Stewart didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how long he had been pacing, and he had only gotten back in bed a few minutes ago, but it was already light outside, despite the heavy expensive curtains that hung on his bay windows. Even if it had been pitch black, Stewart was sure he wasn’t going to get to sleep.
Something about the entire night was making Stewart feel massively on edge. Everything felt wrong. Everything was wrong. There was something weighing heavily on his heart and he was almost sure Henry wasn’t going to text him to say good morning. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. He took a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward. Then he stood up, unsure of what to do except pace.
He walked into the en-suite and washed his face. He looked stupid without his beard, he thought, wrong. He liked that Henry had liked it, but he didn’t know how long that was going to last. He didn’t know how long Henry was going to be in his life. It was fucking horrible to think that his family had been the death knell in their relationship.
He needed to get ahead of this, but he didn’t know how he was going to make this better between them. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to cope without seeing Henry again. Not that he should even be thinking about that—Henry hadn’t even broken up with him yet. He just knew it was coming. He could feel it in his bones. He could feel it all over his body.
He was on his way to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee when his phone vibrated in the pocket of his pajama pants. He hadn’t expected Henry to be up so early, but he knew that he was the only person who would possibly be calling him this early.
Unless it was one of his sisters, and if it was, he didn’t want to talk to them. He wouldn’t even know what to say to them or if he would have been able to stop himself from shouting at them. He didn’t want them to talk to him at all unless they were begging him for forgiveness and even then, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to give it to them. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to be able to see them again since every time that he thought about how the night had gone it made him feel seriously angry.
He was ready to give up on all of this. He was ready to give up on his entire house; he was ready to give up on his entire family. If they had chased away Henry, he didn’t want anything to do with them.
He grabbed his phone, which kept vibrating in his pocket. He had been afraid to look. It was Henry. Henry’s face, looking at him and smiling. He was wearing sunglasses in the picture, which Stewart remembered taking when they had gone to a national park for a picnic. He couldn’t remember when that had been, but he knew it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks ago.
“Hello?” he said as he put the phone up to his ear, his heart beating fast in his chest.
“Hey,” Henry said. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” Stewart replied, trying to keep his voice steady. “I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“Same here,” Henry said, his voice quiet.
“Listen—”
“Listen, Henry—”
“Oh, you go first,” Henry said quietly. “Please. Go ahead.”
“No, it’s okay,” Stewart said. “I just wanted to apologize again. I wanted to see you and see if I could make it up to you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Henry said.
“I don’t?”
“You don’t have to make it up to me, I mean,” Henry said. “It’s completely unnecessary. I would like to meet you somewhere, though.”
“You would?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No,” Stewart replied. “See you at the diner on 42nd in twenty?”
Henry seemed to think about it for a long time before he answered. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”
***
Stewart wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been for Henry to look so much like shit when he walked into the diner. He had big bags under his eyes and a shadow of stubble that he didn’t seem like he had been able to shake. His eyes were small and bloodshot. If Stewart hadn’t suspected Henry was going to dump him before, he knew it right then.
Henry was clearly there for a specific reason. Stewart grabbed the handle of his cup and took a long sip of his far too hot coffee. It burned his tongue, but it didn’t matter. None of it seemed to matter anymore.
“Hey,” Henry said as he slid across the booth from him.
“Hey,” Stewart replied. “I’m…”
“It’s okay,” Henry said when Stewart trailed off. “There’s no need for you to be upset. Seriously.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, at least not… apologetic,” Henry said, looking right at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hold on. Let me order some coffee. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night.”
“Right,” Stewart said. He waited until someone came around and put coffee in his cup. Stewart was surprised when Henry ordered food, but he supposed that might help soften the blow of the break-up that was about to come. Stewart didn’t order food. He did order a Bloody Mary, because he had no idea how he was supposed to take the news when he was completely sober.
Henry chuckled when they brought Steward his drink, and he grabbed it and brought it up to his lips before he spoke. “Guess you know why we’re here.”
“I still don’t want to hear it,” Stewart said flatly.
“Fuck, babe,” Henry said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “I wish there was a way around it.”
“So do I,” Stewart said.
Henry looked at him, those dark brown eyes burning into Stewart’s very soul. “I thought about it a lot,” he said, “and I just don’t see it. I don’t see how it gets better from here. I don’t see how we get your family to accept me.”
“We don’t have to do that,” Stewart replied quietly.
“But we do, Stewart,” Henry said. “Of course we do. They were the only reason you were going out with me in the first place, right?”
“That’s not entirely true.”
Henry shook his head. “It is,” he said. “When we first started dated, you told me there was no room for me in your life. Then you called me up to say something had changed, but let’s face it. The change was artificial. It might have been something you wanted, but it sure as hell isn’t something that happened.”
Stewart swallowed. “That’s not fair.”
“It isn’t fair,” Henry said quietly. “Mostly, it’s not fair to me.”
“What does that mean?” Stewart asked.
“When we first started going out,” Henry began, “I decided I could put up with your family expectations because you were really nice, I really liked you, and I thought our relationship would go somewhere.”
“But you don’t anymore?”
“Now that I know your family, things are a little more complicated than that. You know that.”
“Henry…”
“Stewart,” Henry said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that they’re going to accept me.”
“That’s not…” Stewart’s voice was trembling. “I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Right,” he said. “You want to believe that. I know you want to believe that. Of course their opinion matters to you. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it didn’t. “
“That’s not true,” Stewart said.
Henry reached out and touched his hand softly. “Stewart,” he said. “I need you to understand that I know that’s true, and I’m okay with it. I’m okay with everything I said I was okay with when we started dating.”
Stewart looked at him, his eyes wide.
Henry moved his hand away and shook his head. “These past few months though have made me realize just how much I actually want to be with you,” he said. His eyes were getting watery as he was speaking. Stewart wanted to reach out and wipe his tears away, but he wasn’t going to do that. He couldn’t do that. He needed to give Henry his space, no matter how much he wanted to tell him how much he loved him too, how much he wanted to be with him too. He drank a huge sip of his bloody Mary and felt the spice on his tongue.
When Henry spoke again, there were tears sliding down his face. “That’s the thing, Stewart,” he said. “I don't want to be with you because I'm your best option out of two bad options. I want to be with you because you want to be with me. I also don’t want to be with you if I’m going to be the person that’s going to get in the way of what you want.”
“You aren’t,” Stewart said, swallowing. “You’re what I want. I want you. I’ve wanted you ever since the first moment we met.”
“Maybe,” Henry said, moving his hand away from Stewart’s. “But the truth is, if you really think about it, this arrangement is kind of insulting to me.”
“What?”
“I mean, Stewart, you’re just trying to fit a circular shaped peg into a square hole,” he said. “And I appreciate you going through all the effort you went through. I do.”
Stewart didn’t say anything.
“But I don’t fit,” he said. “I don’t and you can’t get me to fit. Unless you change your life, and that’s not something I’m willing to ask of you, then there’s no way for me to fit.”
“That’s not fair,” Stewart replied, his voice shaking.
“I know,” Henry said. “But mostly, it’s not fair to me. I think you know that.”
Stewart shook his head. “That’s not—”
“Fair?” Henry said, raising his eyebrows. His eyes were wide. “I know. I know... and I shouldn’t have ever said yes.”
“Henry, no—”
“It’s okay, Stewart,” Henry said. “Seriously. I get it, but that’s as far as our relationship can go. You have to come to terms with it, just like I’m coming to terms with it.”
Stewart sighed. “Is that true? Are you really coming to terms with it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Henry said, shrugging his shoulders. “I told you, I tried.”
Stewart closed his eyes. “What are you… what are you doing?”
“What I have to do, Stewart,” Henry replied. “Just like what you always do is what you have to do.”
“That’s not—”
“I’ve heard it before, Stewart,” he said.
Stewart opened his eyes and looked right at him. “What are you doing after this?”
Henry scoffed and shook his head. “Not that it’s any of your business, but probably going home and getting drunk,” he said. “I have the feeling it’s going to be hard as fuck to get over you.”
“You don’t have to get over me,” Stewart replied. His voice was trembling.
“That’s a nice sentiment,” Henry said. “It’s also a lie, and you know it.”
Stewart swallowed. He didn’t know why, but his throat hurt. “What if we spent the day together?”
“What do you mean?” Henry said after a little while.
“Exactly what I said,” Stewart said. “I want you around, okay? If it’s only for a day, then I guess I have to get used to that. This is what I want though, you’re what I want. I want you so much.”
“Stewart…”
Stewart could feel his eyes welling up with tears. He didn’t want to beg Henry, but he wasn’t far from doing it. “I understand everything you’re saying to me,” he said. “I wish it wasn’t true. I wish it wasn’t real. But we both know that it is true and it is real. We both know that no matter what I say, I’m not going to change your mind.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Henry said.
“Then tell me, Henry.” Stewart said. “Tell me the exact words I can say to get you to stay, because if you tell me, my life is going to get a hell of a lot better immediately.”
Henry looked him up and down, his eyes wide. He was also choking up, his eyes welling up again with tears, his mouth a straight line. Stewart hated this. He hated how much neither one of them wanted this, but it felt like there was no way to get out of it. “I don’t know what to say,” Henry said. “I wish I could fix it. I wish there was something I could do to fix it.”
“I wish I could fix it, too,” Stewart said, “and if you don’t want to spend the day with me, you don’t have to. I just thought it might be nice because--”
“I do,” Henry said. “I want to spend every single day with you, not just today.”
“Right,” he said, “but if we can’t do that, then just spending the day together today works.”
Henry smiled at him and shook his head. “How could I say no to you?”
“Don’t say no to me,” Stewart said. “Let’s do this. Please.”
“Fine,” Henry said. “Let’s.”
“And we won’t talk about the future at all… not if you don’t want to. Okay?” Stewart said, aware his voice was trembling. “We’ll just talk about… well, whatever.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Henry said.
“I know,” Stewart said. He didn’t have to say that it hurt, because he was aware that it hurt. He knew Henry was hurting too.
Henry tilted his head and then, after what felt to Stewart like a very long time, he closed his eyes and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”
They spent the rest of breakfast barely talking to each other. Stewart was grateful Henry was there, but he needed to process. He didn’t know how long he would have to do that, since he was trying to rearrange his entire future without Henry in it. He had allowed himself to think about his future only with Henry included and perhaps that had been a mistake, but the idea that he wouldn’t be around him made him feel slightly sick to his stomach.
Henry sipped his coffee and ate his pancakes slowly while Stewart drank his Bloody Mary. The two of them caught each other’s glances every now and then. At first, Stewart was sure that if they held each other’s gaze for too long, one or both of them would start bursting into tears, but by the fifth or sixth time, it just became sort of funny and they were both cracking smiles when their eyes met.
“So,” Henry said once he was almost done with his breakfast. “What should we do?”
“Today of all days?” Stewart asked, grinning at him. “Whatever you want. It’s special, so money is no object.”
“Is it ever?” Henry replied dryly. He leaned back onto the booth and stared at Stewart. “Listen. How about you let me take you out today?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Henry said. “You’re always the one taking us out and stuff. You’re always the one spending money on shit. Let me show you what a fun time looks like without spending a lot of money.”
“A lot of money, huh?” Stewart said, tilting his head and setting his gaze on Henry. The idea of spending time with Henry made him completely forget about money, but he supposed that was exactly the problem.
“Well, I might spend a lot of time drinking coffee, since I slept like shit last night,” Henry said. “But yeah, other than that.”
“Yeah, same here,” Stewart said. “I doubt I would be able to fall asleep today, though.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Henry said. He grabbed Stewart’s hand and brought it to his lips, where he kissed his skin softly. “So after breakfast, how about we go for a hike?”
“A hike, huh?” Stewart said, smiling at him. “Sure. A hike sounds good.”
***
It was dark again when Stewart looked at his watch. They had ended up at the plaza downtown, eating sandwiches they’d bought from a sandwich store next to the university. They were sitting on a bench and watching the sunset. Every now and then, pigeons would approach them and Henry would throw some crumbs at them.
At first, Stewart had found it a little annoying, but it had grown on him. This had all grown on him. He could have watched Henry in a park forever. Stewart hadn’t specified when the day was going to end, but he had started to feel the tiredness of the night before.
His sisters had called him a few times, but he had turned his phone off in the morning and had spent a wonderful day with Henry. Henry leaned his head on Stewart’s shoulder and sighed contentedly. Stewart kissed the top of his head and got closer to Henry.
Henry looked up at him. “Hey,” he said. “Are you doing okay?”
“I guess,” Stewart said. “I’m… sad. I’m happy that we decided to spend this time together though.”
“Same here,” Henry said.
Stewart smiled and smelled his hair. “Thank you,” he said, “for the day and for giving me this.”
“This?”
“Your time,” Stewart said. “This chance to be with you. God, you know how much I care about you. I didn’t expect to fall for you as quickly as I did.”
Henry laughed. “Did you expect to fall for me at all?”
Stewart laughed. “I had no reason to believe that I wouldn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Henry replied, smiling at him. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect to catch all the feelings I did either.”
“But you did?”
“I did,” he said. “It’s so hard.”
“It is,” Stewart said. He moved to look right at him. “Whatever happens with you, Henry, I want you to know that you changed my life. That every time I think about you—”
“Wait,” Henry said. He kissed him softly on the mouth.
“What is it?”
“I want you to tell me this,” he said, “but not yet... not right now.”
“Why not?” Stewart asked.
“Because I want to spend the night with you,” Henry said, looking right into his eyes.
“But—”
“I mean it,” Henry said, his voice even. “I get it. We can’t be together. I want this, though. I want you. I need you.”
Stewart traced the outline of his face as he swallowed. “Goddammit, Henry,” he said. “You can’t do things like that. You can’t put me in that position.”
“What position?” Henry said. “Because I have a lot of positions planned.”
Stewart snickered. “That’s cute,” he said, “but you know what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” Henry said. “The offer still stands. If you want it.”
“You want us to have break-up sex?” Stewart asked quietly.
“Well, I wasn’t going to put it that way,” Henry said. “It doesn’t really matter how I put it though, because yes, of course I want to have sex with you.”
Stewart groaned. Even though they were in the park, still in public, he could feel himself getting hard. He wanted to be restrained. He didn’t want to seem too horny or overeager, to freak Henry out, or make Henry feel like he never wanted to see him again.
Henry looked down at his pants, where it was obvious there was a bulge. He put his hand on top of Stewart’s crotch, still extended. He didn’t want to say anything to that, but Henry was looking at him so wickedly, with so much feeling in his eyes. Stewart couldn’t ask him to move. He was sure that to everyone else it didn’t look like they were doing anything, because technically, they weren’t doing anything.
Henry had just sort of positioned himself to be on him in a way that hid what he was doing from the rest of the people in the park. “Oh, you’re so wicked,” Stewart said.
“You should wait until we go somewhere more private,” Henry replied, winking at him.
Stewart didn't even know if it was possible for him to wait until they walked away from the bench that they were sitting on. The possibility of going somewhere more private seemed completely insurmountable to him, considering how hard his cock was and how much he wanted to fuck Henry right then and there.
He was about to tell Henry all of these things because he thought it was important that he knew, but Henry seemed to get the idea that this was too much when he caught Stewart’s gaze and got off him. Stewart smiled as he sat up. Henry’s hand was inches away from his own hand and if he had wanted to—and boy, did he want to—he could have reached out and grabbed it.
He could have held him. He wanted to, but he also wanted to take things slow, and he didn’t know how long he would be able to contain himself. He knew that it would be especially hard if he was actually touching Henry.
Henry was watching him saying nothing. The colors of dusk, all golden and purple, were reflected on his bronze skin. With the way that he looked, it was almost hard for Stewart to think of him as a normal person.
Stewart leaned in and kissed him softly on the mouth. When he moved away, he saw a small trail of spit connecting their lips. Any other time, it would have meant nothing, but now it felt like a sort of representation of a final and cruel irony that neither one of them could outrun.
He couldn’t think about this. All he could think about was Henry and spending as much time as possible with him while he still could. He closed the space between them again and kissed him softly on the lips. He moved away from him, just enough so that when he spoke, he was whispering into his ear. “Do you want to go back to my house?”
Henry moved away from him and grimaced before he schooled his expression into a poor attempt at neutrality. It was subtle and it was quick, but Stewart was smart enough to notice it. He knew Henry very well, and he now knew that Henry was unable to hide how he felt, at least from him.
“We don’t have to go back,” Stewart said. “We can stay here and—”
“No,” Henry said. “Let’s, uh, go back to my apartment. It’s not as impressive but—”
“Yeah,” Stewart said. “I get it.”
He did get it, he thought as he got up and extended his hand toward Henry to help him up. He pulled Henry close to him, so close that both of them almost fell down giggling. When they saw a couple of people staring at the two of them, they composed themselves.
He pulled Henry into a kiss. “Do you?” Henry asked, his gaze darting between Stewart’s eyes and his lips.
Stewart nodded. He didn't want to get it, didn't want to understand why Henry would feel uncomfortable in his house. It was a stark reminder of just how different their lives were. Henry had gone to his house several times, though only once for a disastrous dinner. Despite that, he always made a comment about it. Stewart had always simply brushed those comments off as a joke, but they weren’t. He hadn’t realized how earnest he had been. The problem had been, he noted now somewhat ruefully, that he hadn’t wanted to take him seriously.
It was easier not to take him seriously, because that way, he didn’t have to think about any future he might have with Henry.
His house was a symbol now, one that represented how different the two of them were, how the two of them would never really fit into each other's lives. Henry had to deal with a lot of that lately, and Stewart knew that it would be very rude, at the very least, to bring him back to his house and fuck him as he looked at his expensive ceilings while lying on his expensive sheets.
“Can we go now?” Stewart said. “I’ve been dying to know where you live.”
Henry snickered. “Why would you have? Compared to your place, it’s a huge shithole.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Stewart replied.
“I’m sure you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Henry said. “You have to promise that if you come back to my place, you won’t run away screaming.”
“Why would I do that?”
Henry dropped his voice to a whisper. “My floors are… carpeted.”
“Gross,” Stewart said sarcastically. “Fine, I guess. Let’s go to your place.”