Page 53 of Meet You Half Way
“Maybe we should all go up,” Rob suggested. “Get away for the weekend.” Nick’s eyes involuntarily darted to mine, holding for a beat before moving away. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if I would be okay with that suggestion, whether I would be okay with seeing him spend his time with his boyfriend. And maybe whether he would be okay with that too.
I cleared my throat. “I’m game if you are,” I offered.
“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “I’m sure Ajay would love to see you both.” Well. We all knew that was a lie but no one called him out on it. Ajay would love to see Rob no doubt. Me, definitely less so. I’d been a straight up asshole to Ajay from the moment we’d met.
“What do you reckon then? Should we do it?” Rob asked, taking a swig from his bottle.
Nick looked at me, a question in those bright blue eyes I had stared into countless times and I nodded.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” he agreed. “How about we drive up Friday after work. Mateo can do his photoshoot on Saturday and then we drive home Sunday afternoon.”
“I dibs not sharing a bed with you and Ajay,” Rob cut in.
“As if I’d let you within a ten foot radius of him,” Nick chided back.
“When will you get it through your head? Not a threat,” Rob eyerolled.
“I don’t care. You’re still not seeing him naked,” Nick returned.
“I don’t know why. It’s not like I haven’t seen you and Mateo naked a thousand times before whether I wanted to or not. A dick is just a dick to me. You’re so possessive,” Rob grinned.
“Of him. Yes.”
“Hey, you want to bring your boyfriend too, Mateo? That might be fun,” Rob suddenly suggested. He’d perked up in his seat at the thought while Nick looked open to the idea too.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I returned a tad defensively.
“Ah, sorry to burst your little bubble of self-delusion over there but yeah, M, he’s your boyfriend,” Rob returned.
“He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just … hanging out.”
“Hanging out,” Rob scoffed. “Is that what you do in your bedroom together while the bed bashes into the wall? Hanging out?”
“Shut up, Rob.”
“No seriously, M,” Rob picked up, not wanting to let this go for some reason. “You like him. He obviously likes you. You took him to dinner with your aunt and uncle. What’s the big hold up?”
I glanced at Nick, noting his interest in the conversation but knowing he wouldn’t dare voice an opinion. And really, I couldn’t have this discussion with Rob while Nick sat right there. I just couldn’t.
“You can invite Jamie if you’d like,” Nick added, eyes serious.
But just the thought of having Jamie and Nick in the same space for the long drive to and from Sydney, let alone the hours we’d spend up there together had me close to hyperventilating. I didn’t know why, I just couldn’t do that to myself. So I shut down that idea as quickly as I could.
“No. Let’s just keep it as us three,” I said instead.
“Just like the good old days,” Rob added helpfully and I smiled, relieved but also feeling like I might have messed something fairly monumental up all at the same time.
I’d been putting off this visit to my parents. I’d already cancelled on them twice and had wanted to cancel again this time. That was nothing unusual for me but for some reason I wasfinding it harder to agree to go see them each time they called and put the guilt trip on me. Mama had heard that I’d been to dinner with Dante and Giulia last week and was not above using that as guilt bait. Though I’m sure she would not have wanted to be at that dinner if she knew who had been there with me.
Seeing my parents was always hard for me. I often needed time to prepare myself mentally for it and each visit always tended to follow with a strong drink or two afterwards. I wasn’t sure if they had ever realised how one-sided our conversations were, how they used up all their valuable time with their only child pointing out his many shortcomings and failures. Nothing I did had ever been good enough for them.
But I was here now and Mama had already spent the past ten minutes berating me about my ‘break up’ with Tate, the girl I’d tried dating to appease my parents for a few weeks over summer. It had been an abject failure. I wasn’t even remotely bisexual, could not muster even the barest hint of attraction for her even though she was objectively beautiful. It had been awful.
Especially that night I’d run from Tate’s house when she’d finally lost patience with all my excuses for why I refused to cross any physical boundaries with her. Apparently there was only so many times you could tell a woman you were trying to be a gentleman. Or that you had a headache. Or a stomach pain. Or an early start at work the next day.
I’d spent a lot of time trying to put memories of that spectacularly bad night to rest where they belonged. I hadn’t even had the guts to tell Tate the real reason why walking into the room to find her lying naked and spread out in her bed was so repulsive to me which I knew was pretty mean of me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.
“The Zanotti’s are coming to dinner next Saturday,” Mama was continuing to say, no real need for me to say anything back in her one-way conversation. “Amelia will be there too. I wantyou here for the dinner. You know how much Amelia would like to get to know you better.”
