“I’m exhausted. What would you think about takeout at my place?”
“Sure. Any ideas?”
“I can’t even think, I’m so exhausted.”
“Let me take care of it,” Kevin said with a chuckle. “Anything you’re allergic to or don’t want?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll pick something up on the way. I’ll probably be there around six thirty.”
“Okie-doke. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Me either.”
Six thirty couldn’t come fast enough until Hugo looked around his apartment and saw the mess. He even had a few wigs out that he’d washed and set earlier that day. His already low energy seemed to nose-dive toward the center of the earth. He needed to clean, but there was no way. Kevin’s modern lake house was neat as a pin. Hugo knew his own apartment would never be like that. He didn’t want it to be, but he could surely do the dishes and pick up the stacks of scripts and set-design sketches scattered over numerous surfaces. He folded three laundry baskets full of clothes, cleaned the bathroom, including the tub and shower, and even managed to vacuum. At six, Hugo collapsed on the couch and immediately fell asleep.
He woke to the sound of his door being buzzed. Confused and not knowing what was happening, he let up the person buzzing anyway. Hugo looked around his apartment, which was much neater than he remembered when suddenly he realized who was coming up the stairs. He ran to the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth but didn’t get done before a knock sounded.
Hugo opened the door with a foamy toothbrush between his lips and smiled at Kevin who looked amazing in what he’d probably worn to work, minus a tie and jacket. His royal-blue shirt had the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up nearly to the elbow. The pinstriped pants he wore were certainly part of a suit. In his arms, Kevin carried a paper grocery sack which had been stuffed into a plastic bag.
“I come bearing Chinese food.”
“Great. Come in,” Hugo managed to get past the foam in his mouth. After a quick trip to the bathroom to get rid of his toothbrush, Hugo took the food from Kevin and told him to make himself at home while Hugo started unloading the takeout containers and finding serving spoons. “Are you an eat-right-out-of-the box sort of guy or do you want a plate?”
“A plate would be great, actually. And a fork. I’m awful with chopsticks.”
“You are? I’d never guess that.”
“Horrid. I end up with more food in my lap than in my mouth.”
“Hmm. Well, take a look around, if you’d like,” Hugo invited as he moved to pull plates down from his cupboard. He opted for the plates with the turquoise-and-yellow atomic starburst pattern rather than the easier to retrieve pink-and-black dishes he often used. Kevin probably wouldn’t appreciate vintage pink dishes, even if they’d been an excellent find at Hugo’s favorite thrift store. “I’ll just unpack the food and set the table.”
Kevin took him up on the offer and went to Hugo’s bookshelf near the television and started scanning the titles of films and literature, picking up various knickknacks to inspect closer as he walked around the room. He neared Hugo’s smaller bedroom where all his drag was—his drag closet—and Kevin rested his hand on the doorknob. The door was locked, but Hugo’s heart still pitter-pattered.
“You have a two-bedroom?” Kevin asked.
Hugo nodded and smiled, hoping his nervousness wouldn’t show through. That room was the last place he wanted Kevin, and he was more than thankful he’d put the wigs away before he’d settled down for his nap. “Storage, mostly. It used to be a home office when Michael lived here.”
Kevin released a meaningful noise and then removed his hand from the door, moving on. He glanced out Hugo’s windows and opened the door to the tiny balcony where Hugo had two chairs and a low table with a pot of herbs growing.
“You’re really close to Lake Calhoun, aren’t you?” Kevin asked when he peeked his head back in.
“Yep.” You could see a sliver of blue water from the balcony beyond the alleyway, and the fact that Kevin had noticed it made Hugo smile.
“Do you want any help?”
“No. I’m good. Actually, why don’t you have a seat?”
Kevin sat at the robin’s-egg-blue Formica table Hugo had found on the side of the road years ago. It had been free, but it was one of Hugo’s favorite finds.
“I like your place,” Kevin said as he took another glance around the apartment. “It feels warm and friendly. Really colorful. I never would’ve thought painting each wall a different color would work so well, but it really does.”
“Thanks. It’s not much, but it’s my own. I lived with roommates, horrible roommates, in generic apartments with white walls for too many years. I was glad to finally get on my own so I could decorate how I wanted to.”
“Living with people isn’t easy, especially if you have no genuine affection for them.”
“Isn’t that the truth. My last
good
roommate experience was actually when Summer and I lived together. Here try these,” Hugo said as he handed Kevin a pair of chopsticks joined together with a plastic device he’d bought for his nieces years ago.
“What’s this?” Kevin sounded amused.
“Trainers.” Hugo shrugged and then smirked. “I just thought you might want to try ’em out. Maybe? Maybe not.” He couldn’t keep the quick snicker inside for long but was pleased to see Kevin testing them in his hand.
“How long ago did you say you lived with Summer?”
“It’s been at least five years. Probably longer. She moved in with a boyfriend, which ended up being a big mistake. Both of us have pretty much made it a rule to not live with guys we date unless we’re ready to make a full commitment.”
“It complicates things, I’m sure,” Kevin agreed as he picked up some cashew chicken using the chopsticks, the food making it to his mouth without him dropping a morsel.
“I’m sure it’s nothing like dealing with things you and Erin have to work through. Owning homes and having kids and all that.”
Kevin shook his head as he chewed and held up a finger as if asking for a moment. Hugo realized there was nothing to drink at the table.
“Shit. Something to drink. Sorry about that. Would you like water or beer or wine or pop?”
“If you have something pale, I’ll take a beer.”
Hugo stood and dug through his assortment of beer still left over from a party weeks ago. “How’s this?” he asked, holding a bottle of Tsingtao toward Kevin.
“Excellent. Thanks.” Kevin took a long sip, and Hugo couldn’t help but watch how his throat moved while he swallowed. Shadows played along his skin, and all it made Hugo want to do was lick and suck on the cords there for the rest of the night. He shook his head instead and found a beer for himself.
“Things have been complicated with Erin and the kids, but I can’t really complain,” Kevin said, getting back to Hugo’s original question. “At least not when I hear about the divorces of some of my coworkers. There’s so much bitterness left over. Some of these guys are not only taken to the cleaners, but then never get to see their kids at all. And the single moms I work with are left doing everything with little to no support, even the agreed upon financial support, and when their kids get sick, there’s nothing to do but take time off work, many times without pay. It’s been eye-opening, and everyone seems to want to share their divorce war stories once they find out you’re going through one. All in all, Erin and I have a pretty decent relationship and are able to talk about things in a more than civil manner. I think I’m lucky. Heck, I
know
I’m lucky!”
Hugo didn’t have a clue how to talk about this. No one close to him had ever been divorced. Most of his friends had been wild and carefree in their twenties and had just started settling down in their thirties. Now that marriage equality had finally been signed into law in Minnesota, more friends were engaged, but they had to wait until August before they could legally marry. There were some friends who had traveled to other states to get married, but they hadn’t been together long enough to warrant a divorce.
Add kids to that, and talking about kids and divorce was all so foreign to Hugo’s experience, but he wanted to know more. Erin was a huge part of Kevin’s life and probably would be for years to come considering how young their kids were. If Hugo wanted to be involved with Kevin, he had to get over this sense of impropriety he felt when he was just curious and trust Kevin to tell him when to back off if he asked too many questions or stuck his nose too deep into their business.
“So you still live in the house you guys had. Where’s Erin?”
“Mmhmm,” Kevin said right before swallowing. “She’s looking for work again but knew she’d never be able to make enough to afford our house on her own and didn’t really want to. ‘Too much history,’ she said, so I bought her out. She found a really nice place in Bloomington.”
“And you’re in the house, so the kids can keep going to the Edina schools, right?”
“Well, for now, but there’s open enrollment there. It’s really more about the housing market. Maybe I’ll sell. The house is gigantic for one person and two kids who are only there every other weekend. It makes little sense to stay, but for now, I will so the kids don’t have to lose the only home they’ve really known on top of their family splitting apart. I’d hoped Erin would take the house, but when I offered it to her she refused. She’s been a stay-at-home mom for a decade, and recently, she started taking a bunch of classes again so she could get her nursing license renewed. She wasn’t really planning on working again until the kids left the house, so she wasn’t keeping up with all her continuing education credits like she used to. And then this happened.”
Hugo studied the back of Kevin’s hand and fingers as he pulled his beer bottle back up to his mouth for another drink. “You sound like you feel guilty about that.”
“I do. I promised I’d be her partner. She planned her life accordingly.”
“You didn’t make her quit her job, did you?”
“God no. It was just so hard for her to be away from Brooke when she was born. She loved being a nurse, but when she was first pregnant, she was working in the neonatal intensive care unit. It was too hard to see all those sick babies when she was carrying one of her own. It freaked her out, so she transferred over to a clinic job in pediatrics when she was about five months along.” Kevin looked away for a few seconds, and when his gaze returned, he was reflective.
“Dropping Brooke off at childcare as a newborn was like a nightmare. Erin used to call me during my commute and sob on the other end of the phone. I felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do. Eventually, I asked her if working was worth the heartbreak each morning and just wondered out loud if she’d ever considered staying home with Brooke. It was like she’d been waiting for permission or something. In the end, I think Brooke was in childcare for barely two months before Erin quit her job. It was a good move for Erin and Brooke, but not so good for our marriage.”
“How so?”
“Erin’s a caregiver at heart. Leaving a baby with what amounted to be a stranger was hard, especially when she went to the clinic to help other people’s kids. It just fed her guilt. I think if she would’ve continued working at the hospital with needier patients in the NICU or PICU, things might’ve been different. She would’ve had a place to channel all that extra compassion she has rather than burying herself in the kids. I don’t know.”
“You still love her, don’t you?” Hugo asked, not really wanting to know the answer but needing to hear it before he opened his heart any further.
“Not love. At least not love like I’m
in love
with her. That’s long gone, but I do love her. She was my best friend, my confidante for a lot of years. She knows the good, the bad, and the ugly, and she still stuck around after learning all that. Those feelings and sense of trust don’t just go away.”
Hugo didn’t know how to respond. He felt weird about this. Suddenly, all Hugo’s relationships seemed like something out of a high school romance novel, immature and superficial. When he broke up with a guy, he rarely had feelings for him afterward that weren’t akin to hatred or apathy. He never loved anyone long after they were gone from his life, not even Michael, who was as close to love as Hugo had gotten.
Aside from Kevin, he suddenly remembered. He’d always loved Kevin. Apathy had never been a word attached to that relationship, even after they lost touch. Sadness at the loss and a fierce protection, yes. That’s why he’d never shared that relationship with anyone, not even with Summer. It felt too precious to talk about because then his memory of it might get tarnished, and it was too sacred to ruin with words.
“My love for you never went away,” Hugo finally said. “So I guess I get that.”
“Don’t be jealous, Hugh.”
Kevin must have read something on Hugo’s face. “I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are,” Kevin challenged.
Hugo shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Okay. Yes. I’m jealous.”
“Why? What are you worried about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just, you have this whole other life that somehow seems untouchable to me.”
“It’s not untouchable. I’d even like to introduce you to Erin. I think she’d love you, especially after she saw you with the kids. They can’t stop talking about you, by the way. Erin called earlier in the week asking who
this Hugo
was they kept talking about.” Kevin’s smile was bright.
“What did you tell her?”
“I said you were a good friend from Austin.”
“A friend.”
“I figured that wasn’t a conversation to have over the phone.”
“True.”
“I’m going to tell her about you, Hugo. And I’m going to tell her about me too.”
It felt fast, but it didn’t feel wrong, somehow. Maybe because Kevin seemed so sure of himself. Hugo tried to keep Summer’s advice in mind, to trust Kevin’s judgment.
“Okay. Whatever you feel is best.”
Kevin smiled and proceeded to drop a piece of chicken with a splat. “Uffda! See? I can’t even use
kid
chopsticks with any sort of finesse.”
Hugo shook his head. “Don’t give up so easily. Try it again.”
When Kevin picked up the dropped piece of chicken, he easily brought it to his mouth that time. Hugo couldn’t help the raised eyebrow—
See? You can do it.