Six Months Later

Tristan laughed as Buzz tackled Woody from behind, sending the two cats tearing out of the living room to battle it out in the master bedroom. The pair of rescue cats had been Gabe’s idea. He’d come home with them last week, and Tristan’s heart had melted. Buzz was snow white with a little patch of black near his left eye. Woody was a calico stripe with a very fluffy tail, and they’d been the perfect addition to the new apartment.

A new apartment currently filled with guests laughing over the antics of the two cats, while Shane and Noel’s gray mutt Misty slept in the corner of the room. The gathering was a housewarming of sorts. He and Gabe had moved into the apartment three weeks ago, and they’d finally settled in well enough to invite their loved ones over for a potluck dinner, which was winding down as a few people went back for seconds or thirds. Bear had made a pan of his special lasagna, and Tristan had tried his hand at homemade lemon bars.

He thought they’d turned out pretty damn good.

“At least you never lack for entertainment,” Shane said. He and Noel were curled up together in an armchair, because they didn’t really have enough seating for everyone.

The apartment was open-concept, so the living room, kitchen and dining area were one big room, with the master bedroom and bathroom in back and a half bath near the front door. Tristan loved it because they could all be in the same room at the same time. For the first time, he was pretty sure.

Debbie, Bear and Richard were occupying the same space, which—Gabe had confessed to him that morning—had terrified Gabe. Debbie was five months out of rehab, living in a house with three other single women, and she’d maintained steady employment to pay her share of expenses. She’d been nothing but polite and well-mannered since she arrived.

Gabe seemed deliriously happy about the whole thing. He’d sold the old house and given Debbie half of the money to sock away for a rainy day. After he gave Chet back what he owed him, the rest of his half went toward their apartment and furnishing the whole thing. Tristan might have gone a little overboard in the decorating department, but he’d never had his own place before, and Gabe had let him control it all. Gunmetal grays, geometric patterns and hints of teal and purple were scattered throughout the place, and Tristan adored how it had turned out.

The drawing Tristan had made for Gabe’s birthday hung in a special place over the electric fireplace’s mantel.

Gabe’s friend Jon, who’d come over with his friend Henry, had told Tristan, “I’m hiring you to decorate when I get my own place.”

Tristan had taken the compliment and kept it close.

“So how’s business been for you?” Bear asked. He ambled over to where Tristan was standing by the kitchen island picking at a plate of lasagna, watching his guests interact as they ate off TV trays.

“Slow but so far so good,” Tristan replied. “We’re working on some social media ideas so I can get my name out there.”

“Word of mouth works wonders for a small business. Believe me.”

Tristan had followed through with the idea of creating a business out of his drawings. He’d hired someone to build a website showcasing the work he’d already done, comparing the finished products to the photographs he’d used as inspiration. He even did a new one of Gabe from one of his Mean Green stills, to show variety. In the four months since going live, he’d gotten five commissions. Each customer had left glowing feedback on his site about the finished product.

The money he was earning helped reinforce his decision to leave Benfield and cut ties to his parents’ financial support. Not that he was likely to have stayed at Benfield after the allegations against the night nurse Debra.

Tristan swallowed hard as old anger resurfaced. Feelings of intense dislike for the woman without knowing why. Back in March, the parents of nineteen-year-old resident Charlie had filed misconduct and abuse charges against Debra after one too many unexplainable bruises on their son. She was fired from Benfield and the matter was settled out of court. In her confession, she admitted that during Tristan’s infrequent bouts of insomnia, he had twice witnessed her hitting Charlie when he wouldn’t calm down.

Learning that had disturbed the hell out of Tristan. He’d witnessed something horrible, but because of his faulty memory, he hadn’t been able to report it. Debra said that she quietly walked Tristan back to his room and watched him until she was sure the memory was gone, leaving him unable to record it in any of his notebooks. She also swore over and over that she’d never been physical with any other patient, including Tristan.

He still wasn’t sure what to believe. Mostly he wanted to keep the incident in the past where it belonged. Benfield was no longer part of his life. His life was with Gabe. He wanted to live every single day in the present.

“Hey, you okay, son?” Bear asked. A warm, meaty hand landed on his shoulder. “You got all morose for a minute.”

“Sorry, my mind wandered,” Tristan replied. He clutched the silver and jade phoenix medallion Gabe had given him for Christmas—the same necklace he’d admired during their first date at the market. He didn’t want to dwell on the bad things. He wanted to focus on what mattered. Everything and everyone who mattered was in his apartment. Shane and Noel, Bear and Richard, and of course, Gabe.

Gabe was still fiddling with the coffeemaker over on the back counter. Okay, so maybe the one Tristan had picked out was a little tricky compared to what Gabe was used to having. Tristan liked gadgets, and that machine could do espresso and everything.

“Need some help?” Tristan asked.

“I’ve got it,” Gabe replied. “I can master a coffeemaker, thank you very much.”

“Shout if you get stuck.”

“Very funny. If I’m going to be any good at hospitality, I need to know these things.”

“Once you’re managing your own hotel, someone else can make the coffee.”

“Yeah, but everyone starts somewhere, and I’ll start here.”

Tristan grinned. Gabe’s unique combination of stubbornness and patience was one of his finest features. It helped him put up with Tristan’s occasional memory hiccup, and it would go a long way toward Gabe’s new future. He’d started taking hospitality classes at the community college, with the hope of one day working in a hotel or managing a restaurant. Gabe hadn’t decided yet, but he’d made the first few steps toward a real career.

And he’d given Chet Green three months’ notice. A few more scenes and Gabe was retiring from porn. Tristan planned on being very, very creative in his methods of celebrating Gabe’s last shoot at Mean Green.

Buzz pranced back into the living room alone. He looked around, then leapt up onto Debbie’s lap and settled there.

“She’s a different person,” Bear said quietly. “Makes me glad for Gabe.”

“Me too.”

“I hope it lasts.”

“Me too, times infinity.”

Gabe would lose it if Debbie started drinking again. But it was the quiet, familial moments like this that, he hoped, made sobriety worth it—not to mention having a real relationship with her son and his partner.

Even if said partner still couldn’t identify her on sight. They hadn’t spent enough time together yet.

The phase two trial had ended ten days ago, and so far so good. According to Dr. Fischer, Tristan was one of their biggest success stories, despite remaining on the phenobarbital to combat his still infrequent seizures. He no longer received the trial drug, but his twice-weekly appointments with Dr. Fischer would continue for another six months. Follow-up was necessary in judging the overall effectiveness of the trial and the drug’s ability to permanently improve memory.

Tristan had spent the first few days post-trial terrified he’d begin to regress. Sometimes details were fuzzy. Sometimes he choked on a name or specific information. He had zero memory of picking out their table lamp shaped like an old-fashioned film reel, but Gabe insisted that was all him.

It didn’t matter to Tristan if he slipped once in a while. He was living with a man he loved more than anything else in the world, they shared a great place and they’d adopted two hilarious cats. A year ago, he’d never have believed such a thing was possible.

A year ago, he’d seen the world as a scary place full of strangers and unexpected danger. He couldn’t see past the scope of his room at Benfield and the once-a-week visits from Noel. Today he saw a world full of promise and a future that could be anything he wanted it to be. He saw himself living in it, instead of hiding from it.

“I win!” Gabe said. “There will be coffee.”

Tristan laughed at Gabe’s delight. He went to his boyfriend and tugged him into his arms. Gabe squeezed his hips, beaming from defeating the dreaded coffeemaker. “There was never a doubt in my mind,” Tristan said.

“Sure there was.”

“Nope. Not one. You don’t fail at anything you set your mind to.”

“That’s true. I knew the first time we met that I wanted you to be a part of my life.”

“And you made sure I was.”

“Well, I do have to give some credit to Noel for bringing you back to Big Dick’s the second time.”

“If you say so.”

Tristan still didn’t remember those moments, but he’d reread his journal entries and the emails enough that the details were imprinted on his mind. He wanted to know every moment of his life with Gabe, whether through the written word or his own memory. The means didn’t matter. All that really mattered was the experience—and Tristan planned to experience every single thing possible and to love Gabe for as long and hard as life allowed.

He’d been giving an amazing second chance. No way was Tristan going to waste a moment of it.

Woody gave her signature yowl, followed by a thump from the bedroom.

Tristan laughed and went to see what his crazy cats were up to this time.

* * *

Don’t miss Jon Buchanan finding love and acceptance in an unexpected place, and with the help of a fuzzy gray kitten, in The Heart As He Hears It (Perspectives #3), available now.