While at the San Diego airport, I received a strange call from my former boss, Maureen. Shortened version, it went something like “I want you to know I’ll still give you a reference even though you quit without notice.” And on my end, “What do you mean, I quit?”

In the end, Maureen made me promise that I would meet up with her sometime in the next week. Alexander apparently has an upcoming day off planned, and she said there were some things I needed to pick up from the office. Personally, I think she just wants to get one last bit of gossip.

Thank god I have to take the shuttle bus back home since Ben is still in school or else I’d get another inquisition. I just need some time to process everything that went down. Yesterday, Ted and I acted like our argument never happened. I helped him move furniture into a U-Haul, and he ignored the bruises on my neck. But the trademarks of our relationship, easy conversation and comfort, were nowhere to be found.

Everything feels off. And with Ted still gone, there’s no way to make it right.

By Sunday, Ben can no longer handle my moping, so he forces the subject in the most Ben way possible.

“Dude, I don’t do ice cream, but we’ve got Monster Hunter: World and a full case of Fat Tire. Did things go that bad in California?”

I flop across my futon and hold out a hand, which quickly gets filled with a beer, and a controller lands on my belly.

“So bad. He would barely touch me around other people. I think I embarrassed him. And then we got into it over Alexander.”

“Okay, first, you had to have been reading him wrong, because there is no way Ted is embarrassed by you. Ted looks at you like I look at pizza.” Ben’s whole face wrinkles in confusion. “And second. How are you guys on separate pages over Alexander? Make asshole pay. I think we’re all on that team.”

“He wanted to swoop in and save the day. I’m tired of having other people solve my problems for me. I want to stand on my own two feet.”

I sit up and hit the play button on the controller. This. Why can’t life just be this, without all the drama? I try to ignore the little voice in the back of my head that reminds me with drama and passion comes some of the most beautiful moments of my life that I’ve experienced these past few weeks. Ted’s groan of satisfaction as he enters my body. Ted, sweaty in leather, swaying to techno on a dance floor. Ted’s proud smile when I fawn over his latest cooking creation.

“Maybe he just got a little overenthusiastic,” Ben says, kicking up his heels on the coffee table and starting the game. I’ve seen Zach get onto him countless times for using the furniture as a rest for his stinky feet, even though Zach no longer lives here. But I can’t bring myself to care. “That can happen when there are feelings involved. Or so I hear. At least don’t go too overboard until you have a chance to talk to him about it.”

“You’re right. Believe me, if I’ve learned anything from you guys this past year, it’s not how-to-gay. It’s what not to do in a relationship.”

“Even the watermelon?” Ben’s mouth gapes in faux shock. “I’m hurt. Here I’m taking my time to teach you important life skills, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Yeah, I don’t think that Sex Ed book was actually a sex ed book.”

“Heh.” Ben waggles his eyebrows at me without actually taking his eyes from the screen. It’s a talent. One that I don’t have – at least right now, considering I just got killed while watching Ben waggle his eyebrows.

He’s right though. Not about the watermelon, well sort of about the watermelon, but about not jumping to conclusions. Watching Craig and Zach last summer was like a master class in miscommunication, and I’m determined not to let my emotions dictate my actions. When Ted gets back from California … we’ll talk. That’s what grown-ups do, right?

Right.

* * *

My Ben day gets cut short, or at least swerves in a different direction, by a phone call from my mom, inviting me to dinner. On Sundays, my mom always makes a chicken pot pie that is to die for, so I’m not turning that down. I ask if I can invite Ben, and of course my mom is thrilled to meet a new friend. I can tell by the way she says it, though, she’s wondering if he’s a friend, or a special friend.

Carly must not have blabbed about Ted.

Ben’s just excited for real food. I’ve never seen anyone pack food away quite like Ben, and I know my mom is going to love him. She considers having leftovers to be an insult.

“Listen, if you could not say anything to my parents about my job, while we’re there,” I say on the way to the highway and the northbound trek to Wellington.

“Why?” Ben asks as he rifles through my glove box and pulls out CDs that have been stuck there since before I had a smartphone. He should be thankful it even has a CD player. When I inherited it from my older sister, who inherited it from my aunt, it still had a tape deck. He pulls out the Proclaimers and gives me a side-eye.

“I’ve had this car since I could drive. Don’t judge sixteen-year-old Kieran’s musical taste,” I say, as if I don’t still listen to that CD when I need a pick-me-up.

“You think your parents would be upset with you for losing your job? Especially after what happened?”

Ben seems to have a good relationship with his family, so I ask him, “What would your parents do if this happened to you?”

He barks out a laugh. “They’d be out for blood.”

“Exactly. They’ll either want to go after Alexander, or they’ll want to be super helpful and try to find me a new job, or both. And either will drive me crazy.”

“Okay, okay.” Ben throws up his hands in surrender. “As long as we can listen to …” He puts the CD into the player just as I pull in front of my childhood home and turn off the car. “Damn it.”

I’m still laughing at his adorable, in a strictly objective and platonic way, pouting as we make it to the front door. I probably take a little too long staring at him, but I’m comfortable with where we are now enough to do it. In a weird way, Ben’s goofiness makes me appreciate the sturdiness and steadiness I’ve found with Ted. Ted makes me feel safe and self-assured. He makes me trust my own feelings. Maybe I’m wrong to care so much about being independent. I don’t know. It’s all such a jumble of thoughts and feelings that I can’t seem to untangle.

“Are you going to go in or just admire me all night?” Ben asks with a smile twisting his lips.

I roll my eyes. “Just thinking how much I appreciate Ted,” I say, opening the door and nearly barreling over my dad.

“Oof. I was just coming to see if I accidentally locked you out,” he says, pulling me from our collision into a hug. I get my height, or lack of it, from my dad, and my hair from my mom. “Good to see you, Kieran.”

Daisy, the mixed mutt my parents got after the insanity that was Sadie the Cocker Spaniel, saunters by and sniffs Ben’s pant leg before heading into the living room and flopping onto her cushion.

“That’s Daisy,” I tell Ben. “Ever the watchdog, that one.”

“You leave the old girl alone,” Dad says, nudging my shoulder. “She put up with your high school hijinks. She deserves a little peace and quiet after that.”

Ben’s eyes light up at the word “hijinks,” but before he can ask, Mom peeks her head out from the kitchen and comes to give me a hug too.

“Is that my baby?”

“Not a baby, Mom,” I say while Ben snickers in the background.

“Guys, this is Ben, my roommate. Ben, this is my mom, Carol, and my dad, Kevin.”

My dad shakes Ben’s hand while my mom’s eyes bug out of her head.

“Roommate? Carly said you had just started dating. That’s moving a little fast, isn’t it?”

“No, Mom,” I say, only barely keeping myself from face-palming, “Ben is just a roommate. We’re friends.”

“Oh, well, you know …” She huffs as if she were being perfectly reasonable.

“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I’m attracted to every single man out there.” Before Ben can open his mouth, and I know it’s coming because the side-eye and the smirk are already there, I glare at him. “Don’t even.”

“What?” Ben asks with innocent eyes. “I was just going to say that your mom obviously knows a good thing when she sees it.”

“You’re damn right she does.” Dad tosses it out with a wink at Mom before he throws an arm around her and ushers us all farther inside the house. Mom’s about an inch taller than Dad, which Ben clearly thinks is adorable as we follow behind them, but I’m more than over it, since I got Dad’s short genes.

“Ben!” Carly looks up from her phone when we enter the dining room. “’Sup, bro?” They knock fists, a greeting they perfected over the weekend that Carly stayed with me. When she wasn’t at CSU or embarrassing me over dinner, she was back at the house eating all our junk food and playing video games with Ben. I think there were times Ben didn’t even realize he was playing against Carly and not me.

“When I come to CSU in a year, can I just move in with you guys instead of having to live in a dorm?”

“No,” Mom and I say simultaneously, while Ben says, “Sure.”

When we all get situated around the table and Dad scoops out helpings of chicken pot pie for everyone, Carly gets a wicked gleam in her eye. Shit. I’m about to get payback.

“So, Kieran, how’s your daddy?”

Ben covers his mouth with his napkin so I’m not sure if the noise was a cough or a laugh. Probably both.

Meanwhile, my dad looks confused and my mom says, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Carly says with an evil glint. “The guy Kieran is dating is old enough to be his dad. I bet if you let me stay with him, he’d make better life choices.”

“Ted is not old enough to be my dad,” I say through gritted teeth, “And my life choices are just fine.”

I scoop another helping of chicken pot pie and Ben holds his plate out for more as well.

“It goes both ways, you know, Carly,” Dad says over a bite of pie. “If you were to move in with Kieran for college, then I’m sure he’d have plenty to say about your life choices too. You might want to consider that.”

Carly’s eyes widen at the thought, and I smirk behind my fork. Point for Dad.

“As for you, Kieran.” My smirk drops as I wait to hear how he’s going to react. “I don’t care how old this man is, as long as he deserves you.”

“No one is good enough to deserve my baby,” Mom says, but I’m too stunned to even protest the continued use of “baby.”

“Ted used to be my boss,” Ben says through a mouthful of food. “He’s a good guy.”

“The best.”

It slips out before I overthink it, and the surprise is evident on my parents’ faces, although Carly rolls her eyes and pulls her phone back out while they’re distracted.

“Well, then,” Mom says, pushing herself back from the table. “I suppose this calls for celebratory pie.”

“More pie?” Ben asks like it’s almost too good to hope for.

“Chocolate meringue.”

“You know you had the pie ready anyway,” I say to her and her ridiculous celebratory pie notion. “You always do on Sunday.”

Ben’s glare in my direction is so sudden I almost tilt backwards in my chair.

“Why am I only now experiencing this? We’ve been roommates for two months, and you’re telling me I could have had this every Sunday?”

Mom laughs and pats Ben’s head. “You’re welcome any time.”

Ben relaxes back in his seat after directing a satisfied and superior look my way. “Who’s her baby now?”

* * *

“I need for you to meet with the board,” Maureen says the second she meets me in front of the empty reception desk. I guess we’re not beating around the bush then.

“No.” I set a foot backwards so that I can walk right back out that door. No way am I going to go in there and humiliate myself in front of the head bosses. Bad enough I have to live with what Alexander did. I don’t want everyone else knowing. The only reason I informed Maureen was because she had a right to know I didn’t just up and abandon her.

“You need to state your case. If they know, they will bring you back.” She tugs on my arm, trying to keep me from leaving.

“And I want to come back to more harassment? Be in a workplace where I need to keep pepper spray on my person to keep that asshole off me? No thank you.”

“Do I need to get on to you for not reading the employee handbook as well? There’s a no tolerance policy for sexual harassment. I’m hoping that your return would be in conjunction with his removal.”

Oh. Still.

“Um, hey,” Stefan, the receptionist, says in a quiet voice. Fuck, I didn’t notice him arrive. “Are you talking about Alexander?”

Is he a spy? A traitor? A sympathetic ear? Fuck, when did my life turn into some sordid Shonda Rhimes drama?

Before I can hedge, Maureen confirms it, earning her the fiercest glare I’m capable of giving.

“If you need someone else to speak up, I will. If it would help your case.” He chews at his upper lip, making him look like a bulldog. A sad, scared bulldog.

“Alexander harassed you too?”

Stefan nods. He’s a slight guy like me, except with better taste and not a mean or sarcastic bone in his body. He’s wonderful with our clients and knows just how to always keep them happy and relaxed. I can’t imagine how a guy like him would respond to a guy like Alexander. Shit, is this my fault? Could it have been prevented if I had only spoken up?

“What happened?”

“He’s had me bring him paperwork or coffee while he was, you know, in the middle of something.” He busies himself with organizing the items on his desk. I know the feeling, and I wish I could make it better for him.

“With himself or others?” I ask, immediately wishing I hadn’t. That sounds like Alexander. And come to think of it, he probably tried it with me too, but once I heard the sounds coming from the other side of the door, I stayed the fuck away. But I can see how Stefan would be hesitant to disobey a direct order.

“Both,” he says with a fleeting look at me before turning to Maureen. “Then last week, after Kieran left, he told me if I helped him out, he’d make sure that I got promoted to the assistant position.”

I don’t want to ask, because I’m not sure I want to know. Still, it comes as a relief when Stefan adds, “I told him I had to think about it.”

“And you’d be willing to go to the board as well?” Maureen asks, and Stefan nods.

“Fine.” If Stefan can be that brave, then so can I. “When’s the meeting?”

“Right now,” Maureen says, stalking down the hallway. Stefan and I share a look before following after her. Guess she wasn’t planning on taking no for an answer.