He read over the letter, sighed. “I’d say go for it. It might come back to bite us, but if it gives even a tiny boost, that might be what gets us over the top. Just... add in a couple lines at the end about looking forward to their input and collaboration and delete that last paragraph. You don’t need it.”
“Yeah, okay. You aren’t going to hate me if I sabotage our future by doing this?”
“Do you want me to ask Nick?”
“No. He’ll yell and piss and moan. I’m just going to do it and he’ll come around...”
“I’ve got your back,” Travis said.
“Good idea?”
“This is the way to go... the way you have to do it. I personally agree with Nick and Suhail, but I understand where you’re coming from and agree with it. Do it.”
“Thanks buddy.”
He sighed. “Sure thing.”
We signed off. I edited the letter as he requested and sent it. It was eight o’clock on a Friday night.
“Do you think anyone is going to check their e-mail?” Mark asked.
“They’re all nerds,” I replied confidently. “What else will they be doing?”
I looked at my phone and sighed again. My stomach was unsettled and it felt like I had been grinding my teeth for the past three hours. “Now I might be able to get some sleep.” I opened my phone again and dialed Tim and Stacy.
“Who are you calling?” Mark asked.
The phone rang three times.
“You know who I’m calling,” I said stubbornly. The fourth ring came and went. I gave up and was ready to cut the line before it went to voicemail.
“Hello?” I heard distantly.
“Stacy?” I asked incredulously as I pulled the phone up to my ear. “St-stacy?”
“It’s me. What do you want, Chris?” She sounded weary.
“I... uh...” I blanked. Then I looked at Mark, who shrugged. “I... uh... how’s everything going? I haven’t seen Char and Evy in a while.”
“The kids are fine,” she said with a dull voice.
“Yeah, uh... I...”
Mark got my attention. He mouthed ‘birthday’.
“I... well, you know, my birthday is coming up,” I said with halting and nervous words. “Andifyouand Timandthekids wannacome...” I took a gasping breath.
“Your birthday?” she clarified.
“Yeah,” I said, then let out a shaking breath. “I mean, you totally don’t have to, but you’re also totally invited. It’s here at Mark’s place.” I looked at Mark for confirmation.
‘Totally?’ he mouthed at me with a quizzical expression.
Quit distracting me!
“I’ll think about it,” she said after a moment.
“Yeah,” I said excitedly. “Yeah, take your time. You have my number.” I looked around for something else to talk about. Mark. Mark signaled that I should end the call. “It’s nice to talk to you again,” I said pathetically. My heart was up in my mouth and my eyes were blinking rapidly as I tried to imagine Stacy’s reaction.
“Yeah,” Stacy said simply. “I’ll talk to you later.” We hung up. I watched my phone as it blinked—three minutes and fourteen seconds. I talked to her for three minutes!
“Ha!” I turned and yelled at Mark victoriously. “I told you!” I jumped at him and pushed into his arms and pressed against his skin like we were fake wrestling. “Told you, told you, told you.”
“I take it the call went well?”
“I—” Had it gone well? “Don’t know! But she picked up! And that’s a start.” I was glowing. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” I sniffed his shirt and flattened myself against him. “Oh God, I love you so much Mark.”
“What do I have to do with this?”
“I don’t know. I'm just so happy right now. I don’t think she’s gonna come to my birthday party, but maybe next year.” I pulled out of his scent and looked up into his face. “Maybe next year!”
“I’m happy for you.”
“And ha! I told you she would come around.” I pinched him. “Told you, told you, told you.”
“Based on your reaction, you must have been nervous.”
“Never doubted for a minute!” I lied happily, then giggled. “What a day,” I marveled. “I’ve called her almost every day for two months... I wonder what made her finally pick up.”
“The world will never know,” he said serenely. “The woman is crazy.”
“If she comes to my party, you better not ruin this for me,” I threatened. “You’ve been at her throat ever since I’ve known you.”
Mark held up his hands. “If she shows up at your party, I will be her best friend forever.” He was telling the truth and we’ve managed to stay friends with Tim and Stacy. Tim was even one of Mark’s groomsmen at our wedding.
“You don’t have to go overboard,” I stated. “I’d be happy if you settled for not being enemies.”
“Sounds good.”
And that’s exactly how that night ended. Don’t believe a word out of Mark’s mouth. He likes to claim that I did the cha-cha with my ass in front of his face to the tune of told ya, told ya, told YA!
But that totally never happened and, seeing as Mark was the catalyst for that fateful reconnection... it would be too embarrassing to admit that I had mercilessly mocked him that night while he concealed just how much he knew about the reason for Stacy’s change of heart.
Okay, maybe I did do the cha-cha and shove my ass in his face and told him to kiss it. Whatever. If you meet me in person, I’ll deny, deny, deny.
My Birthday
MARK AND I WERE DONE setting up the apartment for my birthday. It’s amazing how quickly ‘his’ place had become ‘mine’. He had bought a lot of alcohol, which made me wonder just how many people were invited.
“Just the usuals,” he claimed when I asked. Mark had a lot of ‘friends’ and ‘the usuals’ could be anywhere from a handful to dozens.
I was leaning against the newly assembled table—it was the jigsaw-like contraption I had made a year ago. The half-oval pieces had gone with me after the breakup, but they were finally back where they belonged. It doubled the size of Mark’s original table.
“Are your parents coming?” I asked.
“No. I said they should come, but they declined. Just your family.”
“Mom, Dad and Grandpa...”
“Yep.”
“Anyone else?” Getting answers out of Mark was like pulling teeth.
“Just the usuals.”
Ah! Dude, you’re literally killing me!
“Relax, babe. Mel, Suhail. Nick, random girl. Ryan, Amber, kids.” He held up his fingers as he ticked off his invitations. “Marty, Claude.”
“Travis?”
He grunted. “Travis, random girl.”
“Ashleigh is not a random girl,” I explained. “She was a good friend in college.”
“If you dance to that stupid song one more time, I’m going to knock Travis flat on his face.”
“I thought you had a good time golfing with him? You were both picking on me.”
“Nobody is allowed to pick on you except me,” Mark said stubbornly while stabbing his thumb into his chest. “But it wasn’t hard to make fun of you. You fucking suck at golf.”
“Now is not the time to go into that.” I would make Mark take me to the driving range over the next month in an attempt to get better... and I did moderately improve. But going from shooting a fourteen on one hole to a seven wasn’t something you shouted from the rooftops. A seven was still a seven.
I traced the wood grain on my half-oval pieces. I changed the subject: “I wish I hadn’t listened to you.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Oh, speaking of Hell, Father Dunworthy and his wife are coming.”
“Look at this table. Wouldn’t it have been perfect if the colors matched?”
Mark said he loved the natural color better and would have preferred to have the entire table in that style.
“But
the table isn't natural, and now it looks like crap. My dad is going to hate it!”
“Who the fuck cares what your dad thinks? Shit! It’s beautiful. I’m still impressed that you even made it in the first place. I have the spinny top in my storage.”
“Even though I took the ovals? Why did you keep it?”
He grabbed me in a hug so that my thighs were pressed against the cherry table and his crotch was poking at my ass. He kissed my neck, but didn’t answer the question.
“No funny business,” I threatened. “We’ve got company coming any minute.”
“There’s time to go to the bathroom.” He rubbed my thighs and breathed on my neck while nibbling on my ear.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, swatting him and escaping his grasping arms. “I remember the first time we had a party and you wanted to ‘look in the mirror’.” I laughed, then remembered what had happened that night to make Mark so horny in the first place. “You better not have gotten me anything fancy,” I threatened. “You already did enough for me. This party is enough for me.”
Mark rolled his eyes and sighed. “It’s so hard to be your man,” he complained. “How am I ever supposed to buy you things without you getting mad?”
“I guess if you got it at a garage sale... or any kind of sale. Just don’t pay full price.”
“Deal,” he said, holding out his hand.
“And nothing expensive,” I added as we shook.
“You’re the devil,” he accused.
There was a knock on the door. We had our first guests: Suhail and Mel. I shook Suhail’s hand and gave Mel a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Mark grumbled that he hadn’t even received a kiss that day. I grabbed his face and made out with him—right in front of his sister and my good friend.
“There,” I said when we were done. “Grab a beer, guys. The rest of the party should be filling in any minute.”
“Whoa,” Mark said, still dazed from my intensity. “I didn’t mean a kiss like that.” His face flushed and his pants were filled out.
“Sorry. I thought you were fishing for something.” I pranced away at the sound of another knock. It was my mom, dad and grandpa. My face turned bright red as I realized how they were in the same building as me while I made out with Mark. Oh shit, my parents were almost in the same room as me.
“Hi,” I said. I welcomed my mom with a hug and my dad with a handshake. My grandpa got a handshake that turned into a hug. He had his oxygen and was in a wheelchair. He didn’t need the wheelchair all the time, but he did get exhausted just from doing simple things because of his lung condition. The three of them were going to be leaving early.
I thanked my grandpa for coming. Mark was already at my side and bumping my hip with his hand. “This is Mark,” I said lamely. “You’ve heard of him?”
“I’ve heard,” my grandpa said. He shook Mark’s hand. I was very pleased. “I hear you’re into marketing, young man.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does marketing pay well?”
Oh Grandpa... look around this apartment. Look out the window over the Lake like Mom is. Look at the kitchen like Dad... it pays well.
“Jester,” my mom whispered from the window. “Look at this view!” Her voice went up in pitch. “Hun, come look at this.”
“I see it, woman,” my dad grumbled. He walked behind my mother and gazed out over the Lake and the city. “Impressive,” he agreed.
“Dad,” my mom said. “Come see this.” I wheeled my grandfather to the window. They were all suitably impressed, but my poor mother lost her freaking mind. My dad hadn’t been expecting Mark to be so affluent and I could tell he was silently reassessing my partner (not that that mattered to me!).
“I told you it was amazing,” I said. “Why don’t we sit at the table. You’ve all met Suhail, and this is his girlfriend, Melanie.”
My mother grabbed my arm. “Christopher,” she whispered. “Have you seen this view?”
“Ma, I live here,” I clarified.
“You... live here?”
“I live with Mark,” I reminded her.
“But... you just met him. You just got back together a few weeks ago. Don’t you think this is moving too fast?” She looked like a meerkat that had sensed danger and needed to look in every direction before scurrying into the burrow and popping up at another exit, only to do the same thing on repeat. It’s like she was looking for something to go wrong.
“No,” I said succinctly.
“But, it’s so fast,” she stressed. “And you really moved up. You aren’t just living with him because—”
“Because what?” I asked, maybe louder than I intended. Go ahead, fill in the rest of that thought.
“I... uh... oh.”
“Just say it. Whatever is on your mind. I’d rather not hear about it from Dad.”
“It’s nice here. And it’s so bad in your apartment. If you need a nice place to live, you can always come home.” She meant well, but her offer was not a good enough reason for her to have separated me from the group like we were hit men discussing the next mark.
“I am home,” I said simply. “I belong here. I’m not worried about this at all, and you shouldn’t either.”
“I’m not worried,” my mother lied. “I’m impressed by how beautiful this is. That was quite a front entrance downstairs. And this kitchen is as good as mine.” She ran her hands on the composite stone countertop. “Really a lovely design.”
“Can we go back to talk with Grandpa, now?” There was another knock, which thankfully interrupted my mother’s craziness. It was Father Dunworthy and his wife, Karen.
“Father Jordan,” I said.
“You can just call me Jordan,” Father Dunworthy reminded me gently. He wasn’t dressed in anything related to his profession. I introduced him to my mother and he introduced Karen.
“This is Mark’s priest,” I said.
My mother was surprised. She gulped and looked directly at my heathen father who was already finishing his first bottle of craft beer.
“He’s cool,” I said to my mom. “Too cool. I’m wondering if he’s actually part of the church or not.”
“I assure you I am. I have the scars from seminary school to prove it.” He smiled warmly at my mother. “It’s so nice to meet you, Gwen.”
“And you, Father Dunworthy.”
“It’s Jordan. If I’m not here in an official capacity, you don’t have to be so formal.” Father Dunworthy looked at me particularly sharply when he said that. I’ve always had an innate deference for authority figures. Sure, I might have become someone who questioned just about everything, but I was always formal and respectful when meeting new people, especially people of authority and the elderly.
“Father Jordan, let me introduce you to my dad and granddad.”
Father Dunworthy sighed and recognized a lost battle when he saw it—he would always be ‘Father’ to me. My parents had a family friend that I still called by his last name instead of using his nickname like he constantly requested—I grew up calling him Mr. MacKenzie and will never switch to calling him Frank. Just thinking of his first name feels weird.
Mark’s parents showed up next, which was completely a surprise. We hadn’t spoken in a long time and I was worried about a frosty reception, but everything was fine. They were distant, but friendly. I introduced them to my parents and my mother nearly keeled over and died... I don’t think she could comprehend so many life moments happening in a blink of an eye when she hadn’t so much as seen me date... anyone, ever. Martha Wolff was engaging and pleasant in a proper, clinical manner. Mr. Wolff spoke with my father for a moment before escaping to Melanie and Suhail.
I monitored the two pairs of parents throughout the party. It was clear that the Wolffs were in a social class above all of my friends—definitely above Marty and Claude.
Marty came roaring into the apartment and he really camped it up for some strange reason. He introduced himself to my father. I was worried that Marty was
going to call himself my ‘gay dad’ or maybe casually mention how he was an expert in bottoming. To my knowledge, he has never said anything like that to my father, but you never know. Dad doesn’t talk about gay stuff.
“Claude,” I said nervously. “What’s gotten into Marty?”
“This is how he gets at parties. He’s a social butterfly.”
Yeah, but why is he trying to flap his wings? You can be social without being so... Marty was wearing pants that hung up around his waist and pushed his ass up and out. He was a rounded man with a somewhat pudgy face, but brilliant pale blue eyes. He had plenty of distinguishing mannerisms so everyone was going to remember Marty. He didn’t need to act so...
“Campy,” Mark supplied.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re sheltered, babe.” Mark kissed me on the side of the head.
I asked Claude if he could get Marty to tone it down and not freak out my father.
“Or my father,” Mark added. “Could you imagine if our fathers went to The Ugly Rhino?”
I laughed. “One time my parents went to Key West... and I heard about it for months. If we could teleport my dad into a gay club, he would probably break down and cry.”
“Like father, like son, then.”
“Fuck you!” I slapped Mark’s shoulder—fiercely. He laughed, but my eyes were on fire and I was pissed off. “I was not that bad,” I protested. “I had you with me, so I wasn’t that bad.”
“You held my hand in a death grip—”
“Last time that’s gonna happen.”
“You wouldn’t leave my side. You were so scared.”
“Was not.”
Mark wrapped himself around me again—this time we were in front of my family and I was uncomfortable.
Ryan and Amber showed up with the twins and I used them as a distraction to pull out of Mark’s embrace. I gave Amber a hug and tried to catch one of the twins before they could run away—probably to open every kitchen door and hurt themselves, seeing as we hadn’t child-proofed anything.
The Fiancé (It's Just Us Here Book 6) Page 27
