Chapter Fourteen
The next evening, I gave the storage unit’s roll-up door a push, and it rumbled upward, revealing the stacks of boxes and plastic crates occupying half the bay.
“We moving all this tonight?” Sailo asked.
“No, no. I still have to get some of the bigger stuff from the house, not to mention the more expensive shit that I didn’t want to leave here.” I gestured at the stacks. “Tonight, I just wanted to grab a few things so I have some basics at the apartment. Dishes, stuff like that.”
“Good idea.”
“And it should all…” I glanced at a stack marked move first, and then at the open trunk of my car. “Yeah, it should all fit. I’d just as soon not make two trips if I can help it.”
“I could’ve brought the van.”
“Nah. This is fine.” I picked up the first crate. “If it doesn’t fit, I can probably live without it for a few more days.”
“All right.” He grabbed the second one. “And hey, if you need help with anything, just say so. I’ll, uh, understand if you don’t want me coming with you to get stuff from your ex’s place, though.”
That gave me pause. I hadn’t even thought of how weird it might be to bring Sailo with me to the house I’d once shared with Becky. She had her boyfriend there, but showing up with mine might make things…weird.
I set the crate in the trunk, pushing it all the way to the side to make room for the others. “There really isn’t much to take from there, so…shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Okay.” He put a crate beside the first one. “Glad to help as much as I can, though.”
“Much appreciated. I don’t think you really want to get up close and personal with the remnants of a failed marriage, though. It can get a little awkward.”
“Is it really a failed marriage?”
“Huh?” I turned to him. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He shrugged. “You’ve never said anything nasty about her, and it sounds like you get along. You had twenty-five good years, and when it ended, it ended.”
“Which is…kind of the definition of a marriage failing. I mean, it was good, and then when it wasn’t, we called it quits.”
“But was it good for most of the time?”
I stopped, eyes losing focus for a moment. He had a point. Becky and I had shared a lot of good years—that was why the divorce had been such a tough pill to swallow. Our marriage was happy for a long time. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Sailo picked up another box. “My aunt and uncle hate each other. They’ve been married for forty-two years, and I don’t think they’ve been happy for at least forty-one of those. But they’re still married.” He put the box in the backseat and met my gaze. “So if they’re miserable and hate each other, but you and your ex are amicably moving on with your lives, how is their marriage a successful one and yours is a failure?”
I quirked my lips. “Interesting way to look at it. I think you might be on to something.”
He shrugged, a subtle smile on his lips. “I just think it’s not as black-and-white, you know? Divorce isn’t necessarily failure, and staying married isn’t necessarily success.” He gestured past me. “Do those all go on this trip?”
I turned around and scanned the boxes. “Not this stack.” I tapped the top crate of a pile by the wall. “But these…”
We loaded up what was left, and then I shut and locked the storage unit. As I drove us out, I kept chewing on what he said. I really hadn’t thought of things that way, and it…it made sense. A lot of sense. The feeling of failure I’d had since Becky dropped the bomb suddenly seemed…silly. Maybe it was a failure on paper, but was it really if we could both move on, start over, and be happy?
I pulled out on the main road. “You mind if I ask you something personal?”
“Shoot.”
I rested a hand on the wheel and glanced at him. “Were you married before?”
“Me? Oh God, no.” He paused. “Because of my son, right?”
“I’m…yeah, just curious.”
“No, I’ve never been married. As for my son, basically my friends are a lesbian couple who wanted a baby, but they weren’t getting anywhere with the adoption process. We were all sitting around one night, and we realized that between us, we have, you know, all the necessary equipment to make one.”
I chuckled. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“Right?” Sailo laughed. “So we spent a few weeks talking about it, and then…well, Mika.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“I mean, we did go the natural way. Which was kind of amusing since they’re lesbians and I’m gay, but none of us owned a turkey baster that hadn’t been handed down by a grandmother, so—”
I burst out laughing. “You’re not serious.”
He snickered. “Nah, I’m joking about that part. But we really did do things naturally. I guess…I don’t know, every other option seemed so impersonal. And expensive, and unreliable.”
“Not that the natural way has any guarantees.”
“No, but it was a hell of a lot more fun than the alternative.” He paused. “Once we’d had a couple of glasses of wine, anyway.”
I burst out laughing. “Hey, if it works for straight couples…”
“Right?” He chuckled. “So, yeah, I know the whole thing is pretty unusual. People tell me all the time that the arrangement I have with my son’s moms is going to screw him up. But he’s got three parents who love him and have a good relationship with each other, so…” He shrugged again. “I guess I just don’t see the problem.”
I drummed my fingers on the wheel. “It sounds like it’s worked out well? Being a single parent and all?”
“Oh yeah. It’s been great.” He rested his elbow beneath the window and leaned against it. “Before that, I never really saw myself volunteering to be a single parent, but to be honest, I don’t feel like one. I’m not in a relationship with his moms, and we have joint custody, but everybody’s amicable. We spend a lot of time as a family too.”
“That’s great. And if you all are happy, and he’s happy…”
“We are.” He gazed out the windshield. “I’m glad I did it. It’s not how I imagined starting a family, but I really did want to be a father, and I’d always envisioned myself starting younger than I did. So, then I’m thirty and single, and I thought, well, at least this way I won’t be rushing into a relationship just so we can have kids before I’m forty.” He gave a quiet, somewhat bitter laugh. “Guess I was onto something—I’m thirty-seven, still single, but at least I have my son.”
I glanced at him again. “Have you had any long-term relationships?”
He shrugged. “I had a boyfriend for a couple of years, but we didn’t see much of each other toward the end. Mika was still pretty little, and my boyfriend and I were both trying to get careers off the ground, so there wasn’t time, you know?”
I nodded. I thought about asking about his other relationships, but that faint bitterness in his tone suggested this wasn’t a pleasant topic. So, I left the ball in his court while I continued down the road.
After a few blocks of silence, he asked, “Have you thought about coming out to your family? Not just your kids. Like, your parents?”
“I’m…pretty sure this would not go over well with my dad.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Great. Now I sounded bitter too. “He’s definitely from another generation. In fact, I’d say he’s a huge part of why I didn’t let myself even think of being interested in men until later in life.”
“That bad?”
“Yep. He was the ‘don’t ever let me find out one of you boys is a sissy’ kind of dad.”
Sailo groaned, probably rolling his eyes. “Jesus.”
“Mmhmm. As for, my mom and stepdad…” I thought about them for a moment. “It’s hard to tell. They’re from the same generation as my dad, but not complete assholes about it. Quite frankly, I have no idea what my mother thinks about gay people.” I blew out a long breath, tapping my thumbs on the wheel. “They threw a fit over my daughter getting pregnant as a teenager. Except they were more upset about it after her boyfriend left. They’d have been fine if she’d married him, but the minute she was going to be on her own?” I clicked my tongue. “Suddenly she needed to think about giving the baby up.”
“Of course,” Sailo muttered.
“Once the baby got here, though, they were over the moon. I mean, seriously—show my mother a baby, and she’ll forget any negative thought she’s ever had.”
He laughed quietly. “Sounds like my mom.”
“Yeah?” I glanced at him. “She wasn’t thrilled about your son?”
“Not at first. My whole family’s had very mixed reviews about Mika. Some people think we were irresponsible, since I’m not married to his biological mother, or that I consider both of them to be his moms. There are people who are horrified over me ‘letting’ a couple of lesbians raise my kid.” He laughed. “Like I’m not involved with my son’s life.”
“Everyone has an opinion about everything, right?”
“Especially when it comes to kids.”
“Yes. Amen.”
After a few more blocks, I pulled into the parking lot at the foot of my new building.
“Well.” I put the car in park. “Here we are.”
“Sweet.” Unbuckling his seat belt, he flashed me a grin. “Let’s go have a look at your new place.”
His enthusiasm was infectious. I was actually a little excited now at the prospect of showing someone my new place.
My new place. My own apartment for the first time ever, since I’d lived in shared dorms right up until I’d moved in with Becky.
We each grabbed a box and headed upstairs. It took a few trips from the car—I really hoped the freight elevator was fixed by this weekend—but before long, we had everything stacked neatly in the hallway leading past the kitchen and to the living room. From there, we moved boxes and crates to their respective rooms, making sure there was plenty of space to bring in and set up furniture.
This was surreal. Even more than when I’d helped my kids move into dorms, apartments, and houses. The apartment had that sterile smell of a place that had recently been cleaned, and the fresh paint on the walls was still pretty fragrant. Kind of the “new car smell,” but for apartments. The floors, walls, and counters were bare, and since the whole place was empty, it was difficult to imagine my furniture fitting in here. Intellectually, I knew it looked small because there was nothing in it, and my furniture absolutely would fit. Not that I’d brought in a tape measure and notebook or anything when I’d first come to look at the place.
I showed him around, but there wasn’t much to see at the moment. A spare bedroom that I wasn’t sure what to do with yet. A small but efficient kitchen. A living room that would feel much more enormous once it had furniture. The master bedroom, where I predicted I’d be spending a ton of time with Sailo.
And it was mine. Every inch of it would be to my taste. My rules.
Yes, I could get used to this.
I popped open one box and pulled out some of the various supplies I’d bought after signing the lease. I’d made a run to the grocery store for basic necessities—toiletries, laundry detergent, dishwasher soap, cleaning supplies—so I wouldn’t have to try to remember everything as I was moving in. I’d bought a new coffeepot, which I plugged in next to the microwave, and coffee, creamer, and all that. Obviously.
I’d deliberately kept a stainless pot and a frying pan in the move first boxes, in case I wanted some real food before I’d unpacked. Aside from those and a couple of ceramic mugs, the only dishes for now were some halfway decent paper plates and plastic utensils.
As I put the sparse cookware away, Sailo held up a small, unmarked crate. “Where do you want this?”
“Just put that in the spare bedroom for now. I’ll unpack it after all the furniture is moved in.”
“On it.” He took it back to the spare bedroom.
While he did that, I took the empty box into the living room, flattened it, and added it to the small pile to be taken down to the Dumpster.
Sailo came in a moment later, and paused to look out the bay window. “Not much of a view, is there?”
“I hadn’t even looked yet.” I joined him, and we stood in my empty living room, gazing out the window. He was right about the view. It wasn’t great—mostly another building across the street—but there were glimpses of downtown and part of Capitol Hill.
Sailo wrapped his arms around me and kissed the side of my neck. “You’re only a few blocks away from Wilde’s. This is…convenient.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Mmhmm. Very.”
I turned around within his embrace and decided I liked this view much better than the one out my window. “I guess I’ll have to spend a bit more time at the club, won’t I?”
“Or I can stop here on my way home from work.”
“Hmm, I do like that idea. Especially once I have furniture.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, too bad your bed isn’t here yet.” He curved his hands over my hips. “We could christen the place tonight.”
I pressed back against him, my own cock hardening as his thickened against my ass. “Do we really need a bed?”
“No, we do not. You have a shower, right?”
I gulped. “I do…”
He licked his lips.
Shower sex had never really been my thing, but without a bed, a couch, or really any flat surface besides the floor…
“Guess now’s a good time to test the hot water, am I right?”
“Yes.” He kissed me again. “I think you’re right.”