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6. “Dreamers often lie”

6

"Dreamers often lie"

Now

Romeo's house has been painted since the last time I was here. It's a stark, overbright white that looks picturesque from the street but casts a slight glare as you get closer. It's a strong contrast to the wildness of the garden. There have been big changes since the last time I saw the garden—it was limping along, barely surviving then, but it's thriving now. The bank of bigleaf hydrangeas has grown chest height and throws a profusion of soft pinks and pale blues along the front fence. Near the house, coral bells and daisies are punctuated by foxgloves and hollyhocks. It's a riot of pastel colors that gives me an eerie feeling. A certainty, almost. A knowing that the person who's been here, the person responsible for bringing this garden back from the brink, is someone who was taught to dance when others thought walking would do. Someone who was taught to tread lightly as you move through life. Someone who learned those things from his mother .

I knock twice, both times a little harder than strictly necessary, and step back. I'm armed with a fake smile, a cheap bottle of Pinot Grigio, and the worst bunch of flowers I could find in all of Alabaster. I feel worse than I've felt in at least three or four years, and that's saying something. My palms are sweaty and a lumpy cocktail of every unpleasant emotion imaginable swirls in my belly.

Selby opens the door and shows me in, pausing magnanimously to give me time to take in and compliment what she's done to the house.

It's white. White-on-white. White on more white. Whiter than white. On top of that, she's wearing white too. White ankle-biter jeans and a pair of very flat, thin-soled sneakers. White as well, obviously. It's giving Baby from Dirty Dancing . Ordinarily, it's a casual look I've always liked on women. Kind of sporty but put together also.

I can't say I love this iteration.

Her tank has a broad blue stripe that breaks up the ensemble and forces the eye down to her chest. I wonder distantly whether that's an accident. I think probably not.

"Jude!" she all but squeals, throwing herself into my arms for a quick hug, keeping her cheek turned to protect her lip gloss.

"Sorry about the flowers," I lie .

"Nonsense! They're lovely." She waves it off and looks me up and down, saying, "Oh my God. I love your two-piece. It's like, so cute."

I'm wearing a matching olive-green short-sleeved button-down shirt and shorts with a palm-leaf design paired with Italian leather loafers. It's a look that's light years from the athletic shorts and backward caps I wore when I lived in Alabaster, and it's definitely not something I'd have been comfortable being seen in before I came out.

I'll neither confirm nor deny whether I'm purposefully trying to dress flamboyantly. And I'll neither confirm nor deny whether I'm doing it with the express purpose of getting a reaction from Romeo.

And no, I won't be taking questions at this time.

"Babe!" she calls, breaking the word into three syllables, "Jude's here."

Romeo appears in the doorway that leads to the open-concept kitchen, living room, and backyard. His lips are turned up in a bright smile and his hair is neater than I've ever seen it. Short at the back and sides, slightly longer on top, parted on the side. Stick straight. Every strand contained, brushed, and styled to within an inch of its life. I doubt a strand would move out of place if he was hit by a tornado .

He's wearing white too. White shorts and a white tank with a blue shirt that hangs open. The blue of his shirt matches the stripe on Selby's almost exactly.

I swear to God, if I find out she picks out his clothes for him, I'm going to start screaming.

Mark my words, I'll do it. Don't think I won't.

The dog that looks like Buddy is at Romeo's heel, sitting and looking up at him as if his sole purpose in life is to stay as close to Romeo as possible. Romeo's hand drops down, and he scratches gently between the dog's ears, a slow, unconscious movement that sucks me back in time and spits me out again.

Selby moves us into the kitchen—white from floor to ceiling, obviously—and arranges the flowers in a vase, chattering happily as she snips off the deadheads, leaving her arrangement with no more than a handful of sad blooms in the final stage of fighting for their lives, and by the look of things, losing the battle. She scrunches her face and says, "Mm, so nice ," when she's done.

Ten dollars says they're in the trash by the time she goes to bed tonight.

"Food's almost ready," says Romeo. Unsurprising, given I've arrived a full forty-five minutes later than he asked me to .

His text got my back up. It came less than an hour after I ended the call with Sam. His name popped up on my screen and my hands started to shake before the letters even merged into something meaningful. It pissed me off.

Seven-thirty.

That pissed me off even more. Seven-thirty. After five years that's what I get? That's what I get after the last texts we sent each other? Life-altering texts I've re-read and re-read so many times over the years that I know them by heart. Texts that have kept me awake. Texts that broke me into so many pieces I've never come close to working out how to put myself back together again.

Seven fucking thirty?

He's lucky I turned up at all.

"How's the family?" he asks when he's poured me a glass of much better wine than I brought.

Thank God for small mercies.

I'm still way too hungover to survive exposure to the crap I brought, but I'm not too hungover to feel the full force of my rage that he's talking about my family as if he's still part of it. I know he stays in touch with my mom. It bothers me, but I can't find it in me to begrudge him that, much as I wish I could. I told my mom we fell out after the wedding and asked her never to mention his name to me again. I know it upset her, and she's slipped up once or twice, but for the most part, she's been good about it. "Is your gran doing okay?"

"Oh, sure," I say, trying out a smarmy, devil-may-care voice I haven't used before. "You know what she's like. Unstoppable. A battle-ax that bakes cookies."

Selby scrunches her face and emits a giggle that's so adorable that I'm almost positive she's practiced it in front of a mirror at some point in her life.

"She's eighty-two. What the hell was she doing on a ladder?" Romeo asks.

"Yeah, well, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it," I answer, ignoring the fact that's exactly what I said when my mom told me what happened.

Selby takes it upon herself to turn the incident into a teaching moment. She stands a little straighter and speaks demurely. She knows things, but she doesn't want to be a dick about it. "When my grandpa turned eighty, my dad went over to his place and took every ladder, step ladder, and power tool he owned. Yep, confiscated them all and keeps them in his own garage now. You hear too many stories like this, you know. Elderly people hurting themselves through accidents that could be avoided. "

I can't tell if I'm wildly oversensitive or if I actually am under thinly veiled attack. Out of pure habit, I glance at Romeo to see his take on the matter.

His face is unreadable. A stony mask that's pristine and perfect, porcelain that's been painted on and gives nothing away. I drain my glass in a couple of large gulps and top it up generously without waiting for Selby or Romeo to offer to do it. While I'm at it, I fill his glass and hers, too, though a little more sparingly.

Conversation between Romeo and me is stilted, but it hardly seems to matter. Selby talks enough for the three of us. Though I don't remember asking, she gives me a full rundown of the changes they've made to the house. "Of course it was lovely before." Four syllables, maybe five. "It was beautiful ." Five syllables, for sure. "It's just that it wasn't our taste, you know?"

"Mm." I smile and nod. "Not your taste?" I've realized that if I paraphrase what she says, I can keep the conversation going without exerting more strenuous effort.

Romeo's face remains impassive, but something menacing glints in his eyes. Glass. No, metal. It takes me a while to piece it together because his reactions are so microscopic that initially, even I don't pick up on them. But I soon realize that while to the casual observer, it looks like we are three old friends sitting around a table, eating fajitas in a room that would photograph well for an app like Instagram but feels clinical as hell in real life, Romeo and I are sparring. We're fencing. Fighting. And our swords aren't made of sticks. We're playing with steel. We're swinging hand-forged weapons with razor-sharp blades.

Every time I speak, he cuts me. Shallow cuts at first. Just papercuts, really, but they sting more than they should. I strike back harder, cutting deeper.

"What happened to all the art?" I ask Selby, bracing and lunging. Romeo's top lip stiffens. He anticipates my attack and raises his guard.

"Oh, the art is so special to us. We kept all of it, didn't we, Rome? I had a contractor come over and crate the paintings individually for safekeeping. They're all in the garage."

Our eyes meet. Metal strikes metal. Sparks fly.

"Ah," I say, "safekeeping? That's nice."

The conversation has ground to a halt, but it's no matter. Selby turns to Romeo and changes the subject completely.

"Doesn't Jude look great?"

I look at Romeo, advancing as I wait for him to confirm or deny it. I swing and parry. Feinting at the last minute. He winces. It's barely there, just a hint, but I see it, a fine hairline fracture in his mask .

He pivots and blocks, opening his mouth to speak, but it's too late. Selby beats him to it, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder, subtly letting him know she still has the floor.

"Don't you think he looks wonderful? A glow-up, that's what you've had, Jude. Honestly, I took a second to recognize you yesterday. No, not a glow-up. A gay-up." She laughs so hard at her joke that a full set of bottom molars is exposed. When I don't laugh nearly as loudly, she looks at Romeo. "Can I say that or not?"

"You can, but why would you?" Romeo manages to sound bored, seething, and mild-mannered simultaneously.

He's only one of those things, I can assure you of that. And it's not bored or mild-mannered.

It's no matter. Selby powers on undeterred. "I just love your little two-piece," she says, crinkling her eyes at the corners. "It's adorable, isn't it, Rome? Super cute. I mean, you were always a hottie, Jude. I'm not saying you weren't or anything. You definitely were. D'you know that Olivia Romero cried when you came out?" Her eyes dance with menace or mirth. I can't tell which. "I can really tell you've been working out."

As a matter of fact, I have been. I've worked out five times per week for the past five years in an attempt to stave off crippling depression, and I've learned how to dress from friends who are stylists to people with more money than sense. I earn a good living, and since my life doesn't have much meaning anyway, I spend it on myself. I go to a barber on the Upper East Side who plays scratchy jazz and pours me a single malt whiskey while I wait. I've been going there for so long that I'm able to lie back and let him put green goo all over my face without breaking into a sweat. I know he'll wipe it off with a hot towel before I leave and my skin will glow for days. I'm at least ninety percent confident he won't accidentally slice through my jugular when he uses the straight razor on my neck, and while I do still flinch when he waxes my brows and nose, I don't jump nearly as high as I used to. And I don't squeal at all anymore.

So, I guess you could say I've had a gay-up.

Romeo strikes. To the uneducated eye, it's merely a dismissive shrug. It's neither a yes nor a no. It's an action that hardly matters. That hardly happened. To me, it's a hard strike that makes contact and draws blood.

It's not the response Selby expected, and she's not happy about it. She's entertaining, for God's sake. She has company, and the last thing she needs is her husband choosing this moment to be weird. She gives Romeo a pointed stare and attempts to rectify things. "Well, Sam's a lucky guy. That's all I can say. "

Sam's a lucky guy?

Sam? Sam?

How the fuck does she know about Sam?

I'm winded. Wounded. Fragments of our years apart splinter and fall into place. It happens slowly and then fast as it dawns on me. Romeo hasn't simply not told Selby that we fell out. It's worse than that. Much worse. Or better, depending on how much you like drama. He's kept in touch. One-sided, of course, but still, he's kept up with my life. He's been asking my mother or Lexi about me. No, not Lexi. She would have told me. He's been asking my mother. Or he's been stalking my socials.

Yeah, that's what he's been doing. Stalking my socials.

He has too much pride to ask my mother about me, the fucker.

He's been following me. Watching from the sideline as I wither away.

"Oop," says Selby when the alarm on her phone sounds. "Dessert's ready." Romeo starts getting to his feet, a feigned attempt to help her clear our plates when really, he's trying to get as far away from me as possible. Selby won't have a bar of it. "No, no, you sit, babe. You two catch up. I've got this."

When she's out of sight, Romeo crosses his arms and looks away from me .

The fucking asshole.

Is he really going to sit here and ignore me? Not on my watch.

"So, the two of you really like white, huh?" Is it mature of me? No. Do I care? Also no.

"What?" He turns his head and fixes me with a blistering gaze. "You don't like white?"

"Can't say I do, no." We're still sparring, but we're not fighting with blades anymore. We've devolved to sticks tied together with laces.

"Oh. Well, I can't say I like your two-piece."

Dry, brittle twigs crash together. Tiny bits of bark fly into the air and get in my eyes.

"Hate your hair," I hiss softly so Selby can't hear us if she's on her way back. " Hate it. It doesn't suit you."

The dining room door opens and the dog bounds in. Selby must be trying to keep it in the kitchen to prevent it from begging because she follows at pace, glares at the dog, and gives Romeo a long look that speaks at least two full sentences. Neither of them polite.

I sense an attack on Romeo and muscle memory kicks in despite the fact I actively try not to let it. I call the dog over to me with a pat of a hand against my thigh before Selby can have Romeo take it out. It approaches with caution. Up close, it's bigger than Buddy was, but like him, it's one of those dogs that looks like a drawing a child would do of a dog. You know, long nose and pointy ears that stick up like triangles on its head. A mixed breed with at least some German Shepard in the equation. It's black from head to toe, with a whippy tail currently hanging down. The dog is hesitant, approaching slowly, but I can tell from its eyes it isn't scared. It's cautious but unafraid. Why would it be? Its master is near.

"What's his name?" I ask.

Selby gives Romeo a millisecond to reply, and when he doesn't answer in the time she's allotted, she speaks for him.

"His name's Tiger." She gives me a warning look, stretching her eyes and talking quietly, overmouthing her words as if that will somehow make it impossible for Romeo to hear her. "He's a bit bitey, so be careful…"

I don't hear the rest. My brain has cut out.

Tiger. He named his dog Tiger.

Romeo named his dog after me.

Romeo's mask slips. His eyes do that thing where it looks like they've widened, but they've actually narrowed. They're his though. Not glass. Not porcelain. His. A pale, panicked blue smudge spreads across the upper quadrant of his face and shows me a glimpse of alternate worlds and faraway galaxies .

Stories and daydreams.

A hero and a lone wolf.

"That's an unusual name for a dog," I manage eventually.

"I know," Selby agrees, "but you know what Romeo's like. Gets an idea in his head and won't be talked out of it." She laughs as though she finds the trait endearing, but the pitch is a little off. She titters again and lowers her chin conspiratorially. "Tiger's a bit of a problem, to be honest. We're dying to start a family, and I'm not sure he'll be safe around babies." She gives me a long, meaningful look designed to get me on her side. "Not really sure what to do about it, are we, Rome?"

As Romeo scrabbles with his mask, twisting and turning it before getting it back into place, I realize with disbelief that quickly turns into horror that Selby is a threat to Tiger's continued presence in Romeo's life. Disgust so strong it tastes bitter rises in my throat. I match my smile with hers, and even though I hate him, even though he hurt more than I thought anyone could ever hurt me, I made a vow once, an oath I can't take back no matter how much I wish I could—protecting Romeo when he's under attack isn't a choice.

"Ah," I say lightly, "guess you'll just have to wait ten or twelve years until he dies of natural causes, won't you? "

Selby looks like she's bitten into a wasp. She falters but quickly corrects. "Oh, you!" She laughs. "Trust you to take Romeo's side. You two were always like that."

I laugh a little too loudly and take a large sip of wine. I set the glass down carefully, nudging it twice to ensure I'm completely happy with its placement before I'm able to summon the courage I need to look at Romeo.

He's dropped his sword. It lies at his feet, out of reach. Mine's still in my hand, but it hangs limply at my side, and when I look into Romeo's eyes, it slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor beside his. Romeo is sitting completely still. The low light from the candles on the table flickers and warms his skin, bringing it back to life. His hands are folded loosely in his lap, palms up. Long fingers. Deep nail beds. The mask he's been wearing rests gently in them.

He looks naked and real, and unreal, and so unspeakably beautiful I can't breathe in or out.

It's him.

Romeo.

My Romeo. My friend. My lover.

My life.

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