The Halloween Surprise

by Seth King

  He smiles back.

  “And let me tell you something else. I know I’ve never…done this before, with a guy, so you have your reservations. And I don’t even pretend to know how we would go about this. But if we somehow end up together, if this really works out, I will never hide you or conceal you or try to lie about what we’re doing together. That’s a promise. So will you come back home with me, not as a roommate, but as…something more?”

  “Something more?” he gulps.

  “Yes,” I say, rubbing his chin. “Come back home as…mine. Just…mine. And then we can figure it out from there, as we go along. But that’s all I want. I want to make a try for it. Do you want that, too?”

  He reaches up, wraps his hand around my knuckle, and closes his eyes.

  “I have no idea what the fuck I’m saying, but…”

  My heart pounds. He opens his eyes again, then stares directly into mine.

  “Take me home, Harry.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, smiling back, and he nods.

  “Yeah.”

  And so that’s what I do.

  I take him all the way home.

  Epilogue

  Almost One Month Later

  Thanksgiving Day

  Josh Nash

  “Relax. My mom is going to love you!”

  Outside my mom’s front door, Harry picks at the flowers he got her, even though he’s already pruned them to the point where there are no more leaves left on the stems.

  “Sorry, I just want to make a good impression. She must be so confused. It’s barely been a month and I’m showing up to your family’s Thanksgiving, I’m sure I look like a lunatic…”

  “No, you look like James Bond in this suit jacket. And who cares that it was quick? At least you’ll show your fucking face in public with me, unlike my last guy…”

  “Please don’t mention him. I’ll get jealous, and then I’ll have to fuck you to prove to you that you’re mine, and that would be quite awkward at your mum’s house.”

  “Sorry, noted. But thanks again for coming, I can’t believe you’re already so open with me…”

  “Already told ya,” he says, adjusting his jacket. “If I do something, I do it. No angst required. I’m excited to meet her, actually.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes go a little soft. “Because I want to see someone else love you through their eyes.”

  Well, then.

  I ring the doorbell again. I could just walk in, of course, but since she’s never met Harry, I don’t want to just barge in with a stranger. I’m already nervous about this in general, actually, and not just because of Harry.

  Thanksgiving is late this year, and regrettably it happened to fall on the date of my brother’s death. Everyone in my family is a mess on this day, every single year, still, and so I swore to my mom it would be okay if we canceled dinner and forgot about the whole thing. But as a Southern hostess, she was horrified and dismissed the idea, saying she’d just try her hardest to go about the day like everything was normal. I have my suspicions that she’s not okay, though, and that today could go south very easily…

  And I wouldn’t blame her at all, but still…

  I rest a finger in Harry’s pants pocket, something I’ve been doing lately. He smiles at me and kisses my forehead. I look up at the foliage in her front yard and sigh – my mom’s maple tree is exploding in crimson and gold and ocher, and right now everything in my life feels perfect.

  “I’m sorry, again, that your father chose not to come,” he says, and I come back down to Earth.

  “Harry! I told you. I’m fine with it now. I decided I’d rather just have nothing at all than have some fake relationship with him, on his terms, where I wouldn’t be able to talk about my life, because he didn’t approve of it.”

  “I can understand that. But still, his loss.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool, I promise. It is what it is. And-”

  Before I can finish, my mom throws open the door.

  We both freeze.

  My mom looks from me, over to Harry.

  And then back at me.

  And then back at Harry.

  “Oh,” she says faintly. “Well…oh.”

  “Harry Young,” he says, holding out a hand, but she just stares at him. For a moment I am terrified we are about to face a racist moment, since my mother is from rural Georgia and has been known to make a colorful comment here or there – so I try desperately to move things along.

  “Um. Mom! This is Harry! The guy I’ve been talking about. Remember?”

  Finally her lips part. “Of…of course I do. I just didn’t know he was…”

  Oh, no.

  No, no, no.

  Please don’t say it.

  Please do not mention the fact that he is not white.

  I will literally walk into the neighbor’s pool and drown myself.

  Please, anything but that.

  “…Yes?” I ask, mortified.

  “A freaking movie star!” she finally cries, throwing her arms around him in a hug and making me breathe the most relieved sigh of my life. “Jesus, Josh, you should’ve mentioned that you’d landed a perfect ten! Come on in, handsome, I made my famous pumpkin pie!”

  ~

  It wasn’t easy at first. Between Harry and me, I mean. The first day we came home together, I didn’t quite know exactly how to act – was I a roommate, a hookup, a partner, a boyfriend? We had a few awkward hours, and then he walked up to me and pulled down my shorts and sucked my dick, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.

  Ever since then, we don’t really leave bed much. It’s hard, when we have so much lost time to make up for….

  After the few initial speedbumps, time just started melting together. Looking back, I can’t even really remember what it was like before my life was like this. And I don’t want to, either.

  Slowly we are settling into a rhythm: we wake up together, I do my duty as his paramour and give him a blowjob, and then we set about our daily life. At night we jog together or watch Netflix or MSNBC, and then we have disgusting sex all over the apartment. He was so instantly open to the whole “entering the queer world” thing, he even takes me on dates, and has even started hanging out with some of my friends.

  I never really knew I could be this happy; that I could wake up every day next to someone who was my best friend. But it’s all him. I never knew how high I could fly until he wrapped his arms around me and picked me up; I never realized how deeply I could breathe until he walked into my life and made me realize I’d been holding my breath.

  And no, Ryan will still not stay away from him.

  And no, I usually don’t mind a bit, because Ryan’s hapless advances are hilarious every time.

  Harry’s family doesn’t know yet, which I completely understand. He says they will be accepting, but the transition will be rocky, and he asked me for time. He told me they have a very particular idea about who he is, and that this will shake them. But considering that after twenty-two years, my relationship with my own father has never gotten anywhere beyond “rocky,” I totally get it, and would never rush him.

  Of course, Corey’s fantasy about “becoming straight and getting engaged” was a farce, and he broke it off with the girlfriend after two weeks and started texting me again. But for the first time ever, I didn’t let him come back. I had a heartfelt conversation with him about the importance of living an honest life, gave him the email address of a really good therapist for queer people, and then went radio silent on him.

  Because I have Harry now. And why would I ever want anyone else?

  We all talk and chat in the kitchen as we wait for people to arrive, and Harry is unfailingly polite to my mom, of course. Ryan soaks up most of the conversation, anyway, trying to figure out if burgundy is an autumn color or not, since they’re currently in a deep-red jumper.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I ask, reaching for the sweet potato casserole to grab a bite of the crust while my mom is bus
y at the sink. “Look outside. Look at the leaves.”

  “Yeah, but it’s so closely associated with Santa and Christmas,” Ryan whines. Ryan is barely welcome at their family gatherings anymore, but my mom texted them that our door will always be open, any holiday of the year – and Ryan hasn’t gone back home since. “I don’t know, I wanted to look Thanksgiving-esque, but I feel like I jumped a holiday, right?”

  “I think you look great,” Harry interrupts. “And very on-trend, trust me. I just walked by H&M with Josh the other day, and the windows were full of that very color.”

  “Aw,” Ryan blushes. “Wanna make out?”

  Everyone laughs like Ryan is joking, but I just roll my eyes.

  “Hey, I’m kidding!” Ryan says. “And I’m not even that single. I’ve got some news, speaking of that. Remember that guy you introduced me to on Halloween, Josh? We’ve got our third date tomorrow night.”

  “What?! You never told me you were even hanging out!” I cry.

  “Sorry,” Ryan shrugs. “What can I say? A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.”

  Harry gets back to talking to my mom, about the differences between American and British cooking. (Every British dinner he’s made for me so far has been some variation of chicken pot pie, just with different ingredients, but I’ve tried to fake enthusiasm regardless.)

  My mom shows Harry all the Southern holiday dishes she’s made. From sweet potato casserole to apple crunch to green bean casserole to ambrosia, he has never heard of a single one of them, which she finds endlessly fascinating and hilarious.

  Harry’s only awkward moment comes when my mom suddenly asks the most dreaded “gay question” of all:

  “So, how did you two meet, anyway?”

  Harry meets my eyes, then glances away.

  This question is uncomfortable in general, since in my mom’s generation, people met on actual dates, and she doesn’t understand that today most gay men meet on trashy hookup apps or while swiping away on Tinder. But how could I explain the roommate aspect, too? My mom never visited me while Harry was home, and I’ve kept her away since we’ve been together, so she doesn’t know the whole bizarre backstory. How would I explain that part of it?

  Thankfully, though, Harry finally answers for me.

  “So. You could say I was aware of Joshua,” he says judiciously, “and I had my eye on him for some time. But he was wrapping up a previous relationship, as you know, and things just had to run their course. The first real conversation we had was at a drag queen beauty pageant, where we cheered on Ryan from the crowd – and from then on, I guess you could say we were off to the races.”

  She narrows her eyes again, trying to understand the vagueness. Finally she just throws up her hands.

  “You know what I always say, to each their own. Come on, it’s supper time soon, y’all! Start getting the table ready!”

  Harry Young

  The whole “meeting the family” thing isn’t quite as awkward as I’d imagined, but then again I had no idea what to imagine at all. I’m meeting a guy’s family for the first time. As his lover. Oh, well – first time for everything, right?

  I was nervous as all hell, but not because of the gay thing – I just wanted Joshua’s mum to like me. I know I can come off as a bit aloof, so I wanted to make sure I made a good impression – and after that weird initial meeting at the door, I think I’m doing pretty well. Hopefully, at least.

  Because Joshua is pretty much all that matters to me now.

  Going from roommates to lovers was easy for me. (Let’s just say that for probably the first time in my life, I’ve found someone whose libido surpasses mine.) But as soon as I saw his ex-boyfriend almost take him back (in my mind, at least), I decided he was mine – and that was that.

  The harder part was…well, I guess you could call it the gender thing. My parents were very traditional, and my father was always in charge – and I guess I took that in, mentally speaking. So with women, I was always the decider, the “alpha,” as dumb as that sounds. That was just how gender dynamics were presented to me, so it’s all I knew.

  Now that I’m with another guy, everything kind of flipped, and for the first time in my life I had to cede some control to someone. Now, things like paying the check or opening a door or deciding who will drive the car are all 50/50 decisions, instead of me just leading the way the whole time.

  And it’s making me a better person all the time. For the first time, someone is challenging me and questioning me. I was a total control freak all along, and had no idea. And you know what? I needed this.

  I needed him.

  And the prostate vibrator he gave me for my birthday last week? I needed that, too. I just didn’t know any of it.

  I haven’t told my family, mostly because I don’t care about their reaction. My dad has evolved since a few decades ago, and his issues won’t be necessarily homophobic. They will just be narcissistic. They won’t care as much about my sexuality; they’ll just care about how it will look to their fancy society friends. But oh well, this is my life now, and they’ll deal with it or they won’t. Either way, I don’t plan on changing course anytime soon.

  Some of my male friends have asked me where I’ve been, and I told each and every one of them that I’ve been with my boyfriend. A few of them sputtered and stared. One of them excused himself to the bathroom and didn’t come back. Most were sort of politely confused, and distantly supportive at the same time. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, though. Josh is still a fun time, every time, and until that changes – why should I seek the approval of people I didn’t really like before, anyway? Wherever you go, there you are – and right now, I am fine with being exactly where I am.

  I never knew things could be like this. I never knew I could have “my person,” someone I could sit on the couch at night with and tell things to, and then do fun stuff with after that. I wish, very much, that I would have found him sooner. Or, rather, realized that he was right down the hall from me all along.

  As we stand in the kitchen, I decide I need him – I need to touch him. I need to smell him. I need to feel that aloneness I feel back at home with him.

  “Joshua, would you mind showing me the restroom?”

  “Oh, it’s right around the-”

  I raise an eyebrow. He reads me immediately. “Oh. Sure. Here, I’ll show you where it is.”

  I’ve slammed him against the wall before we’ve even closed the door. Yes, this is what I needed – fuck. I can’t get enough, actually.

  “Thank you for doing this,” he says after we come up for air.

  “Don’t thank me. I’m having a great time. Hey, it’s actually my first American Thanksgiving!”

  “I’m sorry it took you so long. The food will change your life. My mom is a bit out there, but she can cook like her life depends on it. Old Southern family recipes, you know. And hey, I gave you your first gay Halloween, and your first Thanksgiving, all within about a month!”

  “Best month ever, handsome. And is your mum okay today, you know, with everything?”

  He looks off at nothing. “Hard to tell, but I think so.”

  “Good. I know today is hard. If you need anything at all…”

  “Hey, stop. I’m fine. I have you. That’s enough for now. Just give me one more kiss, okay?”

  The kiss I give him ends up lasting so long, an impatient cousin knocks on the door to rush me out, and Joshua has no choice but to escape through a side door into the guest room.

  Josh Nash

  At Thanksgiving dinner (or “supper,” as my mom calls it), I look around and smile to myself – everyone I love is at this table. My mom, Harry, my Aunt Susan, her two daughters, and Ryan. My dad is not invited, because he tolerates my sexuality at best, and cannot be trusted not to make rude comments. He wouldn’t have sat at a table with Harry even if asked, probably.

  But the older I get, the more I realize that family isn’t who you’re born with – it’s who chooses
to stick around.

  My mom asks us all to hold hands to say the blessing, which isn’t hard for me, since I’ve already been playing around with Harry’s long fingers under the tablecloth, anyway.

  “Dear God,” she begins. “So. Every year on this day we come together to thank you for what we have, and also to, you know, look back on what we lost, too. And I guess today, the word ‘loss’ has a very different meaning…”

  My eyes are open, and I see her glance over at the chair and plate we left open for Martin. The truth is that when someone in your family dies, that void in your clan will never be filled. It will never, ever be the same. It just won’t. You just have to learn to deal with the new hole in your world, and try not to fall into it, and try to look back fondly on what was once there. There is nothing else to do.

  But still, ugh. It sucks, even now. Even after all these years.

  I want to get up and hug her, but I resist. It would make her cry if I touched her right now, since I look so much like Martin and everything and it just reminds her of him, and that would just complicate things. So I just stay where I am, sending love through the air instead.

  “Anyway,” she says, closing her eyes again. “Thank you for the memories we had with him, God. I will never understand why it happened, and why he left. But I guess the thing about life is that you never know who’s sticking around, who’s leaving, and who’s right about to walk through the door. So thank you for the thirteen years of Martin Nash. I will never forget them.” Then she really kills me by quoting Martin’s favorite song, Good Riddance by Green Day. “For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.”

  Harry squeezes my hand extra hard. In my head, I see myself walking into that club on Halloween, with no idea of what was about to come…

  “Anyway,” my mom says, sitting taller. “Now let’s get to the good stuff, because there is so much good, despite it all. Thank you for the fact that even when things get really hard, we know they’ll get better again, because we have faith in the order of things. Thank you for all the blessings our family received this year. Thank you for my new job, thank you that the dog’s leg surgery went well, thank you for our continued health, thank you for Susan’s fancy new condo downtown even though I told her it was overpriced, and thank you for Josh’s hot-as-heck new boyfriend. Amen, I guess!”