Chapter Twenty-One

COLE TWINED HIS fingers with Julian’s on the couch. They hadn’t turned on the movie yet. They were both a little bit tipsy. Not drunk, but…light, flirty, warm. Julian smiled at him, leaned in, and gave him a small kiss. “Tell me a secret.”

“My family’s disappointed because after my sister died, so did their hope of having grandkids,” he said softly.

“That’s…dark.”

“Yeah.”

“My family’s disappointed because my sister is younger than me, but somehow better at absolutely everything, so when they see me unemployed and homeless, they can’t help but think I’m kind of a waste of space.”

“That’s not much better,” Cole said. “And you’re not a waste of space. So your family’s wrong.”

“You’re not a disappointment, grandkids or no.”

“Thanks,” Cole said.

“Thank you,” Julian replied.

Cole rested his head on Julian’s shoulder. “My sister died of AIDS.”

That part was a bit of a surprise. He wondered if his conversation about Freddie Mercury the other night stirred up any hurt there. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She had her vices, but she kept them quiet from our family. They didn’t see her that much, and she lived on the other side of the country. I flew out here when she got diagnosed, tried to help, but some habits die hard and getting her to take her medicine consistently was even harder.”

Julian could hear the emotion in Cole’s voice, the upset there. The idea that there had been a solution right in front of her, and his sister hadn’t taken it? That had to hurt Cole.

“My parents, they were kind of old-school. To them, AIDS was the kind of disease that ‘the gays’ got and nobody else. So when she was diagnosed HIV positive, it was a shock to them. She wasn’t a gay man, so why was she being ‘punished?’”

Julian squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry.” That had to hurt. A lot. Both because his sister was dying and because his parents were putting such prejudice out there.

“I couldn’t come out to them. Not when she was dying and they were angry at the gay men who they thought probably caused her this plight.”

Julian watched as Cole let go of his hand and turned to look at him, knee up on the couch, putting a little distance between them. The distance, he thought, was probably the only comfortable thing in such an uncomfortable moment, a painful story.

“I came out to them after her funeral. The same day. In hindsight, it wasn’t good timing. But it felt like one of those things where I couldn’t wait. Time was limited. For her, for me, for everyone. So I thought, God, I can’t wait on this. They left town and we didn’t talk for a couple of months. When they did call me, they acted like I hadn’t come out at all. The conversation was the same. How’s work, how’s the dog, how’s life, do you have a girlfriend yet?”

Ouch. Julian nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. How did anyone respond to something like that?

“When I told them there was no girlfriend, there’d be no girlfriend, that was hard for my mom to process. Both of them, but especially my mom.” He took Julian’s hand again. “She still doesn’t accept me coming out, but she does get upset that I’m not married to some girl, that I won’t be giving her biological grandchildren anytime soon. And…that’s that, I guess. My big secret.”

Julian brought Cole’s knuckles to his lips and kissed them. “You deserved better than all of that. So much better.”

Cole offered a weak smile. “Your turn,” he said. “Tell me a secret.”

“I’m afraid of never being good enough.” Julian looked Cole in the eyes, earnest and shaky. Cole’s admission had been deeper, more important, but his was vulnerable too. “Molly, she’s done so much. She’s worked so hard to get where she is. She has a million connections, too… This ability to work with anyone she meets and click well. And my mom calls, and it’s always ‘why don’t you ask her to help you get a job?’” He looked down. “The number of times I’ve had her pull strings or used a contact she gave me so I could get a job I hated…” He shook his head, exhaling shakily. “I don’t feel like either of them trust me to do it on my own, and to be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure that I trust myself to do it on my own either. Anytime I go looking, I just turn right back around to ask Molly for help again, so really, they’re right.”

Cole reached out and touched his cheek gently, thumb grazing his lip. “That’s not true,” he said. He put his hand down, head tilted to one side. “You’re capable. I’ve seen how much you’ve grown just in the past few weeks alone. You can do so much. I think you just think you can’t because they’ve got you convinced you can’t.”

Julian considered that for a second. Maybe that was true. Maybe he gave in too quickly, gave up too quickly, let himself believe his family was right. Still, he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“If you could do anything, what would it be?”

“Not an office job. That’s for damn sure.”

Cole laughed, squeezing his hand. “Fair. That is so, so fair.”

“Marketing, maybe? I don’t know. I don’t have graphic design skills. I just—the idea of taking a business, getting a feel for the idea, helping them develop a brand and a concept and a whole world around this seed of a thought? I think that’s really cool. I like the idea of building copy and sharing the product in a creative way. Maybe that’s why I’m so damn mad at the stupid Chicken and Woofles thing. The branding is so clever, but God…the food’s bad and the company is annoying.”

Cole laughs. “Hey, I won’t knock their commitment to the bit either.”

“Hell, maybe I’ll reach out and ask them to hire me,” Julian snorts. “If I can bite my tongue long enough.”

At that, Cole smiled, leaning in. “Not if I bite your tongue first.” God, he was so, so suave.