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“I’mglad we’re doing this again.”
Peyton’s head snapped up from where he was staring at the food on his plate. They were at a little Korean barbeque place, which made Peyton wonder if Austin thought he was Korean. He didn’t necessarily mind because in spite of the fact that the date was killing his appetite, the food was amazing.
He pushed a little bundle of enoki mushrooms through a thick drizzle of black bean sauce, but didn’t take a bite. “It’s good.”
“I fucked up again, didn’t I?” Austin asked.
Peyton let out a tiny sigh and glanced up at him. He felt a little bit like a hypocrite because he did that all the time—seeking validation out of fear that he wasn’t making people happy with how hard he tried. But the tone in Austin’s voice crept under his skin and sat there, uncomfortable and itchy.
“This is fine,” he finally said.
Austin shook his head and leaned on his elbow, tipping his head closer. “I didn’t choose this place because you’re Asian.”
Peyton blinked at him, not sure if he should be annoyed or not. Either Austin was perceptive, or he’d known what Peyton was going to think.
“This is my favorite spot. It got me through my divorce,” Austin went on. He reached for his glass—a tall draft beer that still had a ton of foam—and sipped on it. He swiped a thumb over his top lip and Peyton noticed that he wore a delicate, thin band on his middle finger. “I begged my ex for weeks—hell, months,” Austin corrected with a bitter laugh, “to try counseling before we just signed the papers and called it a day. But he was such a stubborn asshole and it made me feel like I wasn’t worthy of a fight.”
In spite of himself, Peyton found himself softening. “I’m sorry.”
Austin shrugged. “It’s fine. I mean, in the end, it was for the best. It’s just hard to see that in the thick of it, you know?”
Peyton knew—sort of. He’d never been in love like that before. Not enough to get married and commit himself to someone. But Austin was the second person he’d met in the last few weeks who’d been through it. Of course, Hudson’s story was a little worse than that. It was harsh and full of all the cruelties that terrified Peyton about getting back into the dating world now that his body was…different.
And the idea that not even a spouse would stick by someone when the worst happened?
He couldn’t get a good enough read on Austin to tell whether or not the guy would run or stay, but he was leaning toward the latter. His screen name was MarriageMan after all.
But his meal was sitting heavy in his gut because of that too. He still hadn’t told Austin about his disease, or his stoma, or his surgery.
But it was time, he realized. He didn’t want to go on a third date without at least seeing the look on Austin’s face.
“I’ve never been in a serious relationship before,” Peyton admitted, setting his chopsticks down. There was no chance in hell he was eating now, but if this went badly, he could pack all the food up and share it with Linden while his brother swore vengeance against Peyton’s bad date.
Or…maybe he could take it to Hudson and…
“You know that’s not really a turn off in spite of what a lot of people say, right?” Austin’s voice cut through Peyton’s thoughts, and he blinked rapidly for a second.
“No, I know. I mean, that’s not what um…what I was getting at.” He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders. “By the time my business was successful enough that I had time to date, I uh…I got sick.”
He saw the way Austin pulled back just slightly, but otherwise his face was open and patient. “What happened?”
Peyton took a breath and glanced away. “Nothing catching. Or terminal. It’s not,” he stopped and laughed because it wasn’t exactly easy to talk about this thing that everyone saw as the shitting-your-pants disease. Which yeah, that was fair. He didn’t know anyone with a diagnosis who hadn’t been come at least close to it.
But it was so much more.
It was the fatigue, and the body aches, and the scarring. It was the cold sores that made eating hell, and the pain in his guts that was with him every waking second. It was the medication that made him swell up and lose the sight of the body he once had. It was never, ever feeling like he had control and knowing there was no cure—there was only management.
And then there was that choice he was given which, in the end, was no real choice at all.
“Peyton?”
He bit his lip and looked back at Austin. “I have Crohn’s.”
Austin’s brow furrowed before his eyes went wide with realization. No doubt he’d known some gut-health warrior on Instagram who claimed they’d healed their body with oils and salts and exercise or whatever. Peyton was plagued by them constantly. Every time he tagged his disease on social media, some rando would end up in his DMs touting their CBD MLM promising to cure him.
Right then, Peyton could see the war on Austin’s face as he waited for him to speak. It was clear Austin couldn’t tell if it was serious or just something kind of…gross.
“At first, it was just pain. Then fatigue,” Peyton went on, putting the man out of his misery. “It was being managed by medication for a while, but it just kept getting worse, no matter what I did. Then I had scar tissue build up so badly I almost died.”
