Chapter 23

23

DES

T he following Friday night, Alex and I are back in our preferred cocktail bar, with our favorite waiter, Sam, whose attractive ass is now a bit of an in-joke. We're studying drinks menus when someone appears next to our table. I look up expecting to see Sam, only to find another guy standing there, fists clenched. He's tall, thin, with straight floppy brown hair falling over his forehead, wearing a suit not unlike Alex's.

"So, despite everything, you're still doing this?" His voice is tight and angry, gaze fixed on Alex.

Alex's head snaps up and he closes his eyes as the color drains from his face. "What are you doing here?"

"Since you decided not to respond to any of my messages, I thought I'd visit you at work. You were just leaving the building."

Alex stands and gently takes hold of the guy's forearm, which he jerks away.

"You can't do this here …" Alex says.

"Is he your new boy toy?" the guy adds with a sneer, and then leans around him to address me. "He'll ditch you six months in. Ruin your life in the blink of an eye. Whatever he does, it isn't serious."

Alex's face is white, lips thin and pale. He puts his hand on the guy's arm again. "Tom, this is not the place …"

Tom, whoever Tom is, shakes his hand off.

"The lies he tells everyone about everything, to his employers, his family, about who he is ," he hisses right in Alex's face. "What alias did you use this time?"

What?

"Keeping his secret life hidden from the family."

Well, I know he hasn't told his family. But he uses a different name? Cold shoots through me. "Your name isn't Alex?"

"Of course it is! The only thing I've lied about is my surname," Alex growls, pink creeping into his cheeks.

But Tom's eyes are narrowed on him. "Do you know what they did to me?"

Alex closes his eyes.

"They banned me from the synagogue. The rabbi advised my parents on how to ensure I was well and truly ostracized—from the community, from my family ."

He gets hold of Alex's shoulder and shakes him. "Are you listening to me?"

"Hey," I say, standing up next to them. "Cut that out."

"Do you even fucking care, Alex?" His eyes swing to mine. "He stopped texting me, wouldn't respond. Like I was some bug he had to scrape off."

I eye up the guy and make a snap decision. We can't have a stand-up fight in a smart bar in Manhattan. "No one is who they appear to be on Grindr," I say, waving my arm around. "And nothing on that app surprises me any more: I've been discovered by disgruntled wives and thrown out of apartments with no clothes on."

Perhaps I was exaggerating a bit with that last one. Alex gapes at me, and I shrug, trying to tamp down the wobbliness bubbling up through me. My eyes flit over Tom's suit.

Tom sneers. "You met this guy on Grindr? Dear God! How low can you go?"

Excuse me?

Tom's fists clench, and then he shakes his head. "Did you hear what I said?"

I nod. "Yeah."

Tom's eyes scan down my body. "And presumably you don't care."

And Jesus . I open my mouth to tell him where to go, but then he says, "He's Alex Sachs."

I frown at him. What? Then the penny drops, oh that Jewish family. Really? Alex told me his dad was a financial analyst, but he never said that he …

Alex rolls his eyes. "There are thousands of Sachs in New York, Tom. I'm from the poor end of the family tree."

"And I've been the poor end of it for the last year," Tom spits. "Everything just gone." He snaps his fingers.

"So not Alex Blackman, then?" I say.

Toms laughs as Alex's mouth pinches. He stares at the view of Manhattan out the window of the rooftop bar, jaw tight. What do I do here?

The waiter appears, hovering with a menu, but Tom shakes his head. "I'm not staying," he says. He points a finger at Alex. "Don't trust him," he says and walks out.

I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. "What the hell was all that?"

Alex sinks into his seat and runs his fingers through his hair.

"Tom's my cousin. We had a thing about a year ago. He's a couple of years older than me, and he didn't keep it quiet from his family and they disinherited him. He blames me for it."

Disinherited him? "How much are we talking about?"

"Probably enough to buy an apartment in Manhattan."

Jesus. That's no small change. No wonder the guy is pissed. Alex gazes down at his hands, mouth a grim, flat line. What do I say here? I sink back down into my seat.

"Do you Jewish guys love drama or something?" I say.

Color starts to return to Alex's face. "Did you really just say that, Des?"

A small smile curves over my mouth. "Fair enough."

Biting his lip, he looks out of the window at the city lights.

"So you're part of the Sachs dynasty?" I say.

He nods. "But … I'm sorry, Des, I've never thought it was that big of a deal. We talked about my family: We're not swimming in money. And I use a different name because I'm not out, not because of some phony family reason."

But then why didn't he tell me ? Tell me his real surname, tell me about this Tom guy? I talked to him about George, took him to meet him. Everything seemed so above board, so straight . I told Alex that I appreciated his honesty after all the bullshit. And he didn't say a word. My stomach churns. Maybe he wanted to keep it all on the down low? And I've done that myself. If I'm honest, this kind of drama is way down on the list of exciting things that have happened to me in the gay community. Ugh.

"Makes sense," I say. But do how much I trust him now? What Tom described about cutting him off sounds brutal.

"I'm not sure you really think that," Alex says.

When I run my hands through my hair, my scalp is damp. "It just feels so weird that I didn't know …"

"I'm sorry, Des." His fingers tremble slightly as he rubs a hand down the leg of his pants.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"To be honest, I've felt a bit overwhelmed being with you. And what happened to Tom is awful: I'm ashamed of how it all went down."

He's overwhelmed? "What did he mean when he said, ‘He'll dump you after six months'?"

I can't square Tom's comments about Alex cutting him off with how Alex is with me. In my mind, Alex is the guy who wants to go slow and enjoy everything we do with each other. The sweet, shy guy I meet up with every other day. What is real here? A storm builds in my gut.

"It lasted six months." Alex holds up his hand. "I didn't dump him. We spent a lot of time together last summer meeting up in the city. Having something with another man … I was terrified and so it was casual at first; we were friends and then it became more. Kissing and … I was confused about my own sexuality and didn't take it seriously." He chews his lip. "Maybe I was starting to think I was bisexual? But I wasn't gay. Whereas he was sure he was, and had been for a long time."

This sounds like some horrible echo of my relationship with Alex.

"The fallout was bad for him. I get it. I get why he's bitter. I get why he hates me."

What it would be like to be disowned by someone you were once close to? How would I feel if Alex cut me off? Cold fingers creep up my spine.

"But he's your cousin ? Your family don't know, do they? They're lining up candidates for you to marry."

Alex winces. "It was a mess. There was a big showdown. Both our parents found out. The fact he was my cousin was a huge issue, too. I played it down with Mom and Dad, told them that it was something stupid we'd done with each other. Rachel, my sister, waded in and supported me. She made it sound like a silly experiment, that it was nothing to get excited about. They were so horrified, they were happy to sweep it all under the carpet. Dad's anger felt overwhelming when I was so scared and uncertain about what I felt …" He twists his fingers together. "Tom didn't downplay it with his family. Before our relationship, when he was at college, he was out to everyone but his mom and dad. He'd known for so long I think he was close to exploding keeping it from them. But they went ballistic."

"You said you were bisexual when we met. Was that true then or …?"

Alex closes his eyes. "I hate that you're now going to question everything I've told you. That you think I've lied about things."

My eyebrows rise up. "Alex, there's so much lying going on here."

"I'm quite an honest person, Des," he says, then laughs harshly. "How stupid do I sound? I lie to my family all the time. When you're hiding who you are you're lying all the time to everyone."

A tremor laces through his voice as he rubs a distracted hand up and down his arm. And I understand where this comment is coming from. It's true that, even in the normal run of things, when you not out, you're always watchful, always covering yourself, always concealing facts about your life. But where does omission cross the line into lies?

"I really regret what happened to Tom, but my relationship with him didn't feel like such a big deal, to be honest. God, I sound so na?ve."

And maybe on one level, it wasn't. Is George a big deal to me? He was once.

But there are all these other parts of his life that Alex has swept under the carpet: his family, the synagogue. He says we've talked about his family, but we haven't, not really. I've asked a few questions and he's given me a few basics. And not telling me more keeps me at arm's length. It hides people like Tom, whole areas of his day-to-day that I know nothing about. His friends are a mystery to me. And no one knows about me and who I am to Alex. Will that ever change? He says he's na?ve, but how na?ve have I been here?

"Anyway, no, I wasn't lying about being bisexual. I had a relationship with Tom, and there were girls at college before I met you. But how could I have done all this with you and not know that I'm gay?"

My mouth drops open. He's given no hint up to now of how he views our relationship. And his sexuality? He's talked about how he's not into women, talked about how he was too skinny for a gay guy, and that I'm his boyfriend, but nothing he's said before has ever carried the conviction of these words. Somehow this feels like a big admission.

"You're sure now?"

He nods, biting his lip. "Yes. Never mind lying to my family, I think I've been lying to myself."