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But it was impossible to hate him. It would be like hating sunny days, or chocolate, or puppies. He was just this amazingly kind, considerate, genuinely good human being, and I felt lucky to be his friend.
I murmured a thank you and took a sip of whiskey before asking, “Who else knows I’m here?”
“No one. I saw your cab pull up while everyone else was deeply involved in a game of charades, and when you didn’t come in right away I figured you needed a little time to get yourself together. Meanwhile, Kel and Lark have been in the kitchen for the last three hours. They’re in charge of dinner tonight and refuse to accept help from anyone, including Dylan. That’s really a shame, because Lark’s boyfriend is an excellent cook. From the shrieks and crashes I’ve heard coming from the kitchen, I think dinner’s totally gone off the rails.”
“At what point do we try to intervene?”
“I don’t think we can, not without hurting their feelings,” he said, as I finished my drink. “Eventually they’ll either emerge triumphantly with something edible, or they’ll admit defeat and order pizza. It might take another three hours, but they’ll get there.”
I fished through my carry-on, then handed Noah a protein bar and got one for myself. “Thanks,” he said, “I was starving.” He tore off the wrapper and ate it in three bites before asking, “So, just how big a disaster was your visit with your parents?”
“It was off the charts. We’re talking the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic during a tsunami.”
He smiled, but there was sympathy in his eyes as he said, “That good, huh?”
“I had a huge argument with my parents. I’d asked my mother to promise she wouldn’t set me up with any more of her friends’ daughters, but this morning at brunch she totally ambushed me. I held it together until we got back home, but then I accidentally got a little loud when I reminded her of her promise. That, of course, totally set off both my parents, because how dare I raise my voice to my mother?”
“Damn.”
“Then they started this long-winded spiel about how it’s time to settle down since I’m almost thirty, and how important it was to marry a girl from a good family, and on and on.”
“You’re only twenty-eight.”
“Right, but god forbid they’d clutter up their lecture with facts.” I sighed and added, “You know the worst part, though? I had the perfect opportunity to come out. It was right there, staring me in the face. I could have calmly told them I was gay, and that would have ended the entire debate about setting me up with their friends’ daughters once and for all. But I chickened out, for about the thousandth time. I’m so mad at myself.”
Noah squeezed my shoulder and said, “You shouldn’t beat yourself up. Like you told me before, coming out will probably end your relationship with your dad, and you don’t take that lightly.”
“I wish I didn’t care about that, especially since our relationship is pretty awful. All my life, I’ve felt like I needed to earn his love. I know that’s wrong and that it should be unconditional, but here I am, still trying, even as an adult.”
A tear tumbled down my cheek, and I swore under my breath and quickly ducked my head so Noah wouldn’t see. It was too late, though. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and said, “It’s okay, Sonny. Let it out.” It was odd to hear him use Kel’s nickname for me, but it was nice, too—comforting, somehow.
I shook my head and wiped the tear away with the back of my hand. “It’s bad enough that I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself,” I muttered. “I’m not going to cry about it, too.”
“Suit yourself. But if you did, I obviously wouldn’t judge you for it.”
I wrapped the blanket around myself more securely when he removed his arm, and we both just sat there for a while. Even though I was facing away from the Victorian, I could see its Christmas lights reflected in the glossy, black Nissan parked at the curb. Finally, I said, “You know the worst part of all of this? Knowing I let Kel down, yet again.”
“How do you think you let him down?”
“By letting another opportunity to come out pass me by. He’s put up with so much shit from me in the nearly two years we’ve been together—keeping our relationship a secret, not being able to include him in work and family events, it goes on and on. Why does he put up with me?”
“Because he truly cares about you.”
“He could do so much better.”
“You’re a great guy, Hudson, and Kel knows it,” he said. “The fact that you’ve been struggling with some stuff doesn’t change that.”
It seemed ridiculous to keep arguing with him about how much I sucked, so instead I got up with a wince. My short-lived football career had left me with a bum knee and two bad ankles, and they’d all stiffened up on the flight back from Illinois. I stretched carefully as I said, “We should go inside. I think I’m ready to stick a smile on my face and not suck all the joy out of the room.” That sympathetic look returned to his eyes, but Noah nodded. Then he grabbed my empty glass and one of my suitcases before accompanying me up the stairs.
When we got inside, it was exactly as I’d expected. The living room was packed, and Yolanda and JoJo, the house’s landladies, were obliterating the competition in a lively game of Pictionary. I left my luggage and the blanket in the foyer and lingered in the doorway, and after a chorus of greetings, someone stuck a glass of eggnog in my hand.
A moment later, there was a gentle touch on my lower back. I turned to look at Noah, who leaned in so I could hear him over the ruckus and told me, “I brought you a chair from upstairs, because it looked like your knee was bothering you.” He really was incredibly thoughtful, and I told him I appreciated it before taking a seat.
A few minutes later, Kel and Lark emerged from the kitchen. They were sweaty and disheveled, and their aprons looked like there’d been some sort of explosion. Both of them were carrying trays lined with mismatched mugs, each of which had a fork sticking from it.
“I’m sorry to report tonight’s dinner attempt failed spectacularly,” Kel announced, as he and his friend circulated so everyone could grab a mug. “We’ve ordered pizza, and it should be here soon. In the meantime, here’s what we salvaged from our three-dimensional white lasagna snowman. We were going for a winter wonderland theme with dinner, but it didn’t work out.” His face lit up when he turned toward the doorway, and he exclaimed, “Sonny, you’re early! I didn’t think you’d be getting here for another hour.”
“I got lucky with stand-by on an earlier flight.”
