To Have and to Hold

by Riley Knight

  They’d never met before, so at first, Vinnie just thought Justin was a customer. He gave him a smile and nod of welcome, and then went back to what he was doing.

  Ran moved over to his friend, though, frowning a little bit. Not that it wasn’t good to see him, but some bosses would have a really huge problem with someone visiting an employee at work.

  He had no idea if Vinnie were that type of boss or not, because he’d never had anyone come visit him at work before. Which was sort of sad, actually. That was part of not having many friends, he supposed.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, and then gasped softly, because he realized something. Justin was wearing nice clothes.

  Justin usually dressed in sweats, loose jeans if he were feeling particularly fancy. He kind of just tossed on whatever was comfortable.

  Not this time, though. Justin was wearing jeans, yes, but they were actually somewhat fitted and, Ran had to notice, showed off his ass nicely. He wore a shimmery gray shirt that exactly matched his eyes, and it had buttons and a collar and everything.

  “I’m here for our date,” Justin said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Ran shook his head, bewildered.

  No matter how well he thought he knew this man, he could sometimes surprise him. This was clearly one of those times.

  “Who is this, Ran? A friend of yours?” Vinnie finally noticed that Ran was talking to someone for quite a bit longer than it would usually take to help them find something in the store. He came over and stuck his hand out at Justin.

  “I’m Vinnie. Nice to know you.”

  “Justin.” Apparently, Justin was going to play nice. He didn’t always. He shook Vinnie’s hand firmly, but politely enough. He really was being on his best behavior.

  “Justin!” Vinnie’s face went slack with surprise, and Justin smirked as he turned to Ran, an eyebrow raised.

  “I take it you’ve heard of me,” Justin said, clearly amused.

  “Yeah. You got yourself hitched to Ran,” Vinnie said, and Ran flushed. Damn it. He didn’t want to listen to this. Vinnie was going to say something inappropriate, or Justin was.

  Come to think of it, why did he make friends with people who had boundary problems, anyway?

  “Yeah,” Justin agreed casually. He slung an arm around Ran’s shoulders, looking almost defiantly at Vinnie as though daring him to take exception to it.

  Vinnie didn’t. He smiled a little, seemingly pleased.

  “Best choice you ever made. Now just don’t let him go,” Vinnie said.

  And that was quite enough of that, thank you very much. Being treated like he didn’t even exist, having people talk about him like he wasn’t even there, that was not something that had ever been his favorite thing.

  “I have work to do,” he told Justin. Not that he did. The store was moderately busy, but people seemed content just to browse. Everything was neat. He didn’t actually have any work to do right then.

  “Do you two have plans tonight?” Vinnie asked, and Justin nodded.

  “Yeah. I made reservations and stuff.”

  Well, that was news to Ran. He’d sort of figured that they would just sort of play it by ear. Find someplace that looked good around the movie theater. He looked questioningly at Justin, who looked back impassively.

  “Okay. Good. Get out of here.”

  Ran turned his gaze, still just as questioning, on Vinnie. Ran had never left work early. Not in his entire life. Even half an hour felt sinful and wrong to him.

  “You heard the man,” Justin said, and when he nodded at Vinnie in farewell, it felt sincere. Justin didn’t like many people, but it seemed like he had at least a good feeling about Vinnie, which was pretty amazing.

  “Are you sure? I can stay,” Ran protested. Not because he didn’t want to leave, but because he just wasn’t used to that even being a thing.

  “You’ve been working your ass off,” Vinnie told him, his voice firm and sure. “Go ahead. Go have fun.”

  Ran wasn’t given much of a choice, in the end. Justin, his arm still around Ran’s shoulders, swept him right out of the bookstore before Ran could even protest again.

  Although maybe he wouldn’t have. Going off on a dinner date was the sort of thing that other people did, not him. It was actually pretty exciting, with the added bonus that he felt safe and comfortable with the person that he was with.

  The whole time they’d been talking, Justin had held one of his hands, the one that wasn’t around Ran’s shoulders, behind his back. Suddenly, he pulled it out, to show that he had brought a single red rose with exquisite, satiny petals from where he must have been hiding it the whole time.

  Without ceremony, he passed it over to Ran, who took it silently. A flower. Justin had actually given him a flower.

  Ran had been looking for a sign that Justin wanted this to be more than just a marriage in name, and maybe, just maybe, he’d gotten one.

  * * *

  Justin had driven Ran’s car to the bookstore, and he didn’t hand over the keys to Ran. Which made sense, since he knew where they were going and Ran didn’t.

  The whole way there, Ran played with the flower with gentle fingers. No one had ever given him a flower before. He found that he liked it. He would never have thought that Justin would be capable of such a romantic gesture.

  Justin stopped the car outside of an Italian restaurant that Ran had heard of but never been to called Nostrana. It was famous for having amazing, authentic food but was just a little bit outside Ran’s normal food budget.

  In short, it was a great place to go on a date.

  A date. Ran smiled. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? This was the sign that he’d been waiting for.

  Justin took his hand as they went into the restaurant, and he hadn’t been kidding about the reservations. Maybe that was the part that touched Ran the most, that Justin had actually gone to the trouble, to the planning, of actually calling and setting this up.

  It showed a forethought that Ran didn’t see Justin usually have.

  He couldn’t help but beam at the other man as he gave his name to the hostess. Surely, everyone, there could see how terribly in love Ran was with Justin, but no one seemed to mind.

  Actually, Ran had always sort of wondered what would happen if he went out in public with another guy. He knew that there were a lot of homophobes still out there in the world, and even though they lived in a generally tolerant place, part of him still worried that maybe someone would say something.

  No one even looked up from their meals.

  It was actually quite comforting. They were seated, and still, no one had paid any undue attention to them. It was just like they were any other couple, and Ran knew that it wasn’t that way everywhere in the world, or even everywhere in the country, but here, at least, he could feel safe.

  * * *

  The meal itself was wonderful, the service excellent, and the movie that they saw was suitably stupid with awesome special effects. All in all, it was a perfect date night, at least as far as Ran knew with his limited experience being what it was.

  Or maybe it was just that it was the perfect date night for him, and Justin knew him well enough to pick that up.

  Ran knew that he was going to have to ruin it. Or at least, he was going to have to risk doing so, because if there had ever been a perfect time to talk about what was going on with them, it was then.

  “Hey. What is all this?” They were still holding hands. They had been for most of the night, and Ran was surprised by how perfectly his fingers seemed to fit with Justin’s. “I mean, what are we doing here?”

  Justin spoke calmly enough. They were wandering back to the car after the movie, but neither of them seemed to be in any particular hurry.

  “We’re on a date.”

  Ran bit his lip, and then sighed and turned to face Justin. They stopped walking, just looking at each other in the light of a streetlight, their hands still linked intimately.

  “You know w
hat I mean. Does this mean anything to you? I know you’re straight, but do you think you could ever really be with me? More than just in a fake marriage situation?”

  Justin gave a startled laugh.

  “What the hell ever made you think I was straight, Ran?” he asked, and he was clearly baffled by the question. “Do you think straight guys usually go around holding hands with other men? Or was it the part where we slept together that made you think that?”

  Ran frowned.

  “No, that’s why I’m confused.” He admitted. “You’ve never talked about being with a man before. You talk about girls sometimes, but not guys.”

  Justin sighed, then shook his head.

  “Look, I like to keep a lot of things to myself. You know that.” He frowned. “I guess that growing up I got the impression that it wasn’t an okay way to be. I knew what I liked, but I didn’t talk about it a lot.”

  Ran considered that, and then sighed softly to himself.

  “Maybe if I could have done that, I would have.” He’d never been interested in girls, honestly, not even enough to fake it. If he had been bisexual, would he have taken the easy road and just not talked about that part of himself?

  He couldn’t say for sure that he wouldn’t have. He just didn’t know. It was a completely foreign concept to him. He didn’t feel like he’d ever had the option.

  “I know it’s cowardly. Trust me, I know.” Justin reached out to take his other hand, squeezing it tightly. “But I don’t want to do that anymore. I didn’t want to assume that just because you’re gay, you would want to be with me, and you never even seemed interested in being with anyone.”

  Ran shook his head. So this whole time, it had been a misunderstanding. How ridiculous was that? No, more than one misunderstanding. At least two, his that Justin was straight and Justin’s that Ran wasn’t interested in him.

  “So what are you saying? That you’d like to give this a try?” Ran looked at him hopefully. Yes, it was a risk. It was a risk just like it had always been, but maybe relationships always were.

  The question was whether the risk was worth taking, and the answer was that yes, it definitely was. At least for Ran, it was.

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying. So what do you think, Ran?” Justin looked at him, and that same intensity as always was in his eyes, but this time, it was focused entirely on Ran.

  Ran smiled. He didn’t answer, or not with words, anyway. Instead, he leaned in and kissed Justin, right out there in the open, where anyone could drive by and see.

  And the real miracle of the whole thing was that Justin kissed him back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Justin

  A month passed, and it was almost perfect.

  Justin was definitely happier than he’d ever been, and he and Ran fit together as well as he’d always somehow known that they would. They just seemed to mesh perfectly.

  Ran didn’t need Justin’s attention all the time, which was good. They were both introverts, which meant that they weren’t at odds about that. They enjoyed the time they spent together, but neither of them got freaked out if it was spent in silence.

  But they were both very affectionate, both physically and verbally, which was a very good thing for Justin. He wasn’t used to feeling very loved, and it helped him to have the reminder that someone cared about him.

  That month would have been perfect but had to be downgraded to ‘almost,’ because Justin’s boss would not get off his back.

  It was unnerving. The man never said anything to him, never offered any criticisms, but he was always there. Always watching.

  Not that Justin gave him much to watch. He’d gotten into a bit of a groove, and there was no doubt that Ran had been good for him. He made sure Justin went to work and gave him a stern look when he even considering ditching that day.

  Quietly, without fanfare, Justin started up a Facebook conversation with Stacy.

  It wasn’t that he thought that his music really could get him out of this dead end job or anything. It was just that focusing on it was better than focusing on nothing. It was apathy that had led him to leave all of his other jobs. He was fairly certain of it.

  With her working with him, he learned how to navigate getting his first few gigs. Nothing had produced any results yet, but it felt like he was at least doing something, and that was comforting, somehow.

  Even just to not be solely dependent on his fast food job would be a relief.

  The whole time, Ran was there. He helped Justin where he could, letting him use his car whenever he needed to, supporting him. The whole time that he’d known Ran, it had been like that, and making this thing between them official had only added to that.

  It should have been terrifying, how much Justin was coming to rely on Ran. Maybe the only reason that it wasn’t was because Ran seemed to rely on Justin just as much. It wasn’t an experience that Justin had ever had before, but he found that he liked it.

  Things were good. The best they’d ever been for him.

  The truth was, part of Justin was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to get fired, or for Ran to tell him this was all a mistake.

  When that blow that he was expecting came, though, it wasn’t from the direction that he was expecting.

  * * *

  Justin recognized the number on the call display from somewhere. He’d seen it before, but it wasn’t until he picked up the phone and recognized the voice that he really knew for sure.

  It was the social worker who was dealing with Lily’s file. His sister. Oh God, what sort of news could he be delivering this time?

  “Justin, you asked that I keep you updated on what’s happening with your sister. She’s going to have to be moved out of the foster home where she’s been for the last month.”

  Justin was at home, but Ran had already gone to work. Justin had the day off, and he’d been intending to catch up on some stuff. Housework, looking for music work, that sort of thing.

  Instead, he sat down suddenly on the couch, clutching his phone to his ear. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of.

  He’d seen it happen so much. Never to himself, by some miracle, but to other kids in the school he’d gone to. It was on the bad side of town, and most of the families who lived there were living below the poverty line.

  Which meant that there were quite a few foster kids in the mix, and Justin had watched as they came into the school for a bit, then got transferred to another home. Sometimes, they got to stay in the same school. More often, they didn’t.

  Being moved around like that wasn’t good for a kid. He’d seen more than enough proof of that in his life.

  “Why?” he asked, and his voice came out sharper than he’d hoped. Like it or not, his life was now entwined with this little girl’s, even though he’d never met her. “Why can’t she just stay where she is?”

  “The place she’s staying is meant as an emergency home. Other children need it more urgently. Lily will have to be moved.”

  The statement was utterly flat and devoid of emotion like it didn’t even matter to this bureaucrat what he was saying. That Lily was probably going to be put into a cycle of moving homes, never being able to get attached to anything without having that attachment ripped apart.

  It was out of desperation that Justin spoke. He didn’t think about it and had given no thought to it in the past. But on some level, his brain must have been considering it, because it was sudden but it couldn’t have come out of nowhere.

  “She can come live with me.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, and Justin, more desperate than ever, kept speaking.

  “I can give her a good home. I’m married, and I work. She doesn’t have to live with strangers.”

  The man spoke again, and for just a second, Justin thought he might detect just the faintest touch of human emotion in his voice.

  “It is ideal for the child to go to a family member. But there would have to be certif
ication done, by both you and your spouse. And you’d have to attend a training program. There will be a criminal record check done.”

  Frantically, Justin thought back. Had he done anything that would be on his criminal record? Some shoplifting while he was still a minor, and he somehow doubted that was what they were worried about.

  “Fine,” he said quietly. “Just … keep her where she is, okay? Just until I’m ready for her.”

  Again, a long pause, and then, once more, Justin found himself surprised by the hints of compassion in the man’s voice. He was just a person. A human being, who felt things.

  Somehow, he’d built social workers up to be monsters, but this one, at least, wasn’t. He was just a man trying to do a job that had to be incredibly hard and thankless. No wonder they got a little detached after a while.

  “I think, given the situation, we can do that. I’ll have to double-check with the home, but I don’t foresee a problem. Let me direct you to a website where you can find out about the process you’ll have to go through.”

  Justin scribbled the website down and then stared down at it. He felt numb as he looked at the numbers, his eyes blurring until the lines he’d scratched on the paper looked like nothing but a big, gray mess.

  “Oh, and I would suggest that, during the process, you visit Lily as much as you can,” the man added, right before hanging up. “I can give you the number of the foster home, and I’ll make sure to let them know it’s okay to let you see her.”

  He needed permission to see his own sister. But then, he was a stranger to her. This whole situation was bizarre.

  “Of course.” He was nervous. To meet his own sister. And yet he’d invited her into his house without even thinking about it. He really was crazy.

  They hung up then, and Justin looked down at the paper he’d scrawled the information down on.

  What had he done?

  This wasn’t even his house, and he’d said that another person, a child, could live there without even consulting Ran. He didn’t even know this kid, and he was risking everything for her.