The waitress returns with our dinners, laying out sides and sauces and plates across our table.
“Miss? Thank you so much for your service. It has been wonderful. My friend and I need to discuss some business. Could I bother you for some privacy for the next, oh, thirty minutes?” I see Alexei slip the young woman a bill.
“Oh, er, yes. Of course. I'll just, um, be back in half an hour?”
“That would be perfect.”
She walks away, leaving us alone.
“That'llbe all over the papers tomorrow.”
“You worry too much about what will be in the papers.”
“I think I worry exactly the right amount about what will be in the papers.”
“Psh. I'll thank you at the end of dinner for talking through my options with me. The papers will think we were discussing an offer and by New Year’s Greg will be calling my agent with a higher number for my contract extension.”
I laugh at this.
“Ethan, people see what they want to see.”
Unsure of how to respond to that, I pick up my silverware and begin to dig in, grabbing some asparagus with hollandaise from the plate in the middle of the table.
“The person you are dating...are they worried about the papers, too?”
I chew, trying to decide how to respond. Yes? No? Not nearly as much as they should be?
“It's...complicated.”
Alexei's eyes hold my own and I feel the sweat on the back of my neck again.
“It's...they're...it's a man, Alexei.”
He nods, holding my gaze and remaining silent.
“I'm, uh, I'm gay.”
A smile breaks across his face and his hand reaches out to grab mine.
“Thank you so much for telling me, Ethan.”
From the time I was ten, I wondered what would happen if I ever gave in and said those words. I've pictured what would happen if I ever said those words – tearful thanks were not on the list.
“Thank you for letting me know I could.”
I realize that's exactly what he's done this year. From his warm welcome for Jamie to his refusal to use a gender-specific pronoun in this conversation.
“I've...I've been trying to let you know for a while, Ethan. For years.”
“For...years? Have I been that obvious?” My heart starts to race, wondering who else might suspect.
“No, Ethan. Not obvious at all. But you and I...we are more than friends. We are brothers. We are with one another for seven months straight, living on top of each other during the season, and then everyone else goes away and we have five more during the off-season. I've known for a long time that you are unhappy, unfulfilled.”
He's not wrong. There's been a hole in my life for a long time, but I somehow only saw the size of it this year.
He looks at me hesitantly, as though he's unsure of whether to continue or not.
“Then one year, in Phoenix, we stayed in that godawful hotel that wouldn't let us smoke in the rooms.”
