Daphne was apprehensive to meet Brian at Babylon, when he called requesting her help. Despite the fact that she didn’t have any real obligations to him, not even through Justin anymore, she had stayed friends with Brian.

Two years after Justin’s departure to New York and constant visits on each part, Brian and Justin had decided it was best to part ways. Their relationship had always been more physical, and being apart for longer than a few days became too much. Even though in the beginning, they accepted the new challenge and acquired many flight miles, it was tiring.

Daphne could still remember the night Justin and Brian broke up. She could never forget it. Though, she tried not to think of it.

Babylon was deserted at five in the afternoon on a Friday, spare a few staff members preparing for the night’s event. She asked for Brian, and the bartender pointed to the door leading into his office.

Knocking once, she stepped inside. They hadn’t seen each other in months, having only run into each other on the street around Christmas time. Now, two months later, Daphne noticed Brian looked even hollower than the last time she had seen him.

Ever since the break-up, he had withdrawn into himself more than usual. Sometimes, she chided herself for distancing from him when he needed someone who understood him more than anyone else. But the events of the night they ended things kept her from being around any of Justin’s friends. She was afraid she would spill his secret.

It was a mystery to Daphne how Justin could keep that secret and every other that followed from his family, but he did it superbly. Until it had blown into his face about one year ago when his mother got so mad she stopped talking to him. Daphne wanted to tell him he deserved it, but then she reminded herself that his secret kept him happy. All she wanted was her best friend to be happy.

And right now, he wasn’t. But she had to focus on her meeting with Brian, before she would have to face Justin.

Brian pushed away from his desk, rolling back with his chair. “You’re the only one who can help.”

“Hello to you too.” She closed the door behind her, walking closer.

He rolled his eyes. “I’d stand, but I can’t.”

Daphne’s eyes zeroed to his left foot, and she gasped. There was a boot cast on his leg. “What the fuck did you do?”

“You’d laugh. I kicked the garage door, because it caught again.”

“You’re so smart, I’m surprised how you survived on your own for so many years.”

“Shut the fuck up. I need a place to crash, since I can't drive. You’re my only sane option. I could ask Debbie, but she’d coddle me. Mikey would be worse. I shudder to think of Emmett’s place. As for the ex-Crystal queens….I’d rather skip.” He fake-gagged. “Please?” He threw her a smile, giving her an innocent look.

She chewed on her lip, contemplating her answer.

Any other time, she would have said ‘yes’ without blinking. The problem was she had Justin coming to her later. He was coming back for good. After the recent events in his life, he needed to get away from New York, and his only hope was Daphne.

“So, yay or nay?” Brian raised an eyebrow, losing his patience. “It’s not really broken. The doc said I’d be good as new in a couple of weeks, or less.”

“Brian…”

“Of course, you’ll have to make a trip home and bring me some clothes—”

“I can’t,” she blurted out.

“Are you joking? Why? Is your hot boyfriend visiting?”

“We broke up. Remember? I told you this when we bumped into each other a couple of months ago.”

“Right. So what’s your excuse?”

She tried to find a plausible excuse, without actually telling him the truth. He would find out soon enough, anyway.

“You hate cats. Sometimes this stray visits me.”

Brian rolled his lips into his mouth, regarding her curiously. He could tell she was hiding something.

“And you don’t want cat hair on your expensive clothes.”

“Daphne,” he said gently, but warningly. “What’s the real reason I can’t stay with you?”

She threw herself on the sofa, pressing her palms to her face.

“Is it true what I heard through the grapevine? Is Justin coming back? Of course…he’s staying with you.”

“Where did you hear that?” Her head snapped up, and she stared at him with huge eyes.

“A little birdie told me,” he joked. “Seriously. News travel faster than you believe on Liberty Avenue.”

“Yes, it’s true,” she said in a small voice. “Justin and Nick are coming home.”

Brian’s eyebrows shot up. He should have expected Justin to patch up his life. He had always thrived a relationship. “Is this Nick hot?”

Daphne giggled despite herself. “He’s cute as a button.” She was afraid to spill all of Justin’s secrets, kept locked for over five years now.

“Some twink?”

She could detect a hint of jealousy, but bit on her lip to keep from telling Brian who Nick was.

“Don’t just drop something like that on me and close up! Tell me. I think I have the right to know.”

“Brian, look…You haven’t talked to him since then, have you?”

“Only indirectly.”

“Through me and the others?” She checked.

He nodded. “And the newspaper, or Internet articles talking about his shows.”

“I bet there were pictures…so you know.”

“I know, what?”

“You really don’t know, do you? Anything?”

“What’s going on? All I know is that he cut all contact with everyone, and even stopped talking to his mother.”

Daphne took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but as you said, you have a right to know.”

“Is he okay? Did something happen to him?” Brian eyed her anxiously.

“The night…you broke up…he came to me,” she started.

“I figured.”

“Half of the night, he sobbed into my shoulder for things ending the way they did.”

Brian closed his eyes, repelling all thoughts regarding that fateful night. “We made quite the scene in the middle of Liberty Avenue. I remember people gawking at me weeks after it happened.”

“Anyway, once he had no more tears left, he found my bottle of vodka. We got trashed. Since it was summer and warm outside, around three-four in the morning, we were strolling through the park.”

“You must have been pretty drunk.”

“Oh, we were. At least, I really was, because if I were sober, none of that would have happened. I was on the right direction to convince him to make-up with you. Then…”

“Then?” Brian urged her.

“Then we saw someone sleeping on a bench. Being that drunk and not thinking rationally, we approached the person. Justin mocked them for sleeping in the park when they could have found a warm spot on a cardboard on some street corner.”

“Christ. He doesn’t have a sense of self-preservation.”

“The bum turned out to be an old acquaintance of ours…mostly his.” She had no idea how to say it without causing Brian a nervous breakdown. “It was…Ethan.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“His flourishing career failed through, and he ended up on the streets only with a few clothes and his fiddle.”

“Tough luck,” Brian muttered.

“Justin—We took him to my place. To this day I have no idea how it happened, but the next morning, Justin left with him to New York.”

“Now, you’re shitting me!” Brian’s blood boiled at the thought of Justin running back to Ian a few hours after they broke up.

“It was a few days later, when I grasped what exactly had happened. Everything had happened so fast that night, Brian. One minute, Justin was sobbing his heart out that you were done for good, next we got drunk, remembering our childhood, then we were walking in the park picking on a homeless guy, who turned out to be Ethan.”

“Then he took him to his fancy New York life where he didn’t have the time to squeeze a few minutes every day for a phone call with me, but apparently, he had enough time for that piece of shit!”

“Look, I’m not happy about this, either. Let me finish talking. Now that you got me started, I can’t stop.”

Brian gestured for Daphne to continue her little story.

“As the months passed, I realized he was…happy. I mean, he sounded happy on our seldom phone calls. Happier than when you two were trying to make it work with the long distance thing.” She sighed, averting her eyes when she saw Brian cringing. She didn’t mean to cause him any pain. “Then, the weekend with his birthday that year, he called and said I had to visit them. He used the word must. So I did. From the airport, they drove me straight to…the City Hall.”

Daphne glanced at Brian, but his face was unreadable.

“Against my will, I was their witness. I had a whole speech prepared for him when I’d corner him somewhere in their apartment. Throughout the weekend, I dismissed my angry speech. They were happy. Really happy. I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, but Brian…I haven’t seen Justin so happy and free and…himself.”

Brian shrugged, closing his eyes to fight the sudden tears. He already regretted too much about their relationship. There were too many things he should have done differently.

“I came back to Pittsburgh, and life went on. Then about a year later, Justin called excitedly, telling me someone wanted to say ‘hi’ to me. As much as I’d grown to accept that Ethan made him happy, I still didn’t particularly like him. Instead of Ethan’s snotty voice, there was a loud cry I heard.”

“Huh?”

“They…Justin has…Ugh! They found a surrogate mother. Justin’s the father.”

“Nick?” Brian started putting the puzzle pieces together.

Daphne nodded. “The thing I failed to mention is that Justin never told anyone about getting back with Ethan, or marrying him, or having a kid with him. I’m the only one who knows….it’s been so hard. Especially when I was around you—that’s why I kept inventing excuses not catching up.”

“The reason he stopped talking to Jennifer has something to do with her finding out?”

“She visited last year…sorry, dropped by unannounced when she had a conference in New York.”

“Christ. Poor woman. I can only imagine the shock.”

“Yeah. Justin told me it wasn’t pretty. He answered the door with Nick in his arms and Ethan behind him holding Nick’s jacket. They were getting ready to leave for a zoo trip. It always takes at least half an hour to get a move on with the kid. Anyway, Jen screamed at Justin a lot. He refused to repeat to me what she said, but I can only imagine. They stopped talking.”

“Okay, so why is he coming back? Why stay with you? Can’t they find an apartment of their own?”

“Wait. There’s more,” Daphne murmured, swallowing thickly. “The horrible part is coming.”

“Don’t scare me.”

“We haven’t talked in a while. It was more like an obligation…or so I felt it, when we talked to each other. On our birthdays, on Christmas…stuff like that. And only for a few minutes, then it got awkward and he lied that Ethan or Nick needed him, and we hung up. Anyway, last time we talked was on his birthday. Unlike in the past five years, we talked for hours. He told me about everything and anything. He even asked me about you, which was a taboo subject until that moment. I have no idea what made him ask.”

“So he broke up with the fiddler.”

“No. Actually they were planning to go to Europe this summer, and ship Nick to me.” She shuddered. People would have been suspicious to see a child appearing in her life out of nowhere…especially one that was the splinting image of Justin. “So that was the last time we talked. Then he called me yesterday. Late night phone calls mean trouble—no matter if they come from your best friend. I could barely understand what he was saying through his crying.”

“I sense good news.”

“Don’t be an asshole!” She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t like Ethan, but…Justin is crushed. Of what I gathered, they went to some party at the opera on New Year’s night. The wrong people saw them kissing. And…you really want me to continue or can you take a wild guess?”

“Do I want you to continue? I have creepy scenarios running through my head.”

“Justin told me it happened last Tuesday. Ethan should have been home by seven, and he started getting worried when nine stroke and he wasn’t there yet, then he was in full-blown panic attack by two in the morning. That’s when he got the call from the police. Someone, most likely some homophobe, had waited for Ethan to leave the opera…and they ran him over.”

Brian’s mouth dropped. “What?”

“You heard me. He’s dead.”

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. “So it’s like he didn’t exist. Why the fuck did you tell me all these?”

“Because Justin is coming back—with his child, and I have no fucking clue how to patch him up! And at the same time he’s coming back, you want to hog my couch. Excuse me for freaking out.”

“After everything you said, up until the last part, I was all for saying ‘fuck him’, but I’d say ‘fuck you’ for giving me hope. I think I’ll sleep here. That lumpy couch you’re sitting on will be my bed for the next two weeks.”

“You can always ask Michael, like you said.”

“I’d rather pull my nails out.”

“I’ll take you with me, but you must promise to play nice. And if Justin freaks at seeing you, you have to let me deal with it.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“Great. Let’s go, then.”

Daphne led the way out of the club with Brian hopping after her. They stopped at his Jeep. Brian had managed to drive that morning, but as soon as he had stepped into Kinnetik, he understood icing his ankle wouldn’t do it when he noticed how swollen it had gotten during the ride. Ted had taken him to the hospital and he ended up in a cast because he refused to repair the garage door. The dent in it was the only solid remnant of Justin's presence in their house.

“Drive carefully,” he warned, climbing in the backseat. Once Daphne was behind the wheel, Brian groaned loudly. “I can’t believe you lost two hours of my life to tell me all that when you could have summed it up to Justin found solace after our break-up in the fiddler’s arms, but now Ian is dead. Oh, and by the way, they were married and have a child together. He’s bringing the kid back home.”

“Must you be so crass? He’s suffering! Brian, I only heard Justin so shaken only once—when you were sick. You might not know, but he was so scared, even though he didn’t show it.”

“Can we not talk about this? Find another radio station, will you?”

Daphne had been around Brian long enough to know he was brushing off everything regarding this situation because he was scared, jealous, sad, and possibly a tiny bit happy.

At Daphne’s place, they took the elevator. She installed him on the couch, promising to return quickly and help him settle in the guest bedroom, but she had to piss first.

While she was gone, her phone started ringing.

“Answer that,” she hollered from the bathroom.

Brian inspected the Caller ID. “It’s Justin!”

“Fucking answer him! He must have landed.”

Clearing his throat, and mentally preparing for this conversation, Brian accepted the call.

“Daph! Finally! We’ll be there in about an hour…depending on traffic.”

Brian froze at the sound of Justin’s voice. He hadn’t heard him in too many years.

“Daphne? I can hear you breathing.”

“Justin,” Brian said quietly. “Daphne’s not in the room right now.”

There was a gasp and a muted thud on the other end of the line. “Brian?”

“The one and only. I’ll let her know you’re on the way.”

“Uh…sure. Thanks. Don’t wipe your hands on my pants. Sorry, I have to go. Uh, bye, Brian. Ugh. Seriously, Nick.”

The dial tone beeped in his ear, making Brian realize Justin had hung up.

“I’m back.” Daphne returned, cheerful. “I feel ten pounds lighter. What did he want?”

“It was a mistake. I’ll call Mikey, and go over to him.”

“Should I help you pull your nails out?” she teased. “You’re here. You’re not going anywhere like some coward. What did Justin say?”

“They’re on the way.”

“Good. Put your foot on the coffee table to keep it elevated. What did your doc say?”

“It’s sprained.”

“Okay. I’ll bring you some Tylenol and water. Anything to eat?”

“Christ.” Brian scrubbed at his face. “I didn’t go to Debbie’s for this very reason.”

“Fine. Suit yourself. If you fall on the way to the kitchen, and break your other foot, don’t blame me.”

“You can bring me water and Tylenol.”

“And food. You can’t take meds on an empty stomach.”

“Now you sound scarily like Justin.”

“I’m a doctor,” she reminded him, before heading to the kitchen. “Do you like broccoli?”

“Anything you have,” Brian called, leaning against the back of the couch. He didn’t care much for food. All he could think of was his imminent reunion with Justin, and meeting his son.

Daphne fried a few vegetables along with rice, and when the doorbell rang loudly she was watching her stir-up.

“Don’t kill me, but would you mind answering? I can’t leave the stove. Dinner might get burned.”

Scowling, and thinking she was conspiring against him, Brian hopped to the front door. He took a deep breath, before pulling the door open.

Justin was standing in front of him. He didn’t look much different, except the vacant look on his face. His black clothes made him look too thin.

He had a satchel over his shoulder, two large suitcases behind him, and a small boy clinging to his leg, peeking curiously at Brian.

“I can’t believe she told you I’m coming back. And you rushed to greet me. How sweet of you,” Justin sneered.

“In my defense, I thought I’d be the only roommate she’d have.” Brian pointed to his foot in the cast.

“Did you make boo-boo? I once had boo-boo at my arm,” the little boy explained, still clinging to his father’s leg.

“Uh, yeah. I made boo-boo.” Brian answered, awkwardly. He hopped away from the door to allow them to step inside.

“Go inside, Nick. And don’t touch anything.” Nick listened to Justin, taking a few steps into Daphne’s apartment. Justin pushed the heavy suitcases inside, before closing the door. “Where’s Daphne?”

“Here,” she called from the kitchen. “I’m making dinner. Come give me a kiss.”

Justin picked Nick. “I’ll be right there,” he answered, walking to the bathroom, muttering to his son about his dirty hands.