An art devotee, Emma tells me to meet her at the Met before we grab a cup of coffee in the museum café. After a hug in the entryway, she takes me to a wing of Dutch art, then gestures to five paintings hanging on the wall. “Which Vermeer is Grant?”
I shoot her a you can’t be serious look. “They’re all of women,” I point out. “I’m not comparing him to a work of art featuring a woman.”
She grabs my arm and tugs me down the hall. “We called him a Rembrandt once. Maybe he’s like one of those.”
As she guides me through the museum, I try to follow her thinking. “Why are you asking me which famous painting he is?”
“You’ll see,” she says a little wickedly, like she has something up her sleeve.
“Also,” I state for the record, “you called him a work of art. I called him a Bugatti. Can we go look at sports cars?”
“And you continue to make my point,” she says playfully.
I hold out my arms, confused. “And yet I have no idea what your point is.”
We reach a Rembrandt self-portrait, and I stare at it. It’s dark and dull. “He’s old and craggy, and he looks nothing like an athlete.”
“Then you do get my point,” she says.
“I honestly don’t.”
Her expression turns serious. “You’re asking me for help with romance. That’s like me asking you which painting Grant looks like. There are better people than me to help with your relationship goals, and I arranged for them to meet you in the café.”
“Emma.” I hate surprises, and she knows it. And I’ve got zero interest in venturing down this path. “I don’t want to involve the world in my dating-or-not-dating woes.”
“Declan,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument. “You need to talk to my brother, not me.”
Ohhhhhh. Fitz is the surprise. I don’t know what I expected, except I’ve been conditioned to expect the worst. “But you’re the only one who understands all my stuff . . .” She’s the one person I’ve shared the real shit with.
“Yes, and I know, too, that you don’t open up that easily to people,” she says in the understatement of the century. “But I’m as alone as you are. I don’t know the first thing about how to fall in love or win back the man of my dreams. And I also don’t know how all of that differs for two men.” She sets a hand on my arm. “You need advice from two men who are very happy together.”
When we reach the café, Fitz has his arm stretched across the back of his chair while he laughs at something Dean said. I sit with the guys, and we shoot the breeze on sports and work while we order coffee. But before long, Fitz cuts through the small talk. “All right, what’s the story? You want to get back together with your guy, and you need to figure out how to do it?”
This feels like too many moments I’ve tried to escape, ones where people think they know me. But Emma’s right. She’s smart and sensitive, but she isn’t navigating the same waters I am.
I swallow the knot of awkward in my throat. My voice sounds weird to my ears, but I say the uncomfortable words anyway. “He’s coming to New York next week, and I don’t know how the hell to pull this off. I don’t know the first thing about . . .”
When I falter, Dean jumps in. “Love? Relationships? Putting your heart on the line?”
“I don’t even know how to ask him if he’ll give me the time of day,” I say, feeling terribly exposed.
Fitz doesn’t seem fazed by my cluelessness. “Don’t overthink it,” he says. “Just call him and tell him you want to talk to him when he’s here. It’s that simple.”
But is it? “What if he says no?” I ask in a strained tone, scratching the back of my neck.
“Then you’re in the same spot you’re in now. But if he doesn’t . . .” Dean offers a hopeful smile.
“And you’ll regret it if you don’t try,” Fitz says, then drapes his arm around his husband. “Look. I very nearly lost this guy back in London because I was chicken-shit like you. It’s hard to crack open your heart and let someone see it. I didn’t know what to say, or how to do it. But I couldn’t risk losing him, so I figured it out on the fly.” Fitz looks at Dean like he’s the answer to all his prayers, then turns back to me. “I told him how I felt.”
But telling Grant how I feel isn’t going to be enough. Grant will want to know why I iced him. He deserves to know not only the details about my father, but also what it cost me when I was younger.
How I almost lost the things that mattered most.
But as Fitz takes Dean’s hand, I’m sure they’re what I should aspire to—honesty, communication, and putting it all on the line.
Couple goals, not a couples’ trip.
Screw being chicken-shit.
Later that night, when I’m home alone, I pace through my living room, staring at the East River, the lights from the skyscrapers twinkling over the water as I dial Grant.
“Hey,” he says, answering on the third ring.
Someone shouts “Split!” in the background. Who is he with? What is he doing?
“Did I call you at a bad time?”
“It’s fine. I’m at my grandparents’. We were playing Bananagrams.”
I smile at the image of him with his family in California. But I can’t linger on it. I have to say why I called, so I lay it on the line. “Can I see you when you’re in New York next week?”
He pauses, then I hear footsteps and the noise receding as if he’s walking away. A door shuts. A car passes close by. He must have stepped outside.
“What do you mean, ‘see me in New York’?” He sounds wary. “What are you asking for, Declan?”
Yup. Knew this wouldn’t be easy. “I want to talk to you, Grant. Alone. You and me.”
Another beat. “Are you asking me on a date? Or to fuck? Or for coffee? Or pool with the guys?”
I pace along the window. I can’t sit still even as I blindly swing at pitches, hoping to connect. “I’m asking for you. Just you. Just to talk. I want to explain what happened in the spring. All the things I didn’t explain the night I called you, like why I sent that text. Can we just get dinner or a drink or something?”
Hell, I sound ridiculously desperate.
But that’s how I feel.
“You don’t drink.”
“We can get a not-drink,” I say, pushing out a slight laugh.
“A not-drink,” he repeats, seeming amused by that word.
My God, can he just put me out of my misery? “After the awards—I’ll be at the event. But we can meet up someplace afterward if that works for you.”
More footsteps echo, like he’s walking even farther away from the house. “Listen, Deck,” he says, using that shortened name that makes my heart want to fling itself at him. “I want to say yes. I really do. But I do not want to wake up to a text from you cancelling at the last minute.”
It’s like he knocked me on the jaw, but I deserve it. “That’s fair. But I promise you I won’t.”
“Are you sure about that?”