by Amy Aislin
"I know I've been on you a lot lately," Ty said, fingers tracing Elias's collarbone, "about doing more with your photography than the few commissions you take and casually submitting photos to magazines. I just want to make sure that you took the job with CanadaTravels for you and not because you think it's something I want."
Elias took Ty's wrist and brought his hand up to kiss his palm. "I didn't take the job for you. I took it for me. This opportunity is the first time I've been excited about a job in a long time." He felt so wanted by the magazine. God, they'd tried for months to get him on board, despite his constant refusal. Damn if that didn't make him feel like a superhero. "But the reason I declined the VP offer at Top Line was partly because of you."
Ty's brow furrowed. "How so?"
"The VP job meant a raise, but it also meant more responsibility and a lot more travelling. If you think I'm glued to my phone now, if you think I work too much now, it would've been worse had I taken the job." He squeezed Ty's shoulder to get his boyfriend to look at him. "It would've taken me away from you too much, and I didn't want that. There'll be some travelling with the new job, but it won't be as often as it would’ve been had I taken the VP job."
Ty kissed Elias's chest. "But why quit? Why not stay in your current role?"
Sighing, Elias studied the pattern on the ceiling. "I never told you this, but shortly after we started seeing each other, I was tasked with firing a few people from a company we were reassessing." Ty tensed again him; Elias couldn't blame him. "I didn't want to, and the owner was going against our explicit recommendations, but I did my job. And afterwards? I felt like a fraud, and I was just…tired of looking into these unsuspecting people's faces and giving them bad news. I was so miserable with myself that I left work before lunch and spent the rest of the day on my couch watching TV and eating pancakes."
Ty snuggled closer, offering what support he could.
"I've been thinking about that a lot lately. I never like firing people, but lately it's been burning a hole in my soul. And I've realized you were right. These people, they didn't know they were about to be fired, which meant my argument about having job security at Top Line was invalid. Anything can change on a whim."
"I'm sorry you felt that way," Ty said. Elias looked at him, only to find a teasing glint in his ice-blue eyes. "You know, that's the most I've ever heard you speak in one go?"
"Yeah, it was exhausting," Elias had no trouble admitting. It made Ty laugh. "Oh! I have something for you." He untangled himself from Ty and headed for the kitchen.
"What is it?" Ty yelled from the bedroom.
"Just a little something," Elias called back from the kitchen.
"But we said no Valentine's Day presents!"
"It's nothing big." He walked back into the bedroom with his gift bag a few seconds later. "And it's not your typical Valentine's Day gift."
Ty held his hands out and waggled his fingers in a five-year-old's gimme-gimme gesture, the huge grin on his face making him look like said five-year-old. Elias handed him the bag with a laugh.
Grinning at the block of cheese he pulled out—Ty's favourite kind from the St. Lawrence Market—and a gift card to his favourite book store, the smile slipped off Ty's face when he removed the tissue paper from the five-by-seven picture frame. In it was a photo of a beardless and baby-faced twenty-two-year-old Elias, decked out in a graduation cap and gown, holding his Queen's University diploma, standing between his grinning parents. It was the same picture that stood on the dresser in Elias's living room. He knew Ty had noticed it, but he'd never asked about it, probably because he knew Elias tended to divulge things at his own pace.
"Eli," Ty whispered.
"Like I said, it's nothing big," Elias said. "But I know your whole family. I thought you'd like to meet mine."
Instant tears from Ty. His chin wobbled, wet eyes leaking, and he hugged the picture frame like it was a favored childhood Teddy bear. Elias had known how Ty might react, especially given how he'd reacted when Elias had gifted him with that picture on his birthday—the one of Ty in profile that now hung in Ty's living room.
It didn't look like Ty was going to let go of the frame any time soon, so Elias stretched out on his side and started talking.
"My mom was a principal at an elementary school. She was a sucker for anything apple flavoured and loved old western movies." He plucked at the comforter. It'd been so long since he'd talked about his parents, it was a relief to share them with someone. "My dad was a woodworker. He made this bed for me when I first got my own place. He loved Sandra Bullock movies and ABBA. It was his idea to take me to Disney World when they first adopted me."
Ty wiped his eyes and lay down next to him, setting the frame down between them. "Who's your favourite Disney character?"
Elias had to think about that one. "Mulan. She's badass."
"Mine're Timon and Pumba."
"Shocker."
"Thank you," Ty said, voice reedy. "For the gift and for sharing with me." His eyes held the questions Elias knew he wanted to ask.
"You can ask me about them any time," Elias assured him. "I like talking about them, remembering them."
"I don't have anything for you," Ty said. "A gift, I mean." Because we said no gifts, was left unsaid.
"Sure, you do. You offered me your home."
Ty smiled. "Oh yeah! And you said yes. Without an argument." He still sounded amazed by that. "I was thinking… You mentioned last week that the CanadaTravels job comes with a couple work-from-home days a week, so maybe we could convert the second bedroom into an office for you."
Elias ran his thumb over Ty's cheekbone, charmed by the offer. "Thank you, but I don't want to monopolize the bedroom. I was actually thinking I could convert that shed you've got out back."
Ty made a face. "The last owners used it as a chicken coop."
"Do you plan on getting chickens?"
"No," Ty said through a laugh. "But it still smells like a farm in there."
"Well, whatever. We'll figure it out."
Ty grunted and closed his eyes, settling in like he was finally about to take his post-orgasm nap, but then he snapped up to sitting with a gasp, startling Elias. "Wait! I do have a present for you." He smacked his forehead with a palm. "The chocolate syrup! I can't believe we didn't use it."
Elias laughed, making Ty smile wider. When their eyes met, they grinned stupidly at each other before launching themselves off the bed in a race to the kitchen to see who could get to the chocolate syrup first.
Ty expected to see stuffy old farts in suits at Top Line's VP's retirement party on Friday evening, sipping old scotch at the bar as they discussed the stock market. He got the suits and scotch and stock market right, but the very few stuffy old farts were interspersed with a mix of everyone from twenty-five to seventy with a high percentage of millennials.
This was so not his thing, attending a huge party where he only knew one person. Yet if large crowds weren't his thing, they were even less Elias's thing, and Ty felt a bit better knowing his boyfriend didn't want to be here either. It meant they wouldn't stay long.
"How about this?" Elias had said on the walk to the restaurant from the subway. "We eat some free food, have a drink, stay for the speeches, and once those are over and everybody swarms the bar, we sneak out the back."
"You know just how to turn me on," Ty had joked. It made Elias laugh.
Seated at a table in a corner nobody else had invaded yet, Ty munched on the mini quiche he'd plucked from the dinner buffet set out next to the bar. So far, he'd managed to avoid talking to anyone beyond the expected "Hi, nice to meet you," when Elias introduced him, but Elias wasn't so lucky. In the half hour they'd been here, he'd been stopped by no less than a dozen people expressing both disappointment that he was leaving Top Line and well wishes in his new job.
Speaking with his colleagues, Elias was cool and confident. Dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt, and purple tie, he was so drool-worthy that Ty was still surprised E
lias had picked him to plan a life with. He hadn't planned on asking Elias to move in with him so soon, but it had seemed like all the pieces had fallen into place on Valentine's Day. He couldn't not take the chance.
"I did reconnaissance," Elias said in his ear, sitting down on the bench seat next to Ty with a full plate of food. Ty shivered at the caress of Elias's warm breath against his skin. "The back exit is at the end of that hallway." Elias gestured toward the hallway that also led to the restrooms. "From what I've been able to gather, there are three speeches: the president, the VP, and the new VP. The president's EA said they're about ten minutes each, and they should be starting in the next few minutes, which means we should be able to sneak out of here in about forty minutes, and we can be home in an hour if we cab it."
"God bless you." Ty toasted him with his beer bottle.
"And check out what I found." Elias placed a series of mini chocolate goodies on Ty's plate. "They brought out the desserts already."
Ty abandoned the real food on his plate and popped a mini brownie in his mouth. Moaning in appreciation, he smiled when Elias fidgeted. He ate a second dessert and repeated the moan. Elias fidgeted again. Good. Maybe if he got Elias horny enough, they could screw the speeches, leave sometime in the next few seconds, and go home to screw each other instead.
"Elias, hey."
Damn, plan aborted.
Rachel, Elias's colleague whom Ty had met a couple weeks ago at the St. Lawrence Market, sat across from them, her husband to her right.
Elias cleared his throat. "Hey, Rachel, Aric."
Hands shaken and re-introductions made, Rachel looked around the packed restaurant. "I swear I see more people here that I don't know than those I do, and I know everybody in our office."
"Clients and board members are here, too," Elias explained.
"What do you think?" Rachel asked. "Should we do something similar for your going-away party?"
Elias paled underneath his brown skin. Rachel laughed all the way to the buffet line. Ty couldn't help but enjoy her sense of humor.
"She's not serious, is she?" Elias asked Aric.
"Eh." Aric shrugged like, maybe, maybe not. "If she invites you to any meetings in the next couple of weeks, I'd decline."
"Great."
At one of the more crowded tables, an older woman with dyed-auburn hair wearing a plaid skirt and white blouse stood and clinked her spoon against her water glass.
"Thank you everyone for coming out tonight," she said once the room had quieted, her British accent soft. "It's been an honor working with each and every one of you over the last twenty-five years—"
Ty tuned her out. Instead, he used his fork to scoop the icing off his mini cupcake. There was more icing than cupcake, and really, that was just gross. Unless it was Maddie’s icing, he didn’t want it on his dessert.
Rachel returned with two plates of desserts. Setting them down in the middle of the table, she pushed one closer to Ty with a wink. Ty grinned his thanks and nabbed the brownies.
The speeches went on for close to forever, and by the time they were done, Ty's stomach was full of too many desserts, and he wasn't feeling so good. It was easy to forget how much junk he was eating when the food was bitesized.
Just as Elias had predicted, as soon as the speeches were over, everybody herded to the bar like a cackle of starving hyenas. It was so time to make their escape. Ty couldn't wait to get his tie off.
Elias squeezed his thigh. "I'm going to use the restroom, and then we can go."
Ty might not have been feeling a hundred percent, but that didn't prevent him from checking out his boyfriend's tight ass as he walked away.
"I still can't believe he's leaving," Rachel said. "I thought he'd be a Top Line lifer."
"Nah," Ty said. "He wasn't happy there."
Rachel's smile was sad. "Yeah, he told me. I didn't even know he was into photography and then all of a sudden he has a job as the director of one at the country's number one travel magazine?"
"Have you seen his website?" Ty asked.
"He has a website?" Rachel tossed her hands in the air. "Seriously, three years we've worked together, and I feel like I don't know him at all. You two have been dating for, like, five minutes and already you know more than me."
Yeah, Elias wasn't exactly a sharer. That he'd opened up to Ty so much in the past few weeks was a minor miracle.
Aric patted his wife's hand where it rested on the tabletop. "Not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve like you, honey."
"Well, they should," Rachel grumbled. "Life would be a lot easier that way."
"Oh my God," Ty said in horror. "The world would be a madhouse."
Rachel laughed before taking a sip of her wine. "Tell me Ty," she said, twirling her glass on the table. "Are you a Capricorn?"
"I am." He wasn't surprised by the question; Elias had told him about Rachel's fascination with what she called “the spiritual” and Elias called “hocus pocus bullshit.”
She nodded. "I thought as much." When he raised an eyebrow in question, she waved a hand in the air. "Oh, just based on something Elias asked me a while back about a Capricorn dating a Capricorn."
Ty rubbed a hand over his mouth to cover his smirk. Elias might call it “hocus pocus bullshit,” but Ty suspected that, deep down, he actually believed in it a little bit. Why else would he humour Rachel's need to know his horoscope every morning?
"What is it that you do, Ty?" Aric asked.
"Yeah," Rachel said. "When I asked Elias last week, he said you work for the city but couldn't remember what you do exactly."
Desserts curdling in his stomach, Ty's hand spasmed on his water glass, smile freezing on his face. Elias couldn't remember that he swapped out full garbage bags for empty ones in street trash cans within a four-block radius in the downtown core? It wasn't fucking rocket science.
Rachel was still waiting for an answer, so he told her the truth. He wasn't sure what he expected, censure or disgust or indifference. What he got was a casual, "Cool. Do you work in the Bay and King area? If so, we should get lunch sometime, or coffee."
Aric snorted. "Don't mind her," he said to Ty. "She can't help trying to make new friends wherever she goes."
Rachel ribbed her husband back, but Ty was too numb to pay attention.
Elias reappeared, finished off the last of his beer, and said, "Ready to go?"
Winter coats were put on, and goodbyes must've surely been made, but it happened in a haze, and the next thing Ty knew, he was in a cab with Elias, staring out the window, watching the city lights go by, the snow gently falling to the ground, bundled-up pedestrians rushing to Friday night activities. Next to him, Elias checked emails on his phone.
Obviously, Elias had been busy. When Rachel had asked about what Ty did for a living, Elias must've been in the middle of something and told her he didn't remember so that she wouldn't pry, and he could get back to his work.
Right?
Because the only other explanation he could think of made him feel about two inches tall.
They were walking into Elias's condo fifteen minutes later. Cold all over despite the condo's warmth, Ty kept his coat on and wrapped his arms around himself.
"I think there's still some chocolate syrup left," Elias said, heading for the kitchen. "What do you say?" Turning to walk backwards so that he faced Ty, he waggled his eyebrows suggestively. When Ty didn't smile back, when he didn't move from the front entrance, Elias frowned and headed back to him. "What's wrong?"
Ty couldn’t meet his eyes, and his gaze drifted down the hallway, to the kitchen, to the TV in the living room. Anywhere except at Elias. The feeling growing more and more solid in his gut made him grit his teeth against the words that wanted to escape. He needed to know, but he was afraid of the answer.
"Are you embarrassed of me?" he finally asked.
Elias's eyes went wide, and he took a half-step back. "What?" He sounded surprised and wounded by the question. "Why would you even ask me th
at?" The disbelief in his tone had Ty believing Elias wasn't embarrassed about him, but Rachel's words still niggled at him.
"I was talking to Rachel while you were in the restroom," Ty said. Elias's shrug said, So what? "She said she asked you what I do for a living…and that you said you couldn't remember?" His voice turned incredulous there at the end, because what the fuck?
Something in Elias's eyes shifted and Ty's heart sank, the bottom falling out of his stomach.
"Oh my God," he rasped, eyes burning. "You are embarrassed of me."
"I am not embarrassed by you, Ty." Elias’s voice held no give. Ty was inclined to believe him given that he'd taken Ty to a work function and introduced him around, but if he hadn't told Rachel what he did for a living, it meant…
"My job," Ty realized. He swallowed past the knot in his throat, refusing to cry in front of cool-as-a-rock Elias. "You're embarrassed by my job."
Elias opened his mouth to answer, closed it without saying anything. He shifted on the spot and glanced away.
Releasing a bark of unamused laughter, Ty shook his head, the desserts he'd eaten threatening to make a reappearance via his mouth. "You are." His heart hurt too much to speak past an agonized whisper.
"Ty—"
"Oh, that's rich." Now he found volume. "You fire people for a living, and you're embarrassed by my job?"
"Ty, I…"
He waited. For a "Let me explain," or "You've got it all wrong," or "You misunderstood," or even an "You're right, I'm sorry." The longer he waited, the spikier the ball of hurt and resentment grew in his chest, raking painful slashes into his sternum. A lump the size of a fist choked off his words, a good thing given nothing good would come out if he opened his mouth to speak right now. He gave Elias a few more seconds to explain. When nothing was forthcoming, Ty squared his shoulders and walked out.
Of course, everything went to shit. Just like that doom and gloom feeling that had been plaguing Elias for the past few days had predicted. Ty was gone. And it was all Elias's fault.
