CHAPTER 21

mateo

"A little more to the left," I said, standing back and watching as Nick and Rob hefted the heavy wooden tallboy into the corner of the room. "No, back to the right an inch."

"How about you help with the actual manual labour instead of just providing the commentary," Rob huffed, standing back and wiping the sweat from his brow.

"No thanks, I'm perfectly happy standing here supervising," I grinned, not minding the display of all their man muscles all that much either.

"I'm sure you are," Rob returned.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to switch bedrooms," I pointed out, reasonably so.

"You're the reason I needed to switch bedrooms in the first place," Rob jabbed right back. Nick laughed and that had me quietening down, hoping Rob wouldn't bring up the reason for his sudden move to the bedroom on the other side of the house again – Nick's old room before I'd chased him out of our house. It was bad enough the first time Rob had brought it up, me just standing there while he teased me about how Jamie and I had nearly sent the bed through the drywall the other night, Nick looking on with a grin on his face.

"Now you can send as many beds into the wall as you want," Nick added. It was the first time he had alluded to me being with Jamie and I felt my stomach reliably twist at his words, just casually joking about me having sex with another guy like it was nothing.

"And now you can take up all the space in the bathroom with all your beauty products," Rob added, landing a heavy arm over my shoulder.

"Small blessings," I muttered, glad for the change of subject.

"You want to put those perfectly smooth, anti-manual-labour hands of yours to good use and crack out the beers?" Rob asked. Which was probably fair considering how much work these two had done shifting Rob's furniture while I had carried over the blankets and clothes.

"Deal," I agreed, turning and leaving them to finish off the room. Truthfully, this was a good thing, Rob's move to the other side of the house. We probably should have done it a while ago but I guess we'd both been holding onto the hope that Nick might return. That was even less likely now with the only spare bedroom in the house the one that shared a wall with mine. Neither of us were that mean.

I organised the beers and then added some cheese and crackers and brought them over to the coffee table where the guys had collapsed onto the sofa.

"Got any trips up to Sydney planned, M?" Rob asked, arms out on either side of him.

"Actually, I have to be up there the weekend after next," I told them. "Got a photoshoot booked."

"You going up to visit Ajay too?" Rob continued, eyes on Nick.

"You bet," Nick replied with a soft smile on his face I didn't want to investigate too closely.

"Maybe we should all go up," Rob suggested. "Get away for the weekend." Nick's eyes involuntarily darted to mine, holding for a beat before moving away. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if I would be okay with that suggestion, whether I would be okay with seeing him spend his time with his boyfriend. And maybe whether he would be okay with that too.

I cleared my throat. "I'm game if you are," I offered.

"Yeah," Nick agreed. "I'm sure Ajay would love to see you both." Well. We all knew that was a lie but no one called him out on it. Ajay would love to see Rob no doubt. Me, definitely less so. I'd been a straight up asshole to Ajay from the moment we'd met.

"What do you reckon then? Should we do it?" Rob asked, taking a swig from his bottle.

Nick looked at me, a question in those bright blue eyes I had stared into countless times and I nodded.

"Yeah, let's do it," he agreed. "How about we drive up Friday after work. Mateo can do his photoshoot on Saturday and then we drive home Sunday afternoon."

"I dibs not sharing a bed with you and Ajay," Rob cut in.

"As if I'd let you within a ten foot radius of him," Nick chided back.

"When will you get it through your head? Not a threat," Rob eyerolled.

"I don't care. You're still not seeing him naked," Nick returned.

"I don't know why. It's not like I haven't seen you and Mateo naked a thousand times before whether I wanted to or not. A dick is just a dick to me. You're so possessive," Rob grinned.

"Of him. Yes."

"Hey, you want to bring your boyfriend too, Mateo? That might be fun," Rob suddenly suggested. He'd perked up in his seat at the thought while Nick looked open to the idea too.

"He's not my boyfriend," I returned a tad defensively.

"Ah, sorry to burst your little bubble of self-delusion over there but yeah, M, he's your boyfriend," Rob returned.

"He's not my boyfriend. We're just … hanging out."

"Hanging out," Rob scoffed. "Is that what you do in your bedroom together while the bed bashes into the wall? Hanging out?"

"Shut up, Rob."

"No seriously, M," Rob picked up, not wanting to let this go for some reason. "You like him. He obviously likes you. You took him to dinner with your aunt and uncle. What's the big hold up?"

I glanced at Nick, noting his interest in the conversation but knowing he wouldn't dare voice an opinion. And really, I couldn't have this discussion with Rob while Nick sat right there. I just couldn't.

"You can invite Jamie if you'd like," Nick added, eyes serious.

But just the thought of having Jamie and Nick in the same space for the long drive to and from Sydney, let alone the hours we'd spend up there together had me close to hyperventilating. I didn't know why, I just couldn't do that to myself. So I shut down that idea as quickly as I could.

"No. Let's just keep it as us three," I said instead.

"Just like the good old days," Rob added helpfully and I smiled, relieved but also feeling like I might have messed something fairly monumental up all at the same time.

I'd been putting off this visit to my parents. I'd already cancelled on them twice and had wanted to cancel again this time. That was nothing unusual for me but for some reason I was finding it harder to agree to go see them each time they called and put the guilt trip on me. Mama had heard that I'd been to dinner with Dante and Giulia last week and was not above using that as guilt bait. Though I'm sure she would not have wanted to be at that dinner if she knew who had been there with me.

Seeing my parents was always hard for me. I often needed time to prepare myself mentally for it and each visit always tended to follow with a strong drink or two afterwards. I wasn't sure if they had ever realised how one-sided our conversations were, how they used up all their valuable time with their only child pointing out his many shortcomings and failures. Nothing I did had ever been good enough for them.

But I was here now and Mama had already spent the past ten minutes berating me about my ‘break up' with Tate, the girl I'd tried dating to appease my parents for a few weeks over summer. It had been an abject failure. I wasn't even remotely bisexual, could not muster even the barest hint of attraction for her even though she was objectively beautiful. It had been awful.

Especially that night I'd run from Tate's house when she'd finally lost patience with all my excuses for why I refused to cross any physical boundaries with her. Apparently there was only so many times you could tell a woman you were trying to be a gentleman. Or that you had a headache. Or a stomach pain. Or an early start at work the next day.

I'd spent a lot of time trying to put memories of that spectacularly bad night to rest where they belonged. I hadn't even had the guts to tell Tate the real reason why walking into the room to find her lying naked and spread out in her bed was so repulsive to me which I knew was pretty mean of me. Oh well, not my problem anymore.

"The Zanotti's are coming to dinner next Saturday," Mama was continuing to say, no real need for me to say anything back in her one-way conversation. "Amelia will be there too. I want you here for the dinner. You know how much Amelia would like to get to know you better."

It didn't matter that I'd already told Mama that Amelia was the most psychopathic girl I'd ever met, or that she was cruel and judgemental. None of that had mattered to my mama. Amelia had all the attributes she cared about such as her Italian heritage and functional vagina. The fact she was borderline psychotic with a frighteningly intense crush on me did not matter as much.

"I can't next week," I said anyway.

"You can. Whatever you have on, rearrange it. I promised the Zanotti's you'd be there," Mama scolded.

"I'll be in Sydney that weekend," I replied.

Both my parents sighed dramatically at my announcement before Papa levelled me with his special look . "No woman wants a man who is prettier than her or who spends more time on skincare than she does," he stated. "Honestly, I don't know why you keep at that silly career. It's not going to provide an honest income for your wife and children."

"I made five thousand dollars at my last photoshoot," I told them. I never really bothered all that much to stand up for my side career with my parents. They'd made their opinions on the matter abundantly clear. Many times.

"Selling your body," Mama spat. "It's vile and disgusting."

"Rearrange, son. Your mama wants you here next weekend," Papa added.

"It's nice you think I actually have that kind of power over a photoshoot. There are twenty or thirty other people involved who do not take their orders from me. Besides, I'm going up with Nick and Rob so it's not just for the photoshoot."

"Nick?" Mama repeated, exchanging a shocked look with Papa, one that had me stilling. They'd never had a problem with my friendship with Nick in the past. Mostly because I'd carefully concealed both our truths from them.

"Tell him," Papa nodded as lead sunk to my stomach.

"Giana was here last week," Mama began, sitting down heavily after collecting our plates. "She told me Nick was seen with a boy on the high street. They were kissing . In plain view of everyone on the entire street."

She delivered the news as though she was telling me a loved one had been diagnosed with an incurable disease and they both waited for my reaction, no doubt expecting my shock and outrage.

I just shrugged, the movement forced. "Probably his boyfriend," I said as dismissively as possible.

"You knew?" Mama exploded.

"Yeah. So?"

"So? So? So what are you doing planning a trip to Sydney with that boy?" she argued.

"Why? Are you worried I'll catch the gay?" I scoffed, stomach churning and adrenaline pounding.

"You know what those people are like, Mateo," Papa cut in. "Predators. All of them."

I sat there listening as the two of them spouted their closed minded ignorance about those people , the ones who were actually my people and something broke inside me. I'd heard their narrowminded views all my life and I didn't want them levelled at Nick any more than I wanted them levelled at me. Or Jamie for that matter. Neither of them deserved their hate. And neither did I.

I slowly stood to my feet, knowing what I said next was going to fracture any chance at a future relationship with my parents. But I'd hidden from them for most of my life and I could not keep hiding anymore. I was done.

My parents watched me cautiously as I stood before them, faces still dark with anger as they demanded I cut Nick out of my life.

"Well you know what, Mama? Papa?" I said, holding onto the edge of the table for support as I looked down at them. "None of that matters because it's too late for me. Looks like I caught the bug after all so if you want me to cut Nick out of my life, you'll have to do the same to me because I am as gay as he is."

Their mouths dropped but I took no pleasure in what I'd said, no pleasure in leaving them looking at me as though I was a plague they wanted out of their lives.

"And now I'm going to go drive to my boyfriend's house and I'm going to let him tell me there's nothing wrong with me, that I'm fine the way I am. And maybe this time I'll actually believe him. Because you know what? I am actually okay with who I am. It's taken me a really long time to get here but I know now that there's nothing wrong with me. I can love whoever I want to love and I'm not going to have your hatred and your closeminded views shape mine anymore."

And with that, I walked out of their house and down to the street to my car, the image of their shocked and disgusted faces the last thing I would likely see of them.