righting himself in the chair. So you'd...do it remotely?

Justin got up an started clearing plates off the coffee table.

No, I said.

Evan squinted like he wasn't extremely sure who I was. But you said no. You can't go to London. He pointed. “Justin can't go to London.”

Sweet kid. Still want to tie him up and gag him every once in a while, and not in a cute way.

Justin, I said, but he wouldn't look at me. I slammed my hand down on the coffee table when he went to grab another plate; it doesn't scare him since he doesn't hear, just gets his attention.

But he just glared at me and brought the dishes into the kitchen. I rolled my eyes and got up and followed him, Evan at my heels.

Justin tossed our very not-unbreakable dishes at the sink. How long?

God. Six weeks.

So twelve weeks.

Ted promised no more than eight.

So twelve.

“Wait,” Evan said, and I turned and looked at him. You're going to London? he said.

Of course he's going, Justin said. He's never met an unnecessary money-making opportunity he didn't like.

I worked my jaw. It's not unnecessary. It's never unnecessary.

“We don't need any more fucking money, Brian! We have a beautiful house! You wear fifteen thousand dollar suits! We were talking about getting a beach house!”

That was before some stuff came up, he said. Now we have to buy a kidney.

I feel like that's not how it works, Evan said.

I waved my hand. Regardless. This shit is expensive.

Evan scoffed. “I'm not taking your money.”

I pinched my nose. Have we found your mute button?

“You cannot go to London right now,” Justin said. “Not with...no.”

You know, I seem to recall you getting the opportunity to go to California for a few months and me being the very fucking picture of supportive—

He laughed coldly. “Apples and oranges and you know it.

No, what I see is yet another fucking example of me being willing to bend over backwards for you but God forbid I ask you to fucking tolerate—

Somewhere in there Evan left the kitchen and quietly went downstairs. He doesn't like when we fight.

Don't you fucking try to spin this into something other than you feeling guilty for making some big fucking decision without even consulting me, Justin said. This has nothing to do with California, I would never go to California right now and you fucking know it. I wouldn't leave him right now.

You couldn't go to California right now, I said, like an idiot.

And he looked at me appropriately. “Yes, that is also my point.”

I ran my hand over my mouth and looked away from him.

“I mean, what the fuck, Brian?” he said. “Are you going to make me ask it? You're going to make me stand here like a fucking child and ask who's going to take care of me?”

You'll be fine.

“You just fucking got through telling me that it's okay if I can't take care of him all the time, that you're here to do it. So that was just bullshit?”

It's not like I'm leaving you stranded on a fucking island, he said. You have half a dozen people here at your beck and call. You're not alone.

He shook his head and started washing dishes. “You know, I am always fucking telling you, don't burn yourself out on this, take a break, go for a walk, see a movie, fuck a healthy person, do something to remind yourself that you are not stuck in this shit just because we are—”

I bit down on my back teeth. I don't need a break.

“—so maybe this whole time I should have been offering to let you go to a different goddamn continent, maybe it's my fault for not seeing that you needed to get away from us to that fucking degree, but I'll admit, you got me, even I didn't see this one coming. Congratulations.”

I put my hand on his elbow. “Justin.”

He pulled away from me, not violently, but it was enough to shake a cough loose, and once he started he couldn't stop, and lord help me, I'd fucking forgotten in this how sick he was. The cough was bad, and he was shivery and unsteady and I knew his fever had gone up, and he was pale and small and...God. We've got three parts of this story to get through, I can't give away the punch line now, so let's just have it suffice to say that I needed him to sit down.

Come here, I said, and he let me guide him to a chair. You shouldn't be out of bed, Christ.

He worked to catch his breath. “I'm fine.”

You're not fine.

“Well, I'm going to have to be, aren't I?” he said, and I sat back in my chair and watched him wheeze for a while.

This has nothing to do with you, I said, eventually, and I like to think that even I have the self-awareness to have known at that point that that lie was balder than over-fifties night at Nova. I just...we have the opportunity to be international. I could be the CEO of a fucking international company.

“So what?”

So that fucking means something to me, Justin. I can't just...sit around and rest on my laurels, that's not me.

“So this is the Justin-is-tying-me-down freak out.”

My patience was wearing thing. I just said this isn't about you.

“This ambition is going to kill you one day.”

Yeah, well, you would know, wouldn't you?

He ignored me. “People relax, you know. People get to a point where they have what they want and they relax and they enjoy their life.”

Don't fucking pull that shit on me.

You're going to sit there and kid yourself into thinking London will make you happy? You won't be happy until your fucking face is a billboard in Times Square.

Enough. You don't think I'm happy?

He started to say something.

Shut the fuck up, Justin, I said.

He pulled his lips into his mouth, and I got up and took a few steps away to calm myself down. He stood up too, and I turned back to him and struggled to keep my hands steady as I spoke.

I have had about enough of this fucking narrative, I told him, steadily, deliberately. I chose this life. I wake up every fucking morning and I choose this life and I do not do it reluctantly and don't you dare act like I don't do it with vigor and a goddamn smile. I work my fucking ass off to keep you clothed and drugged and fucked and loved, I get you everything there is in the fucking world, I got you this house, I asked you to marry me, I lie next to you every night so you can keep me up with your fucking breathing and kick the shit out of me in your sleep and then I wake up in the morning and I thank fucking anyone that I am where I am so don't you dare fucking try to turn this into some story about how I am not happy when I have been grinding my fucking bones to show you that this is where I want to be and you and your fucking baggage will just not believe it. This is what I want and I know it every fucking minute and screw you for refusing to believe a goddamn word that comes out of my mouth. How the fuck am I supposed to prove it? What the fuck else do I have to do to show you that I like my life?

“Stay in it,” Justin said, and even in the moment I acknowledged I'd walked right into that one.

So maybe that made it easier for me to take a deep breath and put on the smarmy smile and the eyes he can't resist and say, Come here.

His face didn't change, but he let himself be pulled. I folded him into my arms and put a hand on the back of his head and listened to his weak breathing. He was working really hard. He probably didn't even notice.

I pulled back enough so he could see my signing. I'll buy you your beach house when I get home, I said, aiming for sultry. Really big beach house.

“I don't need a beach house, Brian.”

What do you need? I kissed his cheeks, over and over. I'll buy you new clothes. An espresso machine. Car and driver. Pony.

He shook his head and pulled away from me and left the kitchen.

“Yeah, you're welcome,” I mumbled, and I started drinking.

**

That was, by far, the longest conversation Justin and I had between that day and when I left for London three weeks later.

Part of that was that he was so fucking sick, sicker than he'd been in a while. The bronchitis got worse instead of better and hung around for a long time, and the cough was so brutal it made his throat bleed. We managed it without talking much; he'd wake me up in the middle of the night with a simple shake when he was struggling and let me medicate him and rub his back but not hold him, and he told me when he had doctor's appointments but didn't ask me to come. He got better, slowly, but it took a lot out of him. He lost ten pounds he'd fought tooth and nail to get in the first place, and his stamina took a pretty major hit. I'd come home most days from work and he'd be asleep, either on the couch or in bed, and I'd usually tell Evan to make sure he ate something and then crawl into bed next to him silently at night.

We were still fucking, obviously, but that was about it.

Evan was quiet with me too but at least had the decency to look kind of ashamed about it, while Justin alternating between high and mighty bitchy and aggressively normal, asking me if I'd seen our small saucepan and telling me he'd picked up dry cleaning. Justin changed his day with the baby from Wednesdays to Thursdays so he could take over my Wednesday dialysis shift, and I thought I'd be grateful to get a few extra hours back, but...I don't know, that was usually the only time each week Evan and I had alone together, and I'd gotten used to it.

But the point of all of this was adjustment to things like that. Going to bed without unloading about my day. Making plans without consultation. Not hearing Justin's laugh.

Practice makes perfect.

**

Can I come visit? Derek asked me, at lunch a week before I left. I was gonna miss that fucker.

Of course. You and Daphne. Emily will be flying over a few times for some of the big meetings.

What about your coven? Evan could do dialysis anywhere, right?

He could, but...no, I don't think they'll come out. Justin's miserable on long flights and I'm just going to be running from meeting to meeting after he gets there.

So you'll come back to visit?

I shrugged.

Come on, Derek said. You're just not going to see him for three months?

Two months.

Whatever.

We've done it before, I said.

Derek looked skeptical, but....I don't know, at that point I wasn't especially pressed about missing Justin, to be perfectly honest. I've told you this already, but...it just doesn't matter. We can go two months, three months. We could go years. That stuff is so...it's laughable to think that shit matters. This is written already. It's signed and sealed.

Nobody remembers how long Liz and Dick weren't together. You remember that they were.

As long as it wasn't forever, I wasn't scared, and that's a little clue for you to keep in mind.

I seem to recall some heavy drinking when he was in California, Derek said.

I shrugged and stole a bite of food from his plate. That was different.

How is that different?

He's the one who left.

**

Justin, in a passive-aggressive move that surprised absolutely no one, scheduled a haircut the same time I had to leave for the airport. I swear they teach Protestants this shit at Sunday school. Evan, a screaming Catholic after my own heart, maybe actually was a little surprised, but frankly I was happy to skip the little goodbye scene. I fucked him hard the night before and let him refuse to make eye contact, but when he tried to avoid kissing me on the mouth I nudged my lips along his jaw until he gave in, and I put one hand in his hair and the other where his knotted-up spine curled into the small of his back.

We didn't talk for a long, long time, and I was almost asleep when he whispered, “Don't go.” It was the first words he'd spoken to me in over a day.

He was gone when I woke up the next morning, and I had to leave by ten, so that was that, then.

**

Evan rode along with me to the airport. His idea. We talked idly on the way there, work stuff, what I was going to do while I was there, how the New York branch would manage without me, when Emily would be coming out, stuff like that. Things neither of us really cared that much about in the moment.

I was starting to feel kin of sick about it, and then I was angry at them for the fact that I felt sick about it, so the whole thing was just...

Evan handed me my bags by the elevator and said, “Brian. Why are you doing this?” and in that moment I could not, fucking could not come up with a reason, which was in and of itself the fucking point.

Christ, who can't come up with a reason to expand their company internationally?

He shook his head a little when I didn't answer. “You know, I love you, but if this comes down to sides—”

There are no sides.

“But if—”

I know, I said. Come here. I hugged him for a long time, my hand on the back of his neck, and gave him a rough kiss on the cheek. Okay. You take care of yourself.

“Yeah.”

Make sure he eats.

He nodded.

There's a spare epipen in the medicine cabinet in our bedroom. I took a deep breath. Don't let him sleep alone too much. He gets nightmares.

“I know.”

“He, um.” I swallowed. He does this thing sometimes when the coughing's really bad, he kind of panics and he tries holding his breath but that just makes it worse, you can't let him do that.

“I know.”

You have to run the air conditioner as soon as it gets hot. He'll give you some shit about saving the planet but he has seizures when he gets hot, he'll tell you he's fine but he's not.

“Brian, I'll take care of him. It's okay.”

I raked my hand through my hair. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

“We'll be right here when you get back.”

I nodded a little.

Just... He chewed on his lip. Don't take too long.

I know, I said. I know.

**

I got to London a little after midnight local time, just past seven PM in New York. I checked into the hotel where I'd be living for some number of months, and checked my phone. Justin hadn't responded to my text telling him I'd landed, but he'd turned read receipts on so I would know he'd seen it, and, okay, two could play this bullshit game, so I found a Thai food place that delivered late night and ordered shit with as much coconut milk and peanuts as I could find and relished every bite.

But at around three AM the city was quiet outside my hotel and the food was gone and porn wasn't keeping my attention, and I stretched across the bed for my phone and texted Justin, what are you wearing?

The read receipt popped up pretty immediately, but he didn't type anything. I wasn't exactly surprised, but I definitely was a few minutes later when he called me.

He was lying on his side on our bed, propped up on an elbow with his chin in his hand. He was wearing, for the record, a NYU shirt he stole from Molly ages ago, the really soft navy blue one with the splotch of green paint on the sleeve, and it made his eyes look really really blue.

Your haircut looks nice, I said.

He watched me, looking very guarded. “Thanks.”

I rolled onto my back, adjusting myself on the pillows. Where's Evan?

He shrugged. Okay then.

I have my first meeting in five hours, I said.

He was quiet for a while, and at first I thought he wasn't going to say anything, and I was...not too pressed about that, honestly, because I was just lying there and looking at him and goddamn, his eyes, but suddenly he said, “Who's it with?”

The CEO of the firm here. Going to convince him why he wants to join the Kinnetik family.

He stretched. “You're pretty good at that, in my experience.”

How are you feeling?

“I don't want to talk about that.”

Do you want to talk about my meeting?

He snorted. “No.” He shifted on the bed, sliding a hand down the front of his sweatpants. “I don't want to talk.”

Fine by me.

We did end up talking, though, just dirty shit while we got each other off, nothing revolutionary. I came before he did, so I got to watch him, his closed eyes and his slightly parted lip, his brow creased in concentration. The moment it broke over him and the sadness afterwards.

I watched him clean himself off and we lay there panting. He wasn't really looking at me anymore.

I wish you were here, I said, even though I wasn't quite sure he would see it.

At first I thought I didn't, but a minute later he said, “No, you don't.”

I pulled my lips into my mouth.

He turned back to the phone. “Goodnight, Brian.”

Good night, I said, and he was gone.

I took another shower and brushed my teeth and turned off the lights and stared up at the ceiling.

Tried to get use to the quiet.