Loving Graham Page 24

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I work out every day and ninety percent of the time my diet is healthy,” I say, defending myself.

  “That’s the problem, babe, you run twelve hours a day and don’t take a break. Add to that a proper workout and a bunch of carrots for dinner, and you’ve got a skinny ass,” Abe says with a shrug. “You’re welcome here every night for a home-cooked meal, and you know it. Start showing up, and we’ll get your ass perky for that new man, what was his name again?” Abe asks.

  Bianca takes a bite of her garlic bread and proceeds to talk with her mouth full, “Ben, or Benjamin, who knows? I’m glad you’re not my boyfriend. Wait, do you know my full name?”

  “Bianca Alessandria Jackson, Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty,” I say with a satisfied smile.

  Abe passes a bottle of wine to Theo and says to Bianca, “That’s a lovely name.”

  “Thank you, good thing you remembered it, Liam Gaylord Stone.”

  Everyone stops eating, and I groan. I caught a lot of shit in school for that middle name, and I never tell it to anyone. Usually, I tell people I don’t have a middle name or that it’s simply ‘G.’

  Theo breaks the silence first when he reaches for his glass of wine, “She’s messing with us, right? Your middle name cannot possibly be Gaylord.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Wow, that’s unfortunate, or fortunate. I guess it depends on how you look at it,” Abe says with a chuckle.

  “What better person to have Gaylord as a middle name than a sexy, fine, gay, lord?” Bianca says as if I should embrace my name and shout it from the rooftop.

  “I agree,” Theo says, raising his glass to the center of the table, “To Liam Gaylord Stone, may he live up to his birth name forever!” he cheers. Everyone lifts his or her glass except me.

  “Come on, Liam, we aren’t making fun, we love you and your dorky name,” Bianca says, jabbing me in the side. I succumb and lift my glass in a half-ass unenthusiastic toast to my name.

  “I’ll bet Benjamin will like your middle name,” Abe says wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

  I hope so. I really do.

  Chapter Seven

  Noah (Ben) – It’s Liam – It’s Always Been Liam

  It’s been two weeks since I swore to myself I would go outside and be a real Floridian—two weeks of standing at the back door with my hand on the doorknob—two weeks of feeling the crushing weight of guilt on my shoulders for not opening it.

  I have, however, been on the treadmill every day since I agreed to meet with Liam. I also started lifting small five-pound weights that felt like fifty-pound weights the first three or four days.

  My muscles ached. I even had to take one of Aunt Kitty’s sleeping pills to sleep through the pain. But that pain, that pain felt good. For the first time in years, I felt alive, and Aunt Kitty was over the moon.

  I haven’t told her about Liam, but she suspects that something in my life has triggered my drastic change in behavior. She hasn’t brought it up yet, but I’m going to have to say something because Liam will be here in January, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave the house.

  She deserves to know, anyway, it’s her house after all, and she’s been supporting me for nine years. I pay my share of the bills, but, she’s sacrificed a lot for me. She helped me when no one else would, she gave up her personal space and privacy, and I will never be able to pay her back for that.

  It’s almost five o’clock, she’ll be home any minute, and I’m where I always am at this time of day standing at the back door with my hand on the knob staring out into the glimmering water in the swimming pool.

  I push myself harder today and turn the knob holding my breath. The sound of the lock sliding out of its casing makes my heart pound like a drum in my chest, and a thin layer of sweat breaks out on my forehead.

  Then I hear the garage door opening, and I let go of the knob like it’s a hot piece of coal. “Shit,” I murmur to myself and make my way back into the kitchen where I’ve been cooking dinner.

  “Hey, hope you’re hungry,” I say stirring a pot of pasta as Kitty enters the kitchen dressed in a cornflower blue sleeveless shift dress and matching kitten heels.

  “Mmm, smells great, what’s for dinner?” she asks leaning over me to peer into the boiling pot of water and then the saucepan of marinara. “Italian, you must have read my mind. I’ve been craving pasta all day.”

  She hadn’t been craving pasta. That’s her natural way of building me up. I’ve gotten used to it over the years, and now I accept it for what it is, a roundabout way of complimenting me for something that doesn’t require a compliment.

  “Knew it. I felt your craving all the way across town.”

  “You’re such a good man, Noah. You need to find yourself a good man to cook for instead of this old lady.” She pats me on the shoulder and moves away.

  Wow, I couldn’t have asked for a better opening than that. Kitty never talks to me about dating, which means she’s onto me.

  “First of all, I hardly think forty-five is old, and second of all, I’m glad you brought up the man thing.”

  She steps into the hall to hang her purse on the closet doorknob. When she returns, she shuffles through the mail on the table like she isn’t expecting me to tell her the biggest news of my life.

  “Yeah? What’s up?”

  “I, um, I met someone online, and I invited him to come and visit. He’s coming in January.” My words come in a rush, and when I’m done, I take a deep breath and hold it.

  She’s so quiet that I can’t tell if she’s still in the room. I turn around to see for myself and find her holding onto the back of one of the chairs that surround the kitchen table. She has tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, Kitty, don’t cry. Shit, I’m not getting married or anything, it’s just a guy I met online. It probably won’t amount to anything.”

  “I can cry if I want to. This is the first time you’ve ever invited someone to our house, that’s momentous even if you don’t think so, it is.” She sniffles and opens her arms just as a tear rolls down her cheek. I go to her and let her shower me with love for about fifteen seconds before I pull away. I can’t tolerate any longer than that. I’m not used to touching, and hugging feels foreign to me.

  She squeezes my upper arms where I used to have biceps before letting myself go. “You have muscles.”

  “Hush, I’ve only been lifting five-pound weights for two weeks. I have sticks for arms.”

  “No, no, I’m not kidding. I can tell you’re getting stronger, and I swear I felt a little muscle.”

  I roll my eyes and go back to stirring the marinara sauce.

  “So tell me more, where’s he from, what’s his name, when exactly is he coming, is he staying here with us? Oh my gosh, I need to clean out that guest room. It hasn’t been used in years.” She’s scurrying around the kitchen taking plates and glasses from the cupboard to set the table.

  I thought I was ready for this, but her barrage of questions has me wondering if I shouldn’t have waited until closer to January.

  “Aunt Kitty, stop.” I reach out and put my hand on her shoulder to get her full attention. “It’s Liam.”

  She gasps, and her grip on the plate in her hand tightens until her knuckles are white. She knows how much I cared for Liam. He’s all I talked about in my therapy sessions early on. He’s also the only person from my past I ever showed an interest in reconnecting with.

  Kitty thought that I might have been exaggerating the connection I had with Liam. She used to worry that I would try to contact him only to have my heart broken when he told me my feelings were one-sided. I knew she was wrong.

  “He’s, how did you… what about…” she stammers.

  “He doesn’t know it’s me. We met in a chat group a year ago. At first, I didn’t know it was him either, but the more we got to know each other, the surer I was. We exchanged names a few weeks ago, and it was like every dream I’ve ever had about seeing him had
come true.”

  She lays the plate she’s been gripping on the table and cups my cheek with her hand. “Oh, honey, you know I have always wished the best for you. And I am thrilled you’re going to see your old friend, but please don’t hang all of your expectations on one man. He might not be who you thought he was, or he may have changed since high school. I don’t want to see you get hurt. All that aside, I’m still happy to see you stepping out of your comfort zone.”

  I cover her hand with mine and remove it from my face. “Thanks, it’ll be okay. You’re going to love him. He hasn’t changed that much since high school. He went to college and moved to Washington, D.C. to be a lobbyist, but he’s still the same sweet guy I used to know.”

  She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, “Okay, honey. I hope for your sake you’re right.”

  “I am. Now let’s eat.”

  “Okay, let me go change into something more comfortable, and I’ll help you serve.”

  “Don’t worry about it, it’s just spaghetti. I got it.”

  When she returns in a pair of shorts and a tank top with her hair pulled back in a messy bun, she sits across from me. It’s amazing how beautiful she is. It’s like she never aged a day. I’ll bet my mother didn’t age half as well—being married to my father was no picnic.

  We eat in silence until I can’t hold it in any longer. “He doesn’t know it’s me,” I blurt out. She stops chewing, begins chewing, and swallows before answering.

  “Who does he think you are?”

  “I used my middle name, but everything else he knows. He knows I’m agoraphobic, I don’t have friends, and that I work from home and as far as I can tell, he’s okay with it.”

  She lowers her chin and narrows her eyes with her fork in her spaghetti. “As far as you can tell?”

  “Well, he knows and… he wants to help me, you know, get out more and stuff.”

  She closes her eyes and sighs. When she opens them, I don’t like what I see.

  “There’s a reason you haven’t told him who you are. What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to keep it from him, but when he asked for my name, I said Ben.”

  “Ben, your middle name, didn’t Liam know your full name?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you said you could tell it’s the Liam from your past because you recognize his personality traits and whatnot?”

  “Mmm hmm, what are you getting at?”

  “Don’t you think he would have picked up on the same things with you?”

  I look down at my plate. I’ve wondered about that myself. Liam knew my middle name was Benjamin, and I’m still a photographer, even though I haven’t taken a landscape photo in years.

  “Online I don’t show a lot of my personality. He might not have connected the dots. Besides, his life is full, he went to college, he moved half way across the country, and he’s busy with his career and his friends. He doesn’t have time to sit around and ponder every little thing about me as I do him.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “No offense, but would you please not treat me like a patient? I just want to be excited that he’s coming and worry about the rest later.”

  “I won’t pry if you don’t want me to, but, Noah, you know that’s not a healthy way to go about things. You should consider how he will feel when he arrives and finds out you’ve deceived him. I understand you have history, but as you said, he’s had a busy life. He may have changed, and you don’t want to start things off on the wrong foot.”

  Maybe she’s right? Maybe I should tell him who I am before he wastes an entire week of vacation coming down here only to see a ghost from his past.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “That’s all I ask. Now, when is he coming, and is he staying with us?”

  “Second week of January, and I wasn’t sure if you would be okay with him staying here. I haven’t asked him.”

  “Well, of course, he can stay with us. You can’t very well invite him down here and not give him a place to stay. The second week of January… I’ll have to clear out the guest room, buy some new sheets for that bed, grocery shop, and get some alcohol. There’s so much to do.”

  “You don’t have to do all that.”

  She frowns and a tiny V forms between her eyes. “Yes, I do. We have to prepare, make him comfortable, and make plans.”

  “At least let me clean up the guest room.”

  “Okay, works for me. I’ll shop tomorrow for sheets.”

  “Kitty?”

  “Yeah, honey.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it for one second.”

  “No, I mean thank you for everything.”

  She understands what I mean by ‘everything.’ She saved me—she’s the only person who stood by me through it all. There’s no telling what I would have become without her, probably a homeless drug addict or even worse—dead.

  I owe her my life, and hopefully, I’m about to make it a better life, a life worthy of her sacrifice and love.

  Chapter Eight

  Liam – A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

  I step out of the shower and hear Bianca changing my playlist in the living room.

  “Hey, I liked that song,” I yell through the door.

  “It was putting me to sleep, we need some party music!” she yells back.

  I wipe the fog off of the mirror and grab my razor. The four of us are going out for New Year’s Eve, and I am less than enthusiastic about it. New Year’s Eve in D.C. is crazy, people dressed in their finest, overflowing with alcohol, acting their worst.

  ‘Let’s Get This Party Started’ blasts through my apartment, and I cringe hoping Mrs. Frantz next door doesn’t call the super, or worse, the police. I wrap a towel around my waist and walk into the living room with shaving cream spread on my face and my razor in my hand. I turn down the volume on my computer that is blasting the song through my Bose speakers, and Bianca stops dancing. Her mouth drops open. I’ve cut her music, and she isn’t happy, but then her eyes travel down my body, and her eyebrows shoot up into her hair line.

  “Liam, I, uh, I like that song and… My God you’re fucking ripped! When did that happen?”

  I look down at my abs and back at her with amusement. “How much have you had to drink?” I ask.

  “What? Oh, like two glasses of wine,” she says looking at the half empty glass in her hand. “But you, you look a lot different than you did in high school, my friend. Not that you weren’t in great shape back then, but I won’t lie, I’d do ya if you swung both ways.”

  I groan, “Well, I don’t, and you know I don’t, so you can put that fantasy out of your pretty little head. You’re not going to try to kiss me at midnight, are you?”

  “Shut your mouth. I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you’re gonna go off with your big head and tell everybody I’m swooning over a gay man, which I am not. I only said you’re hot, and I’d do you if you were into that. I’m pretty hot myself in case you haven’t noticed. I won’t have any trouble finding someone to kiss at midnight, don’t you worry.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried.” I lift one corner of my mouth in a smirk and leave her to finish dancing. “Keep the music turned down, my crazy neighbor will call the cops, and I’m not going to jail on New Year’s Eve.” Although maybe jail wouldn’t be so bad—at least I wouldn’t be getting trampled on the dance floor of some insanely packed club where they charge fifteen dollars for a drink.

  “Pussy,” I hear her mutter under her breath. I don’t say anything, though. Bianca’s a lawyer, and she can out argue anyone, anywhere, anytime, and I’m not in the mood to lose.

  By the time I’m ready to leave, she’s listened to every party song written since 1990 and burned off all of her alcohol by dancing.

  “Are you too tired to go out now?” I ask chuckling and secretly hoping she’ll say yes.

  “Hell no, but you take longer to g
et ready than any girl I’ve ever known.”

  “I look great, though, right?”

  She looks me up and down for the second time tonight—this time with less appreciation and answers with a shrug, “Yeah, I guess.”

  I step closer to her and bump her hip with mine. “Let’s go, law lady.”

  “All right, gay pride pimper,” she says taking my hand and tugging me through the door. I love the nickname she gave to me when I became a lobbyist for gay rights and the one I gave her when she passed the bar and became a lawyer.

  “Don’t call me law lady in front of any guys tonight.”

  Outside my apartment, I turn the key in the deadbolt and glance to my side where she’s impatiently tapping her foot.

  “Why?”

  “Because one-night stands don’t need to know what I do for a living, and if I’m interested in one of the yahoos at this place tonight, I don’t want him to think I’m a bossy lawyer.”

  “Wait, are you embarrassed by your beloved career?”

  “Not embarrassed, just being careful about my personal information. I have to start thinking about my future, you know. What if I meet Mr. Right tonight? I want to leave my best impression.”

  “I think your best impression includes the truth of who you are, and you happen to be a brilliant, sexy, bossy-ass lawyer.”

  She bats her eyelashes and fans herself with her hand dramatically. “I do believe that’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever received from you,” she says in a fake southern accent.

  “Just be you, Bianca. If they don’t like that, fuck ‘em.”

  “Okay,” she quips, and we’re off to ring in the new year with our friends.

  After standing in line with Bianca for ten minutes outside one of the biggest dance clubs in D.C., Abe and Theo joined us.

  Theo takes one look at us shivering and frowns at Abe. “I thought I told you to give them the password,” Theo says to Abe.

  “Shit, sorry guys, I forgot,” Abe says.

  “You’d lose your head these days if it weren’t sewn on, Abe,” Theo says shaking his head. “Come on. We don’t have to wait out here like commoners.”