Was it fair? No. Did he feel bad? Yes. He remembered that first year with Jill and Dylan, the tension between him and the cocky sonofabitch, how they were fluid and graceful, yet teeming with a swarm of emotion that didn’t really settle until their third or fourth year together.
He didn’t often let himself think about Jill these days, and the pang of pain that stabbed his heart was all too real. Jillian may have been her namesake, and he said the J word hundreds of times a day, but Jill was not Jillian.
And Laura was not Jill.
He had lived two different lives, truly. Before Jill. After Jill. Except it seemed unfair to Laura to call her something as simplistic as “After Jill,” as if Jill were the standard by which time was marked.
Perhaps he should train his mind to think differently.
Before Laura.
After Laura.
Some part of him eased a little, a tiny obstacle removed, as the thought poured through and over him, providing a balm for a discomfort he didn’t recognize, but that nonetheless had been in him, all-pervasive and omnipresent. Time was an elusive commodity these days, but even more elusive was time alone. With his thoughts. On the road, pounding out the confusion.
He hadn’t gone for a run in four days, and that might as well have been an eternity for him. Coming here meant sacrificing what could have been ten miles of therapy, each footstep a confession, each stride a release.
Trevor’s breathing went even just as Madge appeared with a tray of tiny red cakes shaped like lobsters, and a sundae bigger than his one-year-old daughter.
“What the hell is that?” Joe’s exclamation made Mike smile. The Beefeater had cracked. Poor kid was wound tighter than a fishing line.
“It’s The Orgy.” Madge winked at Dylan, then dropped the grin for the two younger men. “Of all the tables to bring this to, I figured you guys would enjoy it.”
Joe went pale as her words hit him. Alex tried not to laugh, while Dylan just picked up a spoon and stabbed at some kind of ice cream with peanut butter cups in it.
“Do we get an Orgy, too?” called out a voice from the other table. Darla. All five men turned in unison to find her eying Trevor and Joe with a coy innocence that made Mike, Dylan, and Alex chuckle.
Trevor and Joe just stared at her, and Mike felt less pity for him and Joe. A kindling of admiration began to form inside him. The way the three of them looked at each other gave him pause.
With no one else—ever—to talk about what he, Jill, and Dylan had created twelve years ago, he didn’t have a roadmap. A pattern. A plan. They’d quite simply invented it all, from soup to nuts, those many years ago. He’d lost his parents—emotionally, for they’d cut him off when he’d finally told them the real nature of their relationship—and being left adrift like that from his family of origin had meant Dylan and Jill unfairly had to play two roles in his life, instead of the already single, complicated role they’d all chosen.
He watched Trevor return to his food, but Joe’s eyes remained on Darla, the flicker of his upper lids moving, widening slightly, the only way to measure the guy’s emotions. He was such a pressure cooker. Mike saw a little of himself in Joe—the self he’d been in college, a bundle of negativity stewing in itself, trying to break free but chained by his own expectations.
While Joe could easily pass for Dylan’s younger brother, and Trevor was a shorter version of Mike (and that, alone, was disquieting), the personalities were swapped. Trevor was more like Dylan had been years ago, and Mike saw his former self in Joe.
God help him. The awakening that was coming—if Joe had the courage to go inward and explore the richness that the intimacy with Trevor and Darla could bring—would be a supernova. Cataclysmic and soul churning. Would Joe, Darla, and Trevor make it through to the other side?
Who knew?
Suddenly, he realized why this meeting was so important to Laura. And Darla. And especially Josie.
And it filled him with a resonating grief and comfort that made him fight back tears.
“I count twelve scoops of ice cream in there, seven sauces, four different kinds of cookies, and a bunch of Thin Mints,” Darla called out as Madge shot past. “Where’s my Orgy?”
Mike coughed hard, clearing his throat and covering the massive wave of emotion that threatened to render him useless today. This was harder than he’d thought. The relationship between him, Dylan, and Laura was stronger than ever, and the addition of Cyndi as a nanny had opened up time for the three of them to reconnect consistently, to get a sense of equanimity, to revel in the joy of intimacy and laughter, of sensuality and bonds that made their family so much stronger.
He never imagined he could have this back in those early days when just wanting Jill and Dylan, wanting what he wanted, was considered so subversive that, in the end, it cost him his parents.
Being true to himself had meant losing the very people who created him.
Which was a bit like losing God.
Over the years he’d tracked his parents through understanding and loving family members who either didn’t know the truth about the rift, or knew and didn’t care. Mom was still working and Dad had retired. Did they know about his life at all? Had the news channel stories and the newspaper articles trickled out to them?
They’d never reached out. Not once. After being raised in such a conservative, religious household he’d been frightened to tell the truth, and it turned out he’d been right.
All too right.
For them, their beliefs and faith formed a core so solid they couldn’t let him be himself without it shattering their view of the world. When the two came into conflict, they’d chosen—
Not him.
Joe was going through the same thing. Mike softened, watching the younger man, knowing that the anger that simmered inside came from a deep fear of rejection. Of not meeting expectations. Of not being good enough.
Of never, ever being good enough.
Dylan hadn’t been that way. Some part of him had always been casual, letting problems roll off his back, remaining more centered, more stable in the face of challenge. And Dylan’s parents—as staunchly Catholic as they were—had been more understanding of the truth about Dylan, Mike, and Jill. While they hadn’t been unconditionally accepting, they’d been bemused, a bit awkward, but never seeming to invalidate their son for simply loving a different way.
The hum of fear that radiated off Joe touched Mike on a new frequency, and he slid the sundae toward him with a smile. “Dig in.”
“I’m not really that hungry,” Joe answered, though he smiled back.