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Everything. “If you liked him.” He shrugged.
“I liked him,” Phillip said, and before David could do something with that, he added, “I liked him because he was my friend. He listened to me. He understood what I was going through.”
“Who?” David said quietly.
“His brother. Back in 1998. He’d been out with friends, said good night outside a bar, saying he was going to walk home. He never made it. They never found him. No leads, it was just as if he’d vanished without a trace. It’s been cold for a very long time.”
David hadn’t known that. He didn’t know if it would have changed anything, but he hadn’t known that about Keith. Hadn’t known that at all.
“So yes, maybe even I wanted to like him,” Phillip said, cutting a potato. “Maybe I thought I could, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, neat as you please, but that was it.”
“Okay,” David said.
“Okay,” Phillip snapped. “That’s it? Just okay.”
“It’s—”
“How is everything?” Melissa asked, and David didn’t even flinch this time. “The swordfish?”
“It’s fine,” Phillip said. “Everything is wonderful.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“I’ll have another glass of—”
“On it,” she said, not even letting him finish. She looked at David. “And you, sir?”
He wanted to tell her to take his plate away, to just trash it all, but he shook his head.
She left.
“What about you?” Phillip asked. “Are you—”
“No,” David said. “No. You know me. I don’t… do well. Like that.”
Phillip glanced down at the receipt pointedly.
“That’s not anything,” David said, embarrassed. “He probably just had a daddy kink or something.”
Phillip choked on a potato.
David felt oddly proud of himself.
Phillip coughed, turning a little red.
David waited.
“Jesus,” Phillip gasped. “You can’t just say that.”
David fought to keep the smile off his face. “Look at me. Look at him. He wanted to be my baby boy.”
“Oh my God,” Phillip said faintly. “That’s amazing. You have to call him now. Just to see what would happen.”
“Please,” David said. “He’d want to stay out late, dancing and drinking, and you know me.”
“Pajamas by six,” Phillip said.
“Pajamas by six,” David agreed. “Probably not very compatible.”
