Don't Read in the Closet: Volume Four (76 page)

“I want to believe that.”

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Touching the back of George’s neck, Patrick tilted George’s face

toward him. “I do.”

“You really think your ex would take the kids away?”

Patrick pulled his hand back. George couldn’t bring himself to

protest its loss. “The divorce was rough.”

“So, it’s a lifetime in the closet with you or a lifetime without

you?”

“Don’t say it like that. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will end and the kids

will grow up and be able to make their own decisions.”

“You have a four year old. What do you want me to say?” George

grabbed Patrick’s hand.

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.” George didn’t let go of Patrick, even though he

didn’t want to look at him. “I can’t talk about this now.”

“Okay,” Patrick said.

“It’s a buzz kill after, you know, everything.” He made a circular

motion using their entwined hands. Universal symbol. He let go of

Patrick as he finished.

“Yeah.”

“Everything was perfect and-”

“Yeah.” Patrick repeated, as if the conversation had sucked his

language and will away.

“I can’t talk about it.”

“You want me to leave?” Patrick asked.

“Yes.” George took his turn to be monosyllabic as the moment

defeated him, too.

“Okay.” At the door, Patrick said, “Thanks for reviewing these

numbers,” loud enough for the administrative assistants to hear from

their cubicles. Cover set.

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“Any time.”

After Patrick left, George put the ring in his pocket and forced his

attention back to his work. After fifteen minutes, he had his assistant

book him a dinner with a client across town, one that would keep him

from home until late and away from Patrick.

****

George disappeared for three days. Patrick supposed he deserved

it, but the ever more creative excuses George’s staff offered to explain

his absence grated after awhile. He was out to lunch, in a meeting,

across town, traveling, upstairs with the big boss. Patrick quit

listening to them. And then there was Saul, who cast him dirty looks

and no longer tried to hide them.

“You got a problem?” Patrick asked.

“Nope,” Saul said and kept on walking.

Patrick couldn’t even work off his frustration with a fight. George

was being childish. All Patrick had asked was that he keep quiet about

their relationship. He shuddered as the realization sank in. He’d asked

George to give up a chunk of himself. Keeping that secret wouldn’t be

simple to George, who lived his life without secrets. He’d probably

fought hard, faced prejudices down to be able to do that, and now here

came Patrick, asking him for it.

Now he felt like a jackass. He hated the hotel, too. Without

George there, he had nothing to distract him from the brown walls and

bedspread. His phone calls went unanswered. He called anyway. Two

weeks left in his assignment. Two weeks to get this worked out or

he’d lose George again, maybe permanently. It was time to break out

the drastic measures. After a beer, two hundred jumping jacks, one

thousand push ups, and a pizza to get him in the mood, he called his

ex-wife.

They talked every week because of the kids, so she wasn’t

surprised to hear from him, but she’d known him for twenty-years, so

three sentences into his introduction about the weather, she asked

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what he really wanted. He pinched his nose and loved and cursed her

talent for getting to the point, just as he had when they were married.

“I’m gay, Carol,” he said. “I thought you should know.”

“Oh.” She didn’t sound shocked. Or maybe she was so shocked

that it didn’t show in her tone.

“I’m sorry.” Apologizing felt wrong, but whatever their

relationship, she was still the woman who’d stood beside him for two

decades.

“No. Don’t be. I should have known.”

“You should have?”

“Yeah. I mean, if I knew you like I thought I did, I should have.”

“Honey, don’t…” He couldn’t stand to hear her second guess

herself. “The whole point is that no one is supposed to know.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because I… There’s someone who I want to have in my life now,

and it’s difficult for him to be my secret. I need to do this as a… a

show of faith, I guess. I need to prove to him that I can be open with

certain people.”

“Well, thank you for telling me.”

“You can’t tell the military.”

“I know.”

“What about the kids?”

“I think Rick and Joseph should know. Probably shouldn’t tell

Mindy, though. At least, not until DADT is officially redacted,” Carol

said.

“Right.” Carol had a logical way of thinking that had both saved

them from and caused countless arguments over the years. “I’ll tell the

older kids this weekend,” Patrick said. “You’re still sending them

down, right?”

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“Yeah.”

“Okay. Um, well, I…”

“Goodbye, Patrick.”

“Goodbye.”

She hung up and saved them the awkwardness of sharing more

feelings, which they’d never been good at, and had lost the tenuous

hold they’d made on it after the marriage fell to pieces. He got up from

the edge of the bed and inspected the pizza box for edible crumbs. His

stomach rumbled, not from hunger, and he sat back down, closed his

eyes and concentrated on his breathing. He’d come out and the world

hadn’t ended. One down, everyone to go.

****

“Are you going to avoid him for the rest of your life?” Saul

walked into George’s office and pushed George back inside.

“I’m going to a meeting upstairs.”

“You don’t have a meeting upstairs. And you’re avoiding the secret

love of your life, not me, remember?”

“Yeah, it’s your fault I’m in this situation.” George gave up on

trying to get past him and retreated to his desk.

“I’m pretty sure your comparing me and every other guy to him is

not my fault,” Saul said. He dropped onto the couch in the same spot

Patrick had sat a week before and propped his feet on the glass table

in front of it. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

“This a brainstorming session?”

“I don’t like seeing you miserable, so yeah.”

“He wants me to be a secret. His special little secret so he can

continue living his life as he knows it and have me on the side.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. So, this is not what I’d planned for us.”

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“I can imagine,” Saul said.

“If he would be okay with telling some people, I could deal with

that. But I can’t be in the closet for him. My mother gives me a hard

enough time because I haven’t settled down. What am I going to do if

I agree with Patrick? Tell her I’m looking? She’ll set me up with every

gay guy she comes in contact with because you know, all gay guys are

attracted to each other.”

Saul grinned. “That would explain my attraction to you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not your type, old man.”

“Please. You’re anyone’s type.”

George brushed off the compliment. “I could think of people who

I could tell about Patrick. People who would keep his secret.”

“That’s good. You’re starting something here.” Saul pulled a

notepad off the table and picked up a pen.

“And if he agreed to it, we’d have a safe community for him, and I

wouldn’t have to shove myself back into the closet. I don’t think I’d fit

in there anymore, anyway.”

“Who’s on the list?” Saul asked.

“Well, you.”

“Me.” George laughed as Saul wrote his name down. “And?”

George came over to the couch and sat beside him. They went

through every person George knew and created The List. Saul wrote

its name at the top.

“Think Patrick will go for it?” Saul asked when they finished.

George scanned the twenty-four names. “If I lose him again, I

don’t know what I’ll do. Have to quit comparing him to everyone, I

guess. Move on.”

Saul tossed the notepad down. “Here’s to hoping the legend lives

on.”

“Yeah.”

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****

George stood in Patrick’s hotel room. Patrick had let him in, and

now they stared at each other. George could imagine what Patrick was

thinking to see him turned up there after almost a week without

contact. “I’ve been hiding from you.”

“I noticed,” Patrick said. The talking inspired movement, and he

stepped back and gestured George into the room. “Look, I wanted to

tell you-”

“I made a list.” George cut him off. Better to lay out his plan

before Patrick dumped him. Maybe knowing they had options would

change his mind. He pulled the list out of his pocket. Patrick took it,

read it, and handed it back.

“What is it?”

“This is a list of people in my life who I trust. They’re the people I

came out to first, who kept my secret until I was ready to tell

everyone. They can keep our secret, too. If you’re all right with that.”

Patrick shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. His

chest swelled when he took a breath.

“It’s the best I can offer,” George said. “We either tell these

people, or we don’t happen. I’m sorry. I… I know I’m asking a lot.”

“You’re not asking anything.” Patrick’s voice came out sounding

wrong. It took a second for George to recognize the suppressed sob.

At two hundred twenty pounds of muscle beneath a buzz cut, Patrick

didn’t seem capable of crying. That was another conception George

would have to file away into “real Patrick”. He’d started sorting

Patrick into “real” and “legend.” Sometimes a trait slipped into both

areas, but more and more a piece of the “real” section stripped down,

slipped into legend, and something else took the moved trait’s place.

“Well, I know it’s difficult for you.” He couldn’t touch Patrick, and

Patrick had angled himself away to prove that George’s inclination to

keep his hands to himself was the right one.

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“I came out to my wife and kids.”

“You…?” George’s knees didn’t give out. He didn’t collapse

against the wall or do anything else an announcement like that might

have inspired. He didn’t do anything.

“The oldest,” Patrick said. “And everyone’s okay with it. They

want to meet you, though. If you want to.”

That was when George decided to sit down. Meeting the kids.

Wow. “So, you and me, we’re…?”

“I accept your list.” Patrick attempted a smile and stepped closer.

“So, we’re…” He leaned down. The second before their lips touched,

George put his hand on Patrick’s chest, not pushing, but stopping.

“I’m not the fourteen year old I used to be.”

“Neither am I.”

“So, what if we don’t like who we’ve become?”

“You want to stop before we find out? Or do you want to see if we

do like each other? I’ve loved you my whole life, and I’d like to keep

on with that, if it’s all right with you.”

George removed his hand. “It’s fine with me.”

Grinning, Patrick kissed him.

The next morning, for the first time in Patrick’s military career, he

was late to work.

****

“All hail the hero,” Patrick said.

“Stop!” George struggled out of Patrick’s arms as his feet kicked

the air. Patrick plopped him down on George’s mother’s living room

floor. Forty relatives laughed from various places around the room.

Thanksgiving had filled the house up. Patrick’s kids played Catalan in

the corner with George’s nieces and nephews. Patrick’s mother sat

next to George’s. She held her plate in her lap and scraped at remnants

of pumpkin pie with her fork. She’d been nervous to come, given that

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it was a thousand miles from home and she didn’t like to fly, but

Patrick and George had talked her into it, with Patrick even offering to