CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SWEETEST MONTH
We were joined at the hip after that. Every second of our free time was spent together.
I was anxious at first about what Bianca would think of it all, but I shouldn't have worried. She was ecstatic about it, so happy for me she was bursting with it. She pushed me in his direction at every opportunity.
"Go," she'd say. "I'll just be painting all day, anyway. This works out perfectly."
It only lasted a month, but it was the sweetest month.
He was on-call, and good friends with the girl who ran scheduling, so he managed to snag the fifth position on nearly all of our flights.
I was on cloud nine. I'd always been a romantic, but even so, I'd never been in love. Not like this. It was a brand new, heady, wonderful experience.
Of course, it all just made the quick plummet of our breakup that much harder to bear. It didn't seem to matter that we'd had such a short time together, because that time had been spent earnestly making bittersweet memories that I would dwell on in all of my troubled, lonely reflections after.
But that was after. During . . . during was another thing entirely.
The making of the sweet memories before they turned bitter.
We loved to go hiking. There was this little private spot at Red Rock that we hit every chance we got. We'd hold hands and talk for hours there.
It was maybe the fifth time we'd gone, and we had just reached the peak at the top of our hike when he shot me his best smile. "Pinch me. I feel like I'm dreaming here."
"Why's that?"
"You is why. I never thought you'd ever even talk to me, let alone give me the time of day."
"Why?"
"You're out of my league, if you haven't noticed. And you're so nice. A fairytale prince that came to rescue a loser like me."
I melted. Every hard thing inside of me went soft for this man.
If it'd just been us, we would have been fine, I figured.
It was the rest of the world that was the problem.
It wasn't the long walks that ended us, or any of the time in private.
It was the parties, the active social scene that went along with our line of work that sealed our fate.
Javier had been respectful about my ban on PDA from the first time I'd mentioned it, but there were times when I could tell it bothered him. Many times.
One time in particular was the last straw for him.
We were at a house party for our friend Damien's birthday.
I was standing with Javier and a group of pilots and flight attendants, but I was watching Bianca across the room. She'd been cornered by Damien, who everyone knew had had a thing for her since the first time he'd seen her.
A lot of people thought this was juicy gossip, since they assumed she was with me, and they knew we were all friends.
That wasn't why I was staring. I was watching only to see if she needed me to run interference.
She liked Damien and was trying to be nice, but I could tell he was making her uncomfortable.
Damien was one of our closer friends, and one of the few that knew Bianca and me weren't together. Sometimes I wished he'd never caught on. Bianca was never going to care about him the way he wanted. She just didn't feel that way about him, and if she could have used me as an excuse to keep him at bay, I knew she would have.
"I don't know why you put up with that shit, Stephan," one of the pilots said loudly. His name was Allen, I was pretty sure.
I glanced at him with a raised brow. He was an overweight guy, in his early thirties, I guessed. A first officer, I recalled, and one that had a reputation for being difficult to work with. I barely knew the guy, but he sounded like he had a very strong opinion about my life. Of course, he wasn't exactly sober at the moment.
"Excuse me?" I asked, hoping to politely deflect him.
He was red in the face, his brown hair messy and falling in his eyes. He waved a hand toward Bianca and Damien. "He's after your girl. Everyone knows it. And he's supposed to be your friend? It's none of my business, but I don't know why you put up with it."
I gave him a bland smile. "You're right. It is none of your business."
"You need to put a ring on that one," he said, tone snide, "before Captain Dimples snatches her on up."
He was getting on my nerves in a major way, but I still made a mental note to harass Damien about that nickname as soon as I could.
"I'm not worried about it, so I don't know why you are," I told him pointedly. Though I did know. I recalled there was some kind of beef between him and Damien, something involving a woman that preferred Damien more, though I didn't know all the details.
Apparently he thought that could be solved by egging me into fighting him.
"What kind of a guy isn't worried about someone else hitting on his girl?" Allen asked, tone snide.
I gave him another bland smile, though this one was harder to fake. "Listen, it's Allen, right?"
He nodded.
I continued, "I know you and Damien have some beef between you, but don't drag me into it. I'm guessing you've heard that I can handle myself in a fight, you probably heard the rumor that I used to be a cage fighter by the way you're acting, but listen carefully to this part: Nothing you can say is going to get me to go over there and do your dirty work for you, and we all know if you tried to kick his ass yourself, he'd clobber you."
He tried to respond, looking angry, but I spoke over him. "Now you, you aren't a close friend of mine, and you're starting to piss me off, so you I could be convinced to fight, but not him, and not by you. So move along before you find out firsthand if I did really used to fight pro."
That had its desired effect, and he left with a few grumbling complaints about me being a prick.
That was fine with me. I was smiling when he left, thinking I'd defused the situation well enough.
A look at Javier's face told me otherwise.
I sighed. I didn't know what, but something about that exchange had deeply bothered him.
He'd been playful and engaged before that, enjoying the crowd we were hanging with. He became withdrawn and stiff after.
There was no good way to get it out of him there, no subtle way to get him alone that wouldn't look suspicious, so it wasn't until later, post-party, that I got him to talk.
"What's bothering you?"
We were getting ready for bed, brushing our teeth side by side in the mirror. I saw his mouth tighten.
He set his toothbrush down and met my eyes. "You really don't know?" he asked quietly, but something in his tone was very loud, so loud it was screaming at me, trying to tell me something that I wasn't ready to hear.
I shook my head. "I know you got upset after I threatened Allen. You don't think the way I handled that was appropriate?"
He grunted. That was it. Just grunted and went to bed.
I followed him, a kernel of annoyance moving through me. I was plainspoken, and sometimes I really wished that he were too.
"I don't speak fluent grunt," I told him as I got into bed. "Want to tell me what yours meant?"
He didn't even crack a smile. "I think it bothers me the most that you don't even understand how screwed up that all was."
I sighed. I hated arguments like this, so full of riddles and land mines. "I guess I don't. Explain, please."
"You were so willing, happy even, to get into a real fight over a fake relationship. You weren't bluffing. You would have followed through, kicked Allen's ass if he kept it up."
"The guy was being a jerk, talking that way about Bianca, trying to stir shit up with me and Damien. And he never would have fought me, so it was a bluff. I'm twice that guy's size."
He grunted again, and this time I could interpret it into a noise of utter frustration. "You don't get it!"
"Explain it to me then," I muttered sullenly, wanting nothing more than to get off this subject.
He was in my face suddenly, eyes wide, passionate. "You're so scared to show the world who you are that you would cripple your life for it! Why?! What are you so scared of? The world is not your sick dad. Half the guys we work with are gay. Do you see the straight ones stringing any of them up? This isn't the fifties. We don't have to hide anymore!"
My jaw clenched, and I just stared at him, refusing to talk about this.
He cupped my face in his hands, eyes imploring. "There's nothing wrong with you, Stephan. Nothing at all. You are who you are, and even if you wanted to, you couldn't change it. No matter how you hide it, you can't run from yourself, and you shouldn't want to, because there's nothing wrong with you."
I didn't cave one single inch, staring him down with cold eyes, letting him talk, giving him nothing.
One sad tear ran down his face. "You're perfect, Stephan. Perfect. I love you. I'm in love with you, but what are you even doing? How long can you live with this farce? How long do I have to pretend to be your bro, your bud, in public, lovers only in private?"
Nothing. I gave him nothing. No part of me was willing to cave to this. I would not do it, not even for him.
He was getting more desperate by the second, eyes wild, lips trembling. "You know what terrifies me? That you're so willing to risk us, to risk this, just to keep up the front."
Nothing. I gave him nothing but cold, resolute eyes.
He got the message, shaking his head back and forth as he looked into them with sad eyes. "It's not even a dilemma for you, is it? If I made you choose, go public or lose me, you wouldn't even hesitate, would you?"
My breath caught. That one got to me. "Don't," I said quietly, a plea in my voice.
He backed away, his jaw hardening. "No. I need to know. If you care about me, you'll choose me. Choose me, Stephan. Please."
"Don't do this. It's not fair. It is manipulative. I have a right to be a private person. You shouldn't want to force me to live other than how I choose to."
"Tell me one thing, do you think you need more time, or will it ever be an option? Do you plan to spend your whole life living a lie?"
"Stop. Just stop. This went too far."
"I notice you didn't answer, and I'm not surprised. I can't do that, can't live a lie, Stephan. Tell me which you choose. The lie or me. Which one is more important to you?"
I was suddenly furious, so angry at him, at his impatience, his inability to see my side of it, that I wanted him gone. Wanted it enough to say, my tone glacial, "I choose to be me, and I refuse to be manipulated by you into living my life as you see fit. We don't all have to march in the Gay Pride Parade, Javier. That's never going to be who I am. So if you're looking for an excuse to leave, there's the fucking door." I waved my arm at it.
He gasped, face going slack, like I'd slapped him. "This isn't about gay pride, but do you even realize, even comprehend, how ashamed you are of being gay?"
I didn't like that. It definitely hit me in a place I wasn't comfortable exploring. I made him sorry he'd said it. "We're done here. Get off your soapbox and leave. Now."
His face crumpled.
I'd been mean to him, when I was never mean. I was on a roll, though, and I wasn't done. "I mean it. Done. This thing has run its course anyway."
I was numb for a while after he'd left, but the numbness didn't last long.
When the pain hit me, I crawled into bed with Bianca, moving like a wounded animal.
She welcomed me with open arms, and it helped, as it always did.