Page 26 of Regret Me Not
“Hm….” Hal glared at the throw pillows like they were responsible for irony. “I am not sure how to feel about any of that. I mean, on the one hand, Derrick sounds like my kind of guy—”
“You’ll love him,” Pierce said, thinking that Derrick and Miranda could… could look after Hal, after they got there. “He’s, like, ultra-super cool.”
“Describe ultra-super cool,” Hal said, eyebrow cocked skeptically.
Well. Here was an embarrassing story. “Like, he walked in on me and Loren before he knew about the bi thing. Took one look at Loren on his knees—”
“Oh my God!”
“Yeah—embarrassing, right?”
It could have been. It could have been horrific. But Derrick really was the best.
“What did you do?” Hal asked, entranced.
“It was more like what didhedo. And what he did was take one look at Loren there and said, ‘Oh my God, you’re bi!’” Pierce ignored Hal’s bark of laughter and continued. “And I said, ‘Is this a problem?’” And Pierce left out how terrified he was, because he and Derrick… well, inseparable since grade school, which was why they’d roomed together in college. “And he said, ‘It is when you don’t leave a sock on the bedroom door, asshole! I don’t care who you’re with, I’ll never unsee you having sex!’”
Hal laughed, ducking his head and then looking back at him with a softly bitten lip. “Poor man,” he said, but his apple cheeks were popping with the force of his grin.
“Yeah. I’d be worried it scarred him for life, but he met Miranda about a month after that, and suddenly our apartment was made of socks on the door, so I think he’ll be okay.”
“That’s… that’s sweet.” Hal’s grin faded. “So they’ve been together since college?” he asked, suddenly uncertain. “Over ten years?”
“Yeah. Hey—this little wooden Christmas tree. Don’t hate me, but I think this could go on the end table by the window, don’t you?”
Hal looked at it and nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s perfect. I… I thought Russ and me were going to do that,” he blurted. “Like… like your friend and his wife.”
Pierce almost dropped the Christmas tree into the cart from about two feet up. He barely managed to lower it so it rested awkwardly on the throw pillows, and wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have visited the kid’s section first.
“Is this the guy who cheated on you?” he asked, because he knew that name now.
“Yeah.” Hal’s eyes cruised restlessly, and he reached out to a wooden dreidel, colored blue and white. “My mother has one of these,” he said, pleased. “I… I mean, I have no idea what it’s for, because we did Christmas like my dad’s family, but—”
“We’ll put it by the Christmas tree,” Pierce told him, setting it carefully next to the tree. “Do you want a menorah?”
Hal frowned. “No… ’cause, again, I have no idea what it’s for. But I do want a tinsel banner, so find that aisle, quick!”
“Yeah, sure. When did you and Russ break up?” Because Hal was avoiding two questions today, and if Pierce didn’t get to, Hal didn’t get to.
“Valentine’s Day, this year,” Hal told him, rolling his eyes. “So no, I’m not all sentimental about him now because he broke up with me before Christmas.”
“Glad to know that,” Pierce said dryly, and then he stopped and sighed. “Hal?”
“What?”
For a moment, they looked each other in the eyes, the bustle around them of a zillion people on a holiday mission making the painful personal moment a little easier to bear.
“If you ever want to tell me something… you know. Real. I could be that guy for you. Now. I mean, I couldn’t have been that guy for you right after Thanksgiving. I was too pissed at myself. But I could be that guy for you now if you want.”
A faint smile pulled the corners of Hal’s mouth up.
“I’ll… I’ll keep that in mind.” But he turned away quickly, reaching onto the shelves and coming back with an exquisite holiday star, a combination of fiber optics and plastic filigree that managed to look enchanting in spite of what should have been very tacky beginnings. “Don’t hate me, but I love this.”
Pierce grimaced, oddly let down. “Throw it in the cart,” he said.
“But we don’t have anything to put it on.”
“We’ll get some cord and hang it from the ceiling. It’ll look avant-garde—no one will have to know we just made it up as we went along.”
