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It made Marcus remember what Julie had said, when she'd found out Thomas was gone for good. She'd sat next to Marcus on the edge of her stage that was set up for the evening's presentation by some as yet unknown playwright.
Marcus didn't know why he expected something normal, the usual empty platitudes. He'd even steeled himself for them, but then she looked steadily at him a moment and said, "You fucking dumbass. Why aren't you going after him, hauling his butt back here? He's the one for you, Marcus. He was it. You've got to get him back, okay? Because you're only going to be half of you without him. "
* * * * *
When they got to the nightclub in Connecticut, Julie was waiting. She went right for Thomas and pulled him down to her for a hug while Marcus went to park the car. "Hi, Thomas," she said softly, holding him. "It's so good to see you. " It twisted Thomas' heart in his chest, the unqualified acceptance. She pressed her face into his neck. "I've missed you. He's missed you, dammit. So much. Where did you go? Have you told him you missed him?"
"Yeah. " In a way.
As if she heard his thought, she held him tighter. "Have you told him you missed him? With your mouth? Not just your penis?"
Thomas grinned despite the squeezing pain the words caused. "Aren't you ever going to learn tact?"
"Tried that once when I was eight. It didn't work for me. " Marcus was coming across the parking lot. Thomas saw a man completely in control, the Maserati in the background, his mouth firm and sensual, hair loose on his shoulders, body moving with a grace that fairly screamed how good he was at sex.
Julie sighed. "You know, I see him every day, and I still can't keep from drooling.
He could just walk up and down the street and people would throw money at him all day long just to look at him. Do you think you'd doubt his love if he looked like me?"
"What?" Thomas pulled his attention away to give her a startled look.
"When you love someone, you tell them. Unless you're afraid they don't feel the same way. You and Marcus were together, how long, and neither of you ever said it?"
"He did. Recently. " Thomas stopped, pressed his lips together.
"So the problem is you. " Julie's eyes twinkled, but her mouth remained serious.
"What I'm saying is, what if he looked like me, an ordinary, average-looking person who has bills and a toilet that needs fixing? Who, like most of us, starts each morning thinking, 'can I get out of bed and do all this without totally fucking up?'
"Who fights with vanity pounds, looks at the gray sneaking into her hair and thinks, 'God, I'm only thirty-four. '" She nodded toward Marcus. "He may look like someone who stepped out of the pages of some romance novel, but he's real, Thomas.
So real that when you put the fantasy and the reality together, you have this fascinating, complex person with a lot of layers, which makes him good at burying the things you don't want to see. "
"You've thought a lot about this. " It made him uncomfortable, to hear an echo of Walter's observation in her own.
"The two of you matter. A lot of us don't get the chance at what you have. " Thomas looked away. "Your toilet needs fixing?"
Making a face at him, she pinched his arm hard enough to make him wince and shoot her a narrow glance. "Yeah, Mr. Avoid-the-Issue. That one crossing the parking lot is useless when it comes to plumbing. But I let him tinker with it awhile just to watch him bend over and wear a T-shirt. " She pushed away from him as Marcus made it to the curb.
"I can't believe you wasted one of your hugs on this riffraff. Are you trying to convince him to feel sorry for you and come fix your toilet?"
"Well, since your firm ass isn't getting him to stay, I figured maybe the offer of being up to his elbows in sewage would. "
Thomas noticed she softened the words by putting her arms around Marcus and giving him an equally generous hug. It tugged at his heart painfully again, the reminder of the life he'd left when he left Marcus. He'd spent over a year in North Carolina convincing himself he'd never fit in New York, that there'd been a lot of moments he'd been homesick. Yet with one hug, Julie had reminded him he'd also found a place there.
Pushing those thoughts away, Thomas followed Julie's gesture toward a woman approaching from a separate part of the parking lot. She wore a simple black cocktail dress, more suited for a country club than the nightclub scene, and her brown hair was pulled back from a too-thin face. She hesitated as she was passed by two fairly demonstrative couples. The men were joking and making passes at each other. At her nervous glance, one of them called out, "You lost your way to your bridge club, sweetie?"
"Ellen. " Julie waved her over and linked their arms. "Ellen, Marcus and Thomas.
M&T, Ellen. Let's go dance our asses off. And since I've got a lot of ass," she wiggled it for emphasis, "that's going to be a lot of dancing. "
"Julie, are you sure? That man who just passed me, he wasn't being very nice. . . "
"He was just being catty," Marcus assured her. "If he bothers you again, Thomas will bitch-slap him and send him home crying. "
Ellen managed a small smile. Julie hugged her shoulders, giving both men a significant glance. "C'mon, sweetie. Let's go have some fun. "
* * * * *
