“So, see, Grandfather had specific ideas about how we should run the business and, like, conduct ourselves, and he wasn’t shy about ordering us to do what he thought we should, you know?” Tierney waited, as if he needed Dalton to confirm he’d followed this much.
“Mm-hmm.” Dalton nodded.
“He lived in the ‘guest house’ on our property. You know, I never met my grandmother?” Tierney spun his empty cup around, but didn’t seem to need a response this time. “She died before I was born, and he only had one painting of her in the house. No photos or anything; guess the old guy didn’t like her much.” He flicked a glance toward Dalton. “Is this boring?”
Not at all. “Not really.” He shrugged, not sure why he was pretending nonchalance. Maybe it had to do with his sense that Tierney didn’t normally share this much, and if Dalton overreacted, he’d shut down. “If you want to talk, I’ll listen.” Too much encouragement or too little?
Tierney sank into himself, shoulders pulling toward his ears.
Too little. “What did he do to you to make you hate him?” Oh no. Now he’d gone too far in the other direction. “Um, if you want to tell me.”
Tierney tucked his chin into his chest. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“I’ll listen.”
Swallowing, Tierney straightened up, revealing his pale face and the tightened muscles around his eyes. It made him look haunted. Or hunted. “He had lots of expectations, and he’d manipulate or bully me or whatever to make me live up to them.” He fiddled with his empty cup, turning it by its handle, then took a deep breath before continuing. “He grew up poor. I’m not even supposed to know that, you know? But Mother slipped up one night and mentioned it. So, he got rich and that meant, like, keeping up appearances. He married a socialite, and did everything he thought a guy of his station should do. And then his son came along, and he made sure his son did everything necessary to maintain the reputation of the family. Then his son married a socialite and had kids, and those kids had to live up to the family name.”
All at once Dalton knew where this was going. It was so obvious. A full-blown ache for Tierney bloomed in his chest as he leaned across the table. “A gay grandson wouldn’t be acceptable.”
“It’s not done by Terrebonnes,” Tierney whispered, staring into his mug. Then he moved, a blur of motion as he reached into his inner suit pocket and grabbed his flask, unscrewing the cap with a practiced twist of his fingers and dumping some more of the contents into his cup, then taking a drink. Not a gulp, but far more than a sip. “Fuck, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” He swiped his sleeve across his mouth, everything changing with the motion and the words. His eyes narrowed and some of his mask fell back into place. “You already know too much about me and now . . .” He shook his head, frowning.
“I’m sorry.” Dalton took a chance, touching Tierney’s hand briefly, his fingertips brushing across the long bones on the back of it. Offering comfort, but also trying to reach that other side of him again. The real man.
“Dude.” Tierney sat back, pulling away, taking another drink as he glanced around the coffee shop. “I don’t— I’ve never told anyone that. Anyone.” His frown had grown into a glower that he trained on Dalton. As if Dalton had made him confess.
“I won’t repeat it.” But maybe Tierney should, because it would help everyone understand him so much more. See why he could be such a douche bag, and how much of his psyche was at stake. Trained from birth. Tierney’d said that about his career, but clearly acting the part was a habit ingrained into his whole being. The public facade was all about self-defense, which Dalton had already assumed, but now that he knew why, it didn’t seem so abhorrent. Or weak. Tierney was struggling to deal with his situation . . . or had Dalton read that wrong?
“I would’ve done it,” Tierney asserted. “If I’d had a real reason to come out, I would’ve defied the old guy. Told him to shove his trust fund up his ass,” he continued, thrusting his chest forward in that way men who were trying to prove their masculinity did.
Dalton picked up his stir stick from the table and put it into the dregs of his mocha, swishing it around, giving himself something to focus on besides Tierney. His hands held steady, but he jittered inside. “You have a reason now.”
“What?” Tierney jerked in his peripheral vision. “What reason?”
He glanced up to see the man’s face had gone pale again. “Well, it’s more that you no longer have a reason to stay in the closet now that your grandfather is dead.”
“What about the rest of my family?” Tierney’s machismo deflated as the words spilled out. He ran a hand through his hair, gripped it for a second, then released it. “Grandfather brainwashed them too.”
Dalton dipped his chin, in concession to the note of panic in Tierney’s voice rather than his words.
“Besides, it’s too fucking late for me.”
He laid down his stir stick, resting his hands faux-carelessly on the table. “If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
That’s about what he would have guessed. “That’s a lot of your life left to stay in the closet.” He shouldn’t be pushing this. He believed each person had to come out in their own way; personal experience told him it was best. But it just seemed so obvious that Tierney could be an okay guy—maybe even a nice guy—if he’d drop the act.
“Yeah?” Tierney was back to glowering. “It’s my life. I thought we were here talking so you could, I dunno, express your sympathies, not psychoanalyze me. Or, like, fix me.” He shoved away from the table, chair legs scraping on the tile floor, but stayed seated, eyeing Dalton from the increased distance between them.
“I’m sorry,” Dalton said, even though he didn’t mean it. “I’m not trying to fix you. I just thought you might not see the situation clearly. Sometimes when people are too emotionally involved—”
“I’m not emotionally involved.” Tierney sliced his hand through the air and continued through clenched teeth. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I don’t have any reason to come out.”
Dalton blinked, trying to follow the logic.
“I don’t have any emotional involvements. Not now,” Tierney went on, then suddenly his glare became a sly twist of his lips. “Unless you wanna be my reason to come out?”