Loving Graham Page 23

  Me: It took a few drinks, but yeah, I succeeded at what I was trying to do.

  Undrcoverluvr: What were you trying to do?

  Me: Forget. Yesterday was a crappy anniversary of something from my past. It’s over, though, don’t have to worry about it for another 364 days.

  Undercoverluvr: Wow, that sucks. I’m glad it’s over then, for your sake.

  Me: Thanks. Do you have any big plans for the weekend?

  Undercoverluvr: Nope, you know me, I don’t go out much.

  That’s no exaggeration, he never goes out. We chat about my plans and my life exhaustively, but he either never goes anywhere, or he doesn’t want me to know what he’s doing.

  Me: Why? You should get out and have some fun, grab a few friends, and check out a club or go to the beach or something.

  Occasionally, I throw in a geographical reference like the beach trying to get some information out of him, but so far nothing’s worked. I figure I could eliminate all land-locked states if he lives near the ocean.

  Undercoverluvr: Nah, I’ll stick to the computer. It’s safe here.

  Me: What are you hiding from?

  Undercoverluvr: Everything.

  Me: Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you think that’s healthy?

  Undercoverluvr: Probably not, but it is what it is.

  Me: Do you think you might be an agoraphobic?

  There’s a long pause before he answers, and I worry that I’ve pushed too far with my questions today. I’ve wanted to ask him this for a long time, but the opportunity never presented itself like it has today. My fingers hover over the keys ready to change the subject and take him off the hot seat when his response pops on the screen.

  Undercoverluvr: I think so.

  I blow out a breath I’ve been holding and message him back.

  Me: Do you need help? No one is holding you against your will, are they?

  Undercoverluvr: I’m okay with it, and no, I’m not a prisoner. lol

  Me: So, meeting up with me someday is out?

  It’s a huge risk to ask, but I want to know. I like this guy, we’ve been chatting for almost a year now, but I feel like I’ve known him forever.

  Undercoveruvr: You could come to me.

  I read his message twice and close my eyes as relief washes over me. He’s inviting me to come to see him. During the year we have known each other, he has never posted a photo of himself or offered to exchange photos with me. He describes himself as six foot, green eyes, light brown hair but hell that could be anybody.

  I tried casually to bring it up several times, but he changes the subject in such a way that I didn’t realize he’d done it until we left the chat box.

  Me: Are you serious?

  Undercoverluvr: Um, yes, unless you’re a cyclops with a tail and giant claws or something. I’d like to meet you.

  Me: You’re in luck, I have two eyes and no tail and well-manicured nails. You’re not a serial murderer who lures his victims via lengthy message sessions over several months, are you?

  Undercoverluvr: Nope, no murderers here, muahahaha… He says rubbing his hands together in anticipation of his next victim’s arrival.

  I’d worry about that last comment if he hadn’t always been such a joker during our conversations. He likes to mess around, he’s sarcastic, and his jokes are charming.

  Me: Okay, well as long as we’re clear on that, when, where, how?

  Undercoverluvr: Considering I’m not going anywhere, it’s pretty much up to you. I’m in Miami.

  Me: You live in Miami, and you never leave the house? Do you think there’s any chance we can change that when I visit?

  Another long pause that makes me fidget in my seat.

  Undercoverluvr: I would try… for you.

  For me, he would try for me. Somehow, I know that’s a really big deal for him to offer, and I don’t want him to rescind.

  Me: I’ll check flights today and let you know what I find. I have a vacation coming to me, but I’ll have to see how much notice my boss needs before he’ll let me take it. Promise me something.

  Undecoverluvr: What?

  Me: You won’t change your mind.

  Undecoverluvr: I won’t, promise.

  Me: I really want to meet you.

  Undercoverluvr: Same here.

  Me: So, now that we are going to meet in person, do you think we could exchange real names?

  Undercoverluvr: What, you don’t want me to call you DChottie anymore?

  DChottie is my forum username. I regretted using it the second I saw it in my first conversation, but it wasn’t something the forum allowed me to change.

  Me: No, I’d rather you call me Liam.

  There’s another unusually long pause before he answers.

  Undercoverluvr: Where are you from, Liam?

  Me: Washington, D.C. hence the stupid-ass username, DChottie.

  Undercoverluvr: I figured, just thought I’d verify.

  Me: So, do I have to ask again?

  Undercoverluvr: No, sorry, my name is Ben.

  Me: Nice to meet you, Ben. I like that better than undercoverluvr.

  Ben: Liam sounds a lot better than DChottie, too.

  Me: Thanks.

  I smile and shove my hand through my hair holding onto it at the crown while I stare at our conversation on the screen in disbelief. I’m going to meet Ben in Miami. This all feels so real now that we know each other’s names and where we live. My heart beats faster, and I laugh out loud. “I’m going to meet Ben!” I yell into my quiet apartment.

  We spend the next half hour checking flight times and possible dates before

  signing off. I’m skipping the last twenty-five emails for a shower and some clean clothes. It’s technically still the weekend, and I’m not spending any more of it working. I have a date with the couch this afternoon where I am going to recover from this hangover, watching The 100 on Netflix and daydream about my trip to Miami to meet Ben.

  Chapter Five

  Noah (Ben) – Second Chances

  Standing in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist, a pale version of myself with dark circles under his eyes is staring back at me through the foggy mirror. That’s what I get for staying up all night playing Dark Souls Three with my online gaming friends.

  If I had a life outside the walls of my Aunt Kitty’s house, I wouldn’t have to spend so much time online. If I had a real life, I would get up and go to work every day, drive a car, have lunch, and maybe, just maybe, go on a date.

  Over the past five years, I have begun to seclude myself more and more from the outside world. The few friends I made in high school when I was forced to transfer right before my senior year have long since faded away. Most went to college, others married, and a very few simply got tired of trying to get me out of the house and gave up.

  I am a hermit, or as Liam says, an agoraphobic.

  Liam. God, how I’ve missed him. He was kind and good and gorgeous, and when I turned sixteen, he was gone. And then a year ago, I couldn’t believe my luck at finding him in an online chat group. Out of all the billions of people in the world, it was him I struck up a conversation with one late night when I was particularly down.

  I had no idea who he was at first, but after six or seven months, there were similarities I couldn’t ignore. At first, I tried to convince myself it was because I so wanted them to be true. But, when I started paying attention and taking note of his expressions and the tiny glimpses into his life, I knew I was right.

  When he asked for my name, I froze, and then I lied. I was online like any other day talking to a couple of my friends when, out of the blue, I decided to see if DChottie was online. I never dreamed that would be the day we would end up exchanging names and making plans to see one another. I was too embarrassed to admit that it was me who was living such a small and secluded life. So, for now, he believes it’s Ben who is a shut-in with no life, not me.

  When I was shipped off to Kitty’s for the crime of bei
ng gay, I cut all ties with my past. I didn’t have to, I could have called Liam and Bianca and told them where I was, but I was in a bad place. I felt unloved, unwanted, alone, and abandoned by my parents, but most of all, my mother. She sided with my dad on serious issues—she was his wife—and she believed it was her place to stand by her man. But I never thought she would go along with my dad kicking me out and disowning me for simply being who I am.

  It was no surprise coming from my dad. He had always made it clear where he stood on anyone who thought differently than he did. They were wrong, he was right, and that was that.

  So when it came to staying in contact with my friends, I figured what’s the point? I was never going home, and telling them where I lived meant I would only miss them more. It was better to start over fresh, but I never really started over at all.

  Now I make my living online, my social life is online, I shop online, order food online, and entertain myself watching Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube online. There isn’t anything I can’t get sitting on my thrown behind the glowing screen of my computer.

  Well, there is one thing—direct human contact. Two, I guess, if you count the sun. If I wanted to be a tanned Floridian, I’d have to go outside, and I haven’t been outside in… how long? I can’t even remember.

  And if I wanted to feel the touch of another human being, I could hold Aunt Kitty’s hand, but she would probably haul me back to another psychiatrist if I did that, and I’m tired of shrinks poking around in my head.

  Kitty means well, but being a psychiatrist, herself, she tends to go a little overboard on the mental health stuff. We have gone around and around about my agoraphobia. Yeah, I know what it is. I played dumb with Liam about that, too. Aunt Kitty diagnosed me with the disease years ago.

  Every morning before she leaves for work, she encourages me to go outside on the patio and get some sun. She says, what’s the point of living in the sunshine state if you hide indoors all the time. I’ve built my life inside the walls of her house for years and leaving that comfort and security is difficult.

  I try, I really do. Every afternoon around four o’clock when I know she will be coming home in an hour, I stand at the back door and look out at the sparkling pool and will myself to open it. She has a lounge pulled up close to the house in case one day I make it out there, but I haven’t yet. I spend an hour every day standing there looking at that doorknob, then out the window, and back at the knob before I give up and return to my room five minutes before she pulls into the garage.

  Every fucking time I fail, but maybe today will be different? Maybe now that I have something to look forward to, I’ll be able to cross that threshold. Liam is coming, and I invited him. Maybe that act will be enough to push me beyond the boundaries of my self-imposed prison to sit on the lounge by the pool?

  I brush my teeth and walk down the long hall to my dark bedroom and dig in my bottom drawer for a pair of shorts. I never wear shorts anymore because I never leave the comfort of Kitty’s air-conditioned house. Besides, my legs are spooky—they haven’t seen the light of day for years—kind of white.

  All of that changes today, I hope. I pull out a pair of black basketball shorts and slide them up my legs. They feel weird. My junk isn’t confined the way it usually is in my jeans.

  I stand in front of my mirror and slip a t-shirt over my chest that is no longer muscular and defined from running track and walking endless miles to take the perfect photograph. I used to be fit, in shape, ‘cut’ some would have said. Now I’m a shell of my former self.

  What if I’m not what Liam wants? What if he takes one look at my skinny ass and the circles under my eyes and turns his back on me forever? I can’t let that happen. I will go outside and get some sun. I’ll run on Kitty’s treadmill, lift weights, eat more protein, and do PX90, whatever it takes to get back to the old Noah— the strong man who used to live his life, not cower from it.

  I’m tired of being Ben, the socially stunted freak who is afraid to leave his house and live his life as an openly gay man.

  I’ve been given a second chance with Liam, and I’m not going to blow it.

  Chapter Six

  Liam – Going To Florida

  It’s been two weeks since I agreed to meet Ben in Miami, and I’m sitting at Abe and Theo’s watching Dancing with the Stars about to tell them my plan. Bianca is here, too, so I’m sure I’ll get an ear full of her opinion. She can’t change my mind—nothing can.

  “Hey, guys, and gal,” I say, adding the gal part when Bianca raises her eyebrows at me from the other end of the couch. “I’m going on vacation after Christmas, anybody up for watching a fat cat while I’m gone?”

  “Vacation? You never said anything about a vacation,” Bianca says narrowing her eyes.

  “I’m saying something right now, aren’t I?”

  “That’s not like you. You always discuss with me where you’re going, how long you should stay, what airline to fly, and what clothes to pack. You don’t do vacations without me, ever.”

  “Well, I guess I decided to be a grown-up and plan my own vacation this year.”

  “Where are you going?” Abe asks.

  “Florida, Miami specifically.”

  “Nice, Florida in January. We should go somewhere warm in January, too, honey,” Abe says to Theo who is in the kitchen pulling dinner from the oven.

  “You’re the planner, Abe. I’ll let you get right on that.”

  Abe slouches down into the sofa and crosses his arms over his chest. “That means no,” he says with a huff.

  “It does?” I ask.

  “Yeah, whenever he says get right on that, he means that’ll never happen.”

  “Hush, we’re getting off track here. Now, why didn’t you tell me about this vacation, Liam? And I want the real reason this time,” Bianca asks.

  I take a deep breath and sigh when I exhale. “Okay, so, there’s this guy.”

  “I knew it! I knew there was a man at the root of this,” Bianca yells jumping out of the spot on the couch that she’s been warming all afternoon. She carries on hopping around the room pumping her fist in the air.

  “Are you about done?” I ask.

  She jerks her head back as if she’s been slapped. “What? A girl can’t gloat when she’s right around here?”

  “I didn’t tell you that you couldn’t gloat, I’m asking if you’re finished gloating.”

  Her hand slides onto her hip, and she makes a face like she’s trying to decide if she’s done or not. “Yes, I’m done. But only because I want to hear more about this man.”

  “We met online a year ago…”

  “Aw, come on, I thought this was something real… you met him online?” Theo interrupts poking his head out of the kitchen.

  “A lot of relationships start online these days, Theo. You’re so stuck in the eighties,” Abe says flipping his hand in Theo’s direction. “Continue, Liam.”

  “So, yeah, we met on a forum a year ago, and we have communicated every day since then. He’s my age, and he’s a graphic designer and a photographer.”

  “A photographer, huh, what’s his name?” Bianca asks, and I know right away what she’s thinking.

  “Ben,” I answer and watch her hopeful expression change to disappointment. She was hoping I’d found Noah. The only person who looked for Noah as hard as I did when he disappeared was Bianca. She was devastated, she knew what happened, and it broke her heart to know that Noah was out there suffering somewhere without the support of his friends.

  “Ben, that’s a nice name, short for Benjamin? Tell me more.”

  But I can’t because I don’t know if Ben is short for Benjamin, I never asked. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of things I haven’t asked him.

  “I, uh, I’m not sure.”

  She smashes her lips together and looks at me sideways like I’m the dumbest person alive.

  “You’re not sure? You’re going to meet this guy, and you don’t even know if his first name is shor
t for something else? What’s his favorite color? What does he do for fun? What’s his favorite food or his favorite television show?”

  “Stop it, mother Bianca. Geesh, I didn’t make him fill out an interview form when we met. Incidentally, his favorite color is peach, he watches sci-fi and murder mysteries, and he loves fried chicken.”

  “All right, that’s a start. So why’d it take you so long to decide to meet? And what’s he look like, do you have a picture?” Bianca says.

  “Time to eat, come on now before it gets cold,” Theo calls from the dining room. Saved by the dinner bell, and it’s a good thing because I don’t know the answer to that question, and I don’t have a picture of Ben.

  The dining room isn’t so much a room as an extension of Abe and Theo’s loft. The industrial apartment is open and airy with exposed brick and wooden beams. Paired with Abe’s flair for interior design, it’s the perfect home, and I love it.

  When we are all seated at the table next to the long steel-framed industrial windows that overlook the city, Theo catches my eyes. He winks at me letting me know that he called us to the table prematurely to help me out. I owe him one.

  The smell of homemade lasagna and garlic bread in the air makes my mouth water. I’ve been running since five this morning, and I haven’t had time to eat, again. I never imagined that being a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for the Human Rights Campaign could be so exhausting.

  “Theo, this smells amazing. You have no idea how hungry I am.” He sits next to me motioning to hand him my plate so he can serve it from the baking dish on the table.

  “Well, if your scrawny ass is any indication, then I do.”

  “Scrawny? My ass isn’t scrawny, is it?” I look around at Abe and Bianca for confirmation. Abe adjusts his water goblet, and Bianca is suddenly very busy smoothing her napkin in her lap. She’s the first to look up.

  “Okay, honey, we have noticed that you’ve been losing a little of that fine ass of yours, but don’t you worry, Theo knows how to fatten it back up, don’t you, Theo?”

  “I most certainly do,” Theo says, handing me a heaping plate of lasagna and two pieces of garlic bread.