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Thomas reached for coffee that wasn't there anymore, scowled as he glanced over his shoulder to watch Marcus walk out the door. Along with every other person with a pulse in the cafe.
"Someday he is going to get old and ugly. "
"Let's hope so," Andrew observed. "Too many of us who look like that, don't. Get old, that is. "
Thomas turned his attention back to his two companions. Ben had his arm casually hooked on the back of Andrew's chair as he leaned back. Demonstrating the ease of lovers who'd been with each other long enough that the close proximity was as simple as breathing. Thomas took a swallow of the tea the waitress brought him to cover the burning ache that thought created. Jesus, he couldn't do this. He was having enough problems just being around Marcus, and he hadn't completed a full twenty-four hours yet.
"How long have you two been together?"
Thomas poked the tea bag deeper into the cup with Ben's unused straw and swirled it around, hoping to get a flavor closer to the strength of coffee. "We're. . . not really. I mean, we used to be, but it's not that way anymore. " Trying to assume a nonchalant attitude, he shrugged. "I'm up for the week to do some work at Marcus' place. That's all. "
Thomas took another swallow of his tea. Damn if it wasn't settling his stomach down. Sure as hell he couldn't drink it around Rory, though. It would kick off a whole new set of homo jokes.
He was usually the nurturing one. Marcus knew how to dress him up, handle certain things, but Thomas had added warm, more personal accents to his penthouse.
Made Marcus get off the phone at least by one in the morning and get a decent night's sleep. He'd liked cooking Marcus breakfast before he went to the gallery. For some odd reason, Marcus always seemed disproportionately gratified and fascinated by the domestic touches, as if they moved something inside him.
It came so easily to Thomas, the desire to take care of Marcus, even though Marcus seemed the last person in the world who needed someone to do so. Maybe that was why it felt so. . . good, the way Marcus reacted to it. Now Thomas sourly wondered if he'd mistaken gratitude for suppressed amusement, a sophisticated lover's fascination with the provincial quirks of his bedmate.
Jesus, was there anything he wasn't going to question about every moment they'd had?
He looked up to find Andrew studying him with narrowed eyes and Ben grinning from ear to ear. "What?"
"I'm willing to bet everything you just said was technically, factually correct, and all of it was total bullshit. We've been together fifteen years. " Ben glanced over at Andrew with obvious fondness in his gaze. "And it's been tough. Particularly the first years, when you're still dealing with issues of individual identity, just like most couples. Pride. Then there's family, God help us all. "
"Where are you from? There's mint julep in your voice. " Andrew handed him the slice of lemon from the sweet tea he'd ordered and Thomas accepted it with relief, squeezing it liberally into the tea.
"North Carolina. My family runs a hardware store down there. "
"It's good to know the giants haven't driven them all out of business," Ben put in.
"He says that, but try to get him out of Home Depot in under three hours. He'd live there if they let him," Andrew teased.
"We live in a pretty rural area. That's where the small stores can still make it. And if we don't have it, there's a bigger chain store about an hour or so away. "
"You grew up there? In the sticks? That couldn't have been easy. How did you get here?"
"He means how in the hell did you and Marcus ever run into each other?"
"I'm an artist. " It had been a while since Thomas had said that, and it was like taking a clean breath of fresh air. He paused a moment, feeling it. "I had a teacher in high school that sent some of my work to friends in New York. When I graduated, they encouraged me to come up and enter an art school there. I started showing my work in a small co-op. That's where I ran into Marcus. He runs a gallery. "
"But. . . it sounds like you're back in the sticks, based on what you said. " Andrew frowned. "Did it not work out?"
Thomas lifted a shoulder. "My family needed me. Health issues, death in the family. "
No, it didn't work out. . . I'm an artist. . . The words mocked him, as did the memory of the store's paint display. Why don't you do a nice mural, show them what you can do with color? You're so good with color. . . I remember when he painted a princess on a unicorn on the wall of Celeste's bedroom when he was eleven. Everyone thought it came from one of those stencil packets. . .
What was his mother doing now? Sitting in church, praying, lighting candles for his endangered soul while he sat here enjoying a day at the beach? Was Celeste trying to put on a brave face and counting the minutes until she could go back to school as Rory rolled around in his perpetual cloud of bitterness? Watching his friends hoot and holler their way down the road on Friday nights in their souped-up cars, while their mother went to bed holding their father's picture?
The forested surroundings of the Berkshires and the dotting of farmhouses he'd seen as they headed to the beach and the city had reminded him somewhat of home
.
But North Carolina was more open, the country area more. . . country.
When Thomas kept the woodstove going in the winter in the shop, the men would congregate in the morning, drinking the complimentary black coffee, analyzing weather, hunting, fishing. . . It was a life he'd never fit with, but it didn't mean he wasn't a part of it, the blood of that world running through his veins, giving him his foundation.
"No," he said at last. "It didn't work out. "
