Page 75 of Sapphire Storm

“By all means, let’s discuss.” He braced for a questionabout Roman’s dad.

Roman swallowed and set his glass down. “Did you ever talkto your parents again? I mean, after they wrote you that check.”

Not a question about his parents,Ethan realized,aquestion aboutmine.With a jolt, he realized he would havepreferred the former. “Afraid not,” he answered.

“Are they still around?”

“No,” Ethan said. “They both passed.”

Eyes on his empty plate, Roman nodded grimly, as if this wasthe news he’d been fearing most.

“I just hate to think that I ruined your relationship withthem because—I mean, you quit escorting because of me and that’s when you wentto see them for the last time and so it’s like—”

“You didn’t.” It came out more brusque than he’d intended.Did the startled flash in Roman’s eyes mean he was offended or surprised to beso quickly let off the hook? “Seriously. You don’t have to take that on board.It’s not your fault.”

Roman nodded, but he was waiting for more.

Wanting more.

He’d opened a door, and with every second Ethan didn’telaborate, he could hear the creak of its hinges as it swung closed again. Hetold himself this was good, this was right. This was self-restraint. He wasprotecting their perfect, romantic evening from depressing talk of the lifehe’d left behind in South Carolina. But Roman had gone from looking curious toembarrassed, as if he thought he’d overstepped. And was that a fair thing tolet him think after all he’d shared with Ethan about his own life?

“I’m sorry,” Roman said, but he sounded tentative, as if hewasn’t sure if he should be apologizing.

And what Ethan wanted to say was,Don’t be,but thedoor he’d heard creak a second before was now firmly closed, and he was staringat Roman in awkward silence. Fear spreading cold in his gut, he wondered ifthis would be the hardest part about being intimate with someone. These littlesplit-second moments that required honesty and candor and revealing more of himselfthan he’d ever revealed to a client. He wondered suddenly if that was how he’dfail at this. By going silent, covering up his feelings with a fixedexpression. Letting the person who asked to know him better feel fidgety andawkward and like they’d crossed a line or made a mistake. Because they’d cared.

“Should we get dessert?” Roman finally asked.

“I thought we could walk around the village before it getstoo dark.” He was proud of how steady he sounded.

By the time he’d paid the check and they’d said theirgood-byes to Sarah, the silence between them had grown tense. He held therestaurant’s front door for Roman, but when they reached the sidewalk outside,Roman shoved his hands into his pockets and was looking everywhere but at Ethanas they strolled. He was also shivering. Ethan took off his blazer and tuckedit around Roman’s shoulders. Head bowed, eyes averted, Roman pulled his handsfrom his pockets and slid his arms through the sleeves. But his smile wassheepish, his eyes downcast. “Such a gentleman,” he said, as if he werereminding himself of this fact in the wake of Ethan’s coldness.

They walked alongside La Valencia’s sloping base, down thedip at the end of Girard Avenue. Before them, a broad stretch of lawn dottedwith tall, slender palm trees made for a grassy, open park right at the water’sedge. Between the lawn and the rocky shore was a serpentine sidewalk with a whitepainted wooden fence you weren’t supposed to scale, but many tourists did sothey could walk the tops of the rocks on the other side.

Waves pummeled the jagged shore. He could hear a barkingseal in the distance. But all he could feel was the painful story of his lifebefore New York rattling the cage inside of him, demanding to be freed.

As Roman stared out to sea, hands resting on the fence infront of him, it was impossible to tell if he was enamored by the view or putoff by Ethan’s shut down.

“It’s like this,” Ethan began, as if no time had passedbetween Roman’s question and the present moment. When Roman looked to himquickly, intently, and without puzzlement, he realized those moments had playedfor Roman in much the same way. “They hated me, Roman.”

“Your parents?”

Ethan nodded. “I know it sounds dramatic and extreme, and Idon’t want to be one of those people who blames his parents for everything. Butthe fact of the matter is they could tell right away I was gay. I must havebeen four or five. My mannerisms tipped them off, and it was like somethinginside of them died and never came back.

“I was too young to realize what was happening. And so Ispent most of my life believing their coldness and their contempt was normal. Inever challenged it and I never rebelled because to be perfectly honest, wewere rich, and I thought that would be enough. So long as I worked at hidingwhatever it was about me they didn’t like. So long as I showed up and playedthe part I was supposed to play. So long as I forced unsuspecting women intorelationships that were as ungratifying for them as they were for me. So longas I never made a scene, never spoke up, I wouldn’t be thrown away.

“I never thought to ask for love or acceptance. Not beingcast out seemed like the only goal. And if I played the game well, met socialobligations, expressed the right opinions to their friends, then I’d berewarded with financial support. But their strategy for containing me wassimple. They taught me that my first instinct was always wrong. If I didn’twant to make a fool of myself, I should discuss everything with them first. Itwas their way of containing what they knew they couldn’t change.”

“Your sexuality,” Roman asked as he moved a step closer.

Ethan nodded. “It was all coded language. To teachers andtheir friends, they described me as…easily confused, prone to distractions. Allthese constant references to my deep inadequacies just under the surface. Butthe truth was I was a good student. I was polite. I never stepped out of line.But the criticism was relentless. It was constant and it was cold.

“I was promised a job at my father’s firm if I managed to doeven halfway decent in law school. But my passions? My ambitions? Not allowed.The one time I said anything about being a chef, my father called it faggotynonsense. Those were his words exactly. They knew that if I did anything authenticto my personality, to who I truly was, eventually it would bring my sexualityto the surface. When I look back now, I was just staying for the trappings andthe perks. The nice house, the family name, the invitations. I was moreaddicted to those things than I wanted to admit.”

Slowly, Roman twined their fingers together atop the fence.He was breathing deeply but rapidly, as if the story Ethan was telling was atale as suspenseful as a Marvel film.

“But then, one night, the summer before college, I allowedsome friends of mine to convince me to go to this gay bar about four hoursaway. The minute I stepped through the front door, something opened inside ofme that I knew I could never shut.

“I didn’t come out. I even lied to the people there and saidI was just supporting some friends. Then I got blind drunk and made out withanother guy in a bathroom for an hour and ran off before he could get my name.Then I started hooking up in secret. Nothing serious, nothing that could get mein trouble. No entanglements. It was all about AOL chat rooms back then, and Imade the most of them. I thought the forbidden thrill of it all would compensatefor the lack of everything else. Then one day I got a call from my parentssummoning me home immediately for some sort of emergency meeting.”

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