Thank God one part of my life was going right, because I was starting to feel like they wouldn’t all be in balance at once.

Monday was much less fun than the weekend, which was an opinion I hadn’t held in years. Worse yet, because I wasn’t spending every spare minute in the office, I had to work a lot harder when I was in. Not necessarily long hours, but absolute focus. I couldn’t afford distractions like chatting about my coworker’s new kittens.

Was that how I’d kept up with networking and my job—by working essentially double-time? No wonder I’d shot to the top of the employee list here. And now I was paying for it dearly.

“I’ll leave you two to chat about it,” Valerie said with a pointed look at me. She closed the office door on her way out. We were alone in the office now, having had to wait until late at night before our meeting partner was available—and he was up early, at six AM or something stupid.

I knew what that look she’d shot me said. Close the deal tonight. And since our Dubai-based potential client didn’t seem interested in working with anyone else, I had to either figure out a way to get them interested in someone else here or get over myself and find a way to work with them.

Fuck.

“Great to meet you, Charlie.” To give him credit, Alex did seem like a solid guy. He came across as immediately likable, unlike many a snobby developer I’d met. “I’m excited to work with you, or so I hope.” He offered a smile. “Which brings us to this meeting, I guess.”

“Nice to meet you at last, too,” I agreed, waving slightly and settling back in my chair. The laptop sat in the middle of the polished wood surface, which was bare of any other distractions except a notepad. I grabbed it and balanced it on my lap in case I wanted to keep talking points close at hand. “You wanted to talk about the, um, resort tower.”

It was a pretty typical project for the area, with all the challenges of trying to find water in the desert, but the potential reward of boosting my name and the firm’s in another developing market.

There were also challenges that most people around me didn’t even seem to want to talk about, if they knew about them. Like, even if only in theory, the death penalty for my enjoyable Saturday night.

“Yes. We love your portfolio. The whole firm’s, but your vision just fits with what we want. That use of space and the eye for natural environments, the vision for modern, sophisticated, yet green-looking buildings. You take sustainability beyond earthships,” Alex enthused.

I knew I was good at what I did, but it was hard not to let the flattery get to me. “Yeah? Thanks.”

“You love a good challenge.”

A bold statement, but clearly Alex had been doing his homework. For all I complained about other people not knowing they were asking the impossible, I relished the chance to make it come true. “Yes. I’ve never built in a desert, though. We have other guys here who—”

“Oh, I know,” Alex said with a rueful smile. “Valerie’s been trying to sell me on them. But the end client only wants you.”

Aha. Now we were getting somewhere. There was an end client, which explained why he seemed so reluctant to budge. “Are you being hired by an oil billionaire?”

“Something like that,” he nodded. “He wants to maintain his privacy, but you’re pretty close.”

Right. An ego project, then. If I was never going to get to meet him, that meant relaying suggestions through a third party—not always a bad thing, but added complications when time was of the essence.

“Look, I have some big reservations, apart from labor conditions. I know it’s hard to guarantee everyone will be a legal immigrant treated fairly. Especially on this scale of project. Costs go through the roof, or principles get sacrificed.” I wanted to make it clear I knew damn well that modern-day slavery was common in the area. Construction and housekeeping were two of the biggest abusive industries, and if I took the job, I might unknowingly be contributing to one.

Not like the West was much better in places. Some subcontractors liked to shortcut safety in the name of cost-cutting. But at least the guys on our sites didn’t have their passports taken away as soon as they got there.

“Right.” Alex grimaced. “We’ve done our best to guarantee fair and safe working conditions, which is… a hell of a task in the desert.”

“I respect that,” I told him, honestly. But there was no point in bullshitting around the real problem. “But I prefer to supervise on-site. If not for the whole project, I have to be there at a few critical phases.”

“Right. Singapore and Seoul haven’t been a problem.”

“And their laws are friendlier to people like me.” It was impossible to meet anyone’s eyes through the screen, but I did my best to look as close to the camera as I could while still watching his face. “Not that much better, in the case of Singapore, but I’m at least willing to risk it.”

Plus, there were a hell of a lot of things I wasn’t going to get into—like if I’d been HIV-positive, I wouldn’t even be allowed into the country on a work visa. They did blood testing for all new arrivals, I knew that much, and they deported HIV-positive people. Which ought to have been a scandal, but then, they weren’t the only country to have done that in recent memory. I didn’t feel it was fair to the poz guys out there that I got to take advantage of opportunities that were closed to them.

Alex hesitated, scanning my expression, and then folded his arms as he leaned back. “Yeah. I get your reservations. I thought the same before I moved here. But the scene for my friends is a lot safer than I thought it would be. They say there’s police raids, but worst-case scenario, foreigners get deported. And there’s a lot of underground clubs.”

“I didn’t establish a life in New York City, of all places, to hide from police raids,” I said, shaking my head. Hadn’t he even heard of Stonewall? He had an American accent, so surely to God he had.

“If we kept the visits as short as possible, would that be okay?” Alex pressed. I didn’t blame him—he had a client to satisfy. “And we could introduce you to locals who can give you a better idea of what to expect.”

“I know what to expect,” I told him. “When I go to Singapore, I keep it to a week at most. I’m careful not to act too gay in public. I don’t want to make it harder for locals. They’re stuck afterward, explaining that it’s not just an imported idea from the West,” I told him.

I hadn’t yet said no, though. We were both aware of it. It was a complicated negotiation, and it shouldn’t have been. Why was this even a conversation?

“How about I refer you to some of the guys here who are already working in Dubai?”

Alex shook his head. “Valerie gave me their portfolios already. I went through them with my client. They only want you.”

Was I being stupid? If I wasn’t gonna get the deal closed by passing it on to another architect, it was down to me.

It was one little project in one country. I had others on my plate—the local redevelopment, the Singapore project. I could add one more to my rotation, surely.

“We can schedule most of the meetings through Skype and keep on-site visits to a minimum.”

“I need site visits,” I told him. “At least every couple months when there’s construction going on. Leaving projects in the hands of that team doesn’t go well.”

Alex nodded. “That’s why your portfolio has such a strong vision. A lot of the people we were looking at have great concepts and the real-life execution is… well, missing something.”

It was like Charlie-bait: a challenge.

“I need time to think about it,” I told him. It wasn’t that I was afraid to say no. I was a New Yorker. I was used to saying no on every commute, let alone at my job. But there was more going on here and I genuinely had to figure out what I was willing to do.

Alex lit up. “We can give you a week.”

“I might be going to Singapore in a week or two.” I ran a hand through my hair, scribbling on my notepad with the other. Singapore raised its own set of problems. “Depends how that timeline unfolds this week.”

-Tell K about S’pore.

-Answer Alex by…

My pen hovered over the page as I looked up at the screen. “When do you need an answer?”

“How about next Sunday?”

“That works.” I finished writing the note and stuffed it in my pocket. “I don’t want to lead you on, but…”

“No,” Alex interrupted, waving a hand. “I really appreciate you thinking about it despite your apprehensions. It makes me feel bad I can’t guarantee more, but I can pass along all the experiences I’ve heard about and hopefully you’ll reach a decision that everyone’s comfortable with.”

Hopefully, yeah. Unlikely, from the sounds of things. I smiled and put the notepad aside again. “Yeah.”

“Let me know if you want to talk to anyone who has a more… inside perspective.”

“Will do.” I was tired out, it was late, and I’d probably missed texts from Kev. What would he think of me agreeing to go to Dubai? I found myself genuinely wanting his opinion before I decided. He was smart—and careful, but bold. And he wasn’t afraid of saying what he really thought. Exactly the kind of opinion I wanted.

Plus, if I was going to fuck off to a place like that for longer than a few days as I sometimes did when a new project started, he deserved to know there was no chance he could visit me in that time. I could put myself at risk, but not him. Never him.

“Catch you later, Alex. I’ll let you know when I have a decision either way,” I promised. I raised my hand to wave and trade goodbyes before I hung up.

Before I left the office, I shut the laptop and then braced my elbows on the desk, burying my face in my hands. I was under pressure and not thinking clearly, that much was obvious.

I didn’t want to support the regime in power any more than any anti-gay country. I didn’t want my name on a building in a country that had a terrible human rights record. But then, plenty of countries I’d worked and even lived in had huge human rights problems they weren’t addressing.

I sighed and pushed myself to my feet, determined not to think about it anymore tonight.

As soon as I left my office, Valerie cornered me. “Well?”

“I’m thinking about it,” I told her, my tone clipped. I wasn’t going to give her false hope, either. “He’s one hundred percent not interested in anyone else—I tried that already.”

Valerie nodded. “I dunno why he’s so fixated on you, but it has to be you.” She took my arm. “I get it. God, I don’t want to go to Dubai, either, as a woman.”

I shivered and nodded. Sometimes our country sucked, but I felt relatively safe to be me here.

Why the hell had my work life gotten to the point where this was part of my thought process? Fuck this whole mess.

“But you need to look at the on-the-ground situation before you shoot yourself in the foot,” Valerie said. “There will be other projects for us.”

That wasn’t a threat, was it? No. She wouldn’t fire me over something like this. But it was a statement of fact, and I knew she was right. The up-and-coming architectural wonders weren’t being built in London or Tokyo these days. They were in countries like Singapore and Dubai. The next hotspots would no doubt have colonial-era laws, too. This wasn’t going to be a one-time problem.

“Like I said: I’ll think about it. God, it’s gotta be nearly midnight. I’m going home,” I told her.

“Good plan. Me too.” She was clearly disappointed not to have a result, but I was grateful she wasn’t pushing that pressure onto me, at least.

I waved and called an Uber before I packed up my laptop. I’d work from home in the morning and recover from the late night. Now that I was starting to get full nights of sleep, I’d found myself counting on them.

I was quiet on the Uber ride home, staring out the window. The gay glass ceiling weighed heavily on my mind. I knew damn well that most of this was the pressure I was putting on myself, and had since Hugh died. I wanted to keep rising within the firm, and then another firm if I outgrew this one. Someday, my own firm.

But someone had specifically requested me for this project. It was the first time anyone had been so insistent that it had to be me. Not only was it good for the ego, but it was great for my portfolio. If I really wanted to pursue this career with the vigor I’d put into it for the last five-plus years, it was stupid to ignore this chance.

Plus… I was going to Singapore, for God’s sake. Sure, the police presence wasn’t so actively hostile, but the laws were against same-sex relationships there, too. I couldn’t hold a double standard and argue that one was okay.

I thanked the driver when I blinked and found the car turning the corner towards my home. I climbed out on the corner and stopped by the bodega for a few groceries. I had a full-sized fridge, but rarely kept it stocked with fresh foods. The whole time, my brain was several thousand miles away.

I sleep-walked through my door and straight to the kitchen, dumped everything in the fridge, and then headed straight upstairs to bed without even a glass of wine.

One thing had consumed my thoughts: what happens if I say no?

Valerie wouldn’t fire me, but there wouldn’t be much room for advancement if I started applying silly things like principles to my career and stopped taking jobs in half the countries we operated in. Plus, I was good at Singapore and their building codes. Every country had their own practices and codes to consider, and I liked Singapore.

I was careful not to use social media much so I didn’t have to avoid my social media being used against me. I didn’t express much of my life, although I was technically registered on a few sites. And I’d always known that was unfair, but who cared? Fairness wasn’t the way the world worked. I knew that well enough by now.

“God, it just sucks,” I mumbled when I was finally in bed. I buried my face in the pillows and breathed in the faint scent of Kev that still clung to the pillowcases from a few days ago.

Goddammit, I wanted him here by my side. I rolled over again to actually check my phone and smiled at the string of texts from him. I sent one back, but I was so tired I could barely even process the words.

Long day today. Chat in the morning, I’m working from home. Sleep tight.

I got a response right away.

Good night!

It made me smile, at least. This was one tiny bright spot, even if it wasn’t like coming home and snuggling up in Kev’s arms. I could still remember what that felt like and I conjured that memory up as I pulled the covers over my head.

The fact didn’t escape me that if I pursued this with Kev, it was only going to make that very line I was considering right now even harder to walk. A single, HIV-negative gay guy who could kind of pass as straight and didn’t especially like to party going to Dubai for a week? Sure, I could avoid any trouble. But as soon as I got a boyfriend, there was that dance of avoiding talking about myself and my life.

I fucking hated that game with a burning passion. I generally avoided talking about myself because it was nobody’s business. But not being able to drop in a casual when my boyfriend and I did this had already been a frustration, even now that I had five years of solo living to talk about since I’d lost him.

It was a whole minefield of life changes that I wasn’t sure I was ready to walk into, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was still pressing the pillow that smelled like Kev’s hair into my face as I drifted to sleep.

Love didn’t care about inconvenience, and it never had. The only question was what to do about it—and whether to acknowledge it at all. Not that that was much of a choice.

Why the hell build a life at all if it was going to be half a life?