Chapter Two

JUSTIN’S CHILDHOOD ROOM remained exactly the same, apart from it seeming to shrink more and more every time he visited. He rarely stayed overnight anymore, but his mother kept his and Trish’s rooms in immaculate condition, ready to welcome back their former occupants.

Justin made a perfunctory round, running his fingers on the spines of books, noting the colorful jumble of superhero posters mixed with reproductions of Toulouse-Lautrec. All his memories were here, but now it felt like this space belonged to a different person altogether, someone who still had his life ahead of him, full of big hopes and wild fantasies that would forever stay entombed in this room.

It was too melancholy a thought, even for him, and Justin shook his head at himself. He plopped on the bed and took out his cell phone to scroll through recent contacts.

As he expected, there were no missed calls or messages from Mark. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. Probably a little bit of both, to be honest, and what did that say about him?

Justin frowned and picked a different name. Thankfully, Elena answered right away.

“What’s up? I saw you closed early today.”

“Yeah,” Justin said, sitting back more comfortably. “My folks invited me over for dinner.”

“Good. Maybe you’ll finally eat something more substantial than a bagel. Oh, and have some spiked eggnog for me.”

“What is it with everybody criticizing my diet today?” Justin complained.

“That’s what happens when you forget to eat half the time. After a while, it starts to show.”

Justin sighed dramatically, but in truth, this bit of friendly attention touched him. Elena ran a small and quirky coffee shop across the street from Rowel’s Hardware, and stopping there in the morning for a vanilla latte with a dash of cinnamon and a quick chat had gradually become a habit that blossomed into a fast friendship.

“I don’t think eggnog will be enough to get me through this holiday,” Justin said, running his hand through his hair.

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, for starters, they all keep asking me about Mark.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. The quality of silence felt judging, but, of course, it could well have been Justin’s guilty imagination. “You didn’t tell them you two broke up, did you?”

“We didn’t technically break up.”

“You caught him cheating and dumped his sorry ass. Whatever.”

That time, Justin’s deep sigh was, unfortunately, all too genuine.

“It’s not that simple.”

Elena scoffed. The little sound of disdain sounded a bit too much like one his mother had made earlier for his liking.

“Anyway, that’s not even the worst part,” Justin said quickly in hopes of diverting her wrath. “Guess who my mother invited over for a string of holiday dinners?”

“Who?”

“Elliot Turner.”

“Wait. The Elliot? Your high-school sweetheart?”

“It’s not exactly how I would put it, but, yeah, him.”

“No wonder you’re so worked up,” Elena remarked. “Why would your mom invite your ex?”

“He’s not just my ex.” Justin glanced at the dresser, at the array of photos in slowly tarnishing picture frames. There were some of him and Elliot as well, but he looked away before he could zoom in on them. “He’s our neighbor, and we used to be best friends before…well, before. He’s in town to put his parents’ house up for sale. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Mom’s right. No one should be alone on a holiday so soon after losing their loved ones. And besides, it wasn’t like we had this grand tragic love affair going on. We were kids. I’m sure he already forgot all about it.”

“That sounds like the Justin I know,” Elena said. “Ever so self-deprecating.”

“Stop using all those fancy words on me, English Major. Anyway, it’ll only be for a few days, and then he’ll be back in LA for good. We’ll have a few meaningless, polite conversations around the table and then be back to safely ignoring each other’s existence.”

“I get the feeling it won’t be quite as easy as that,” Elena said gently.

For once, Justin wished she wasn’t as keen in her observations.

 

TALKING ABOUT MARK, even briefly, didn’t fail to sour Justin’s mood even further. He understood very well why the holidays could be so hard for some people. The pressure to be genuinely happy, or even to successfully present a joyous facade when there was so much unresolved heartache hidden inside, could be too much to handle.

All things considered, Justin knew he was incredibly lucky. Lucky to have parents who were loving and accepting of him through his confusing, often painful process of figuring out his identity and coming out for all the world to see. He had all the support he could want, even when his mom and aunt’s best intentions at times got the better of them and felt suffocating instead of uplifting. A lot of people didn’t have that.

Elliot didn’t have that. Justin’s thoughts kept circling back to Elliot now being completely alone. He didn’t have any siblings or any other close relatives who could offer comfort. The Turners hadn’t been quite as unconditionally accepting of Elliot’s sexuality as Justin’s parents had been of his, but they had loved him, and, regardless, their sudden deaths must have been hard on Elliot.

Justin pushed himself off the bed with a groan. That was enough sulking in his bedroom, like the teenager he no longer was.

You can do this. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. Just take a deep breath and pretend everything is fine. How hard can it be?

He wrenched the door open with a little more force than was necessary and nearly collided with Elliot, whose hand was raised as if he was intending to knock at that very moment.

They both took half a step back away from each other. Elliot let his hand drop, regarding him silently. So close, the golden specks in his gray eyes shone like a spattering of pyrite in rock.

To think of all the time he’d wasted chasing after that fool’s gold. Way too much to be fixating on it again.

“Sorry,” Elliot said. “I wanted to speak with you for a minute. May I?”

Justin moved aside, letting him in. The rest of his family was gathered downstairs and out of earshot, but he closed the door again anyway, allowing for some semblance of privacy.

Once, what seemed like ages ago, being alone with Elliot in his room would have sent Justin’s heart racing. Now, it brought a pang of dull ache.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked, aiming for chilly nonchalance, even though every muscle in his body suddenly decided to tense as if bracing for a fight.

Elliot glanced around the room, taking in the posters and the books on the shelves. His gaze lingered on the empty spaces on the walls where Justin used to tack his own artwork.

“Do you still draw?” he asked.

Justin clenched his jaw.

“No.”

There was a truckload of baggage behind that little word, and neither of them seemed inclined to unpack it. Coward. The thought was colored with disdain, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he meant Elliot or himself.

There was an awkward pause. For a few seconds, Elliot looked at him with an expression Justin was hard-pressed to interpret, and then turned away again, focusing on the wall behind him.

“I want to apologize if my presence here comes as an unwelcome surprise. I met your mother by chance, and, well, you know how difficult it is to say no to her when she insists. Not that I didn’t want to come,” he added hastily. “It’s just that I wasn’t sure if you’d be all right with it, considering…everything. Would you like me to leave?”

Justin shook his head. He couldn’t deny that seeing Elliot had put him out of sorts even more than he already was, and he was annoyed he let it upset him quite so much. And he most certainly didn’t want Elliot to be aware of any of the feelings that their meeting had stirred up. As confused as they were, none of them boiled down to anger or resentment. Maybe if he could ignore them hard enough, they’d go away even before Elliot did.

“Of course I don’t want you to leave,” he said. “You might have moved all the way across the country, but you’re still part of the family. You’re always welcome here.”

That came out both too accusatory and too wistful, and Justin clamped his mouth shut.

Thankfully, either Elliot didn’t read quite as much into his statement, or he pretended not to.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Listen, I am very sorry about…what happened. I tried calling you, and—”

Elliot raised his hand, stopping him.

“I know. I’m grateful for the concern, and I’m sorry for not answering. The truth is, I was avoiding you.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

There had always been the possibility, however tiny and far-fetched, that something else prevented Elliot from speaking to him—changing numbers, his email hitting the spam folder, even simply being too preoccupied or grief-stricken to deal with his ex-boyfriend. Hearing Elliot admit he simply didn’t want to talk to him stung much more than Justin thought it would.

“It was all a bit too much, honestly,” Elliot said. He touched the corner of the old dresser by the side of the door, its edges scuffed with years of use. Justin couldn’t tell if he noticed all the old photos still decorating it, or if his mind was wandering somewhere else. “It was such a hectic week at work right before the accident, and then…well. It feels like your life comes to a grinding halt while the world keeps on going around you. You know how it is.”

Justin knew all too well. When his father received his cancer diagnosis, Justin wasn’t the only one to have his life put on hold. His entire family had been affected. Dad was in and out of hospitals with Mom always by his side, and Trish took care of the housework while Justin took over running the Rowel hardware store. But while everybody else eventually moved on, including his father, who was now in remission, Justin had remained in the same spot, treading water, desperately trying to keep the faltering family business afloat.

“It was a lot to take in at once,” Elliot continued. “Frankly, I didn’t want to deal with anyone until I had everything sorted.”

“I understand. So you’re here to sell the house?”

Elliot shrugged. He let go of the dresser and regarded Justin solemnly from behind those fancy glasses.

“It’s already sold. I came here to sort through the personal items and put the rest into storage until I decide what to do with it. I figured I wouldn’t have much use for the house now, with me living in California.”

“Are you seeing anyone?” Justin asked. “Back in LA?”

He didn’t know what prompted the question. Perhaps it had to do with Elliot having to resort to the Rowel hospitality to carry him through the holidays. But surely, Elliot would have been snapped up. He still had that nerdy vibe going on, but now, as he’d matured, it came off as sophisticated and worldly. Not to mention smart, ambitious, and ostensibly successful. Who wouldn’t want a man like that? Justin surely had, for as long as he could remember.

No wonder Justin hadn’t been able to keep him. What could he possibly offer to measure up to someone like that?

Elliot gave him one of those strange looks again. There’d been a time when Justin could tell exactly what Elliot was thinking just by the quirk of his mouth and the spark of laughter in his eyes. Now, he might as well have been talking to a complete stranger.

Five years were, apparently, long enough to change a person. For Justin, they’d felt like a lifetime, and it hadn’t been a happy one.

“I’m not in a relationship at the moment,” Elliot said finally, making Justin wonder at the careful, almost formal wording. “And you?”

There was no way Justin was going to explain the whole Mark situation to Elliot, especially after taking such pains to avoid talking about it to his family.

“It’s…complicated,” he said. The awkward reply reminded him uncomfortably of his earlier excuses to Elena.

“I see.”

It was anyone’s guess as to what Elliot was seeing. Justin sure as hell didn’t see anything clearly.

“So, we’re okay?” Elliot asked when it became clear Justin wasn’t going to elaborate.

“Sure,” Justin said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”