Twenty-Four

GREG

Greg's stomach protests when he tells Rufus and Jessica he's moving back to New York.

"Thank you again for your generosity. I've had such a great time here. I'll come back and visit often."

"But..." Rufus begins.

"You can't," Jessica finishes for him.

Greg says he has to.

By the time he makes it to Martin's Place, early for his shift that night, Greg's stomach is hosting a whole damn rally, picket signs and megaphones and everything. He's ignoring it as best he can. Focusing on the positive.

Augustine and Martin look at him from across the desk with twin expressions of confusion and disappointment. Like he'd just slapped each of them across the face with one of the uncooked fish filets from the kitchen.

"Is it something we did?" Augustine asks. It sounds eerily like a breakup that's not going well.

In a way, it kind of is.

Never in a million years did Greg expect his New York homecoming to go so well. Anika and Josh greeted him with open arms, and Stryker even opened his home to him. When they were dating, Greg and Stryker floated the idea of living together, but ultimately Stryker decided he needed his space. (The first nail in the coffin of their relationship, though Greg was blissfully unaware they were about to be buried.)

Greg's ignorance and Stryker's decision didn't stop them from having sleepovers. Plenty of them. They'd roll into bed together after wild nights of partying and making content.

They reprised this situation over the weekend except with one key difference: Greg took the guest bedroom instead of the other half of Stryker's California king. It felt foreign but comforting, sleeping off his bad drinking-based decisions in a luxury high-rise miles above the noise and the problems.

When he woke up, Stryker had breakfast waiting for them. He hadn't made it, naturally. He ordered it and had it delivered, but he got Greg's favorite: a Swiss omelet with rye toast and a maple latte. Greg was touched.

It was the gesture that tipped the scale. Greg was taking the job and moving back.

Of course, he consulted his bank account first, toyed with some numbers, paid some bills, and made a mental checklist of how he could make it work. And in the end, he decided he could and would make it work. That's why he's here, putting in his two-week notice.

"No. You both have been wonderful. I love Martin's Place. It's just..." don't say it, don't say it, don't say it "...you don't really need me anymore."

Truly, Greg doesn't believe it. Martin's Place could fall apart as easily as it came together when he arrived, but that's not his problem. This, like the sex pact with Julien, was always meant to be temporary.

He looks down at the gold watch taking up residence on his wrist. Stryker gave it back to him. Greg had left it, before the great flee from New York, on the nightstand in Stryker's bedroom. A casualty of not telling anyone where he was going. He packed and dipped as quickly and cleanly as possible, which meant leaving things behind.

Over breakfast, Stryker apologized (A man! Apologizing! A miracle!) for what went down between them before Greg left, saying he understood why Greg wouldn't tell him where he was going next. That was when he set the watch down on the table. Greg recognized it immediately. A gift for his birthday the year before. He rarely left his apartment without it. When he first got to Allentown, he missed it, sure, but he missed a lot of things. That watch like his Gucci belt wouldn't make sense here, so it didn't matter too much.

Wearing it to his shift tonight, it felt like the last phase of a transformation he had to go through.

"Hang on a second, says who?" Martin is staunch, evidently denying this.

Greg shakes his head. He won't say Julien's name. It's bad enough he says it in his dreams where he can conjure Julien at will, every detail of him. Naked or clothed. "I only mean that happy hour is on the map. I'm not the reason people are coming anymore. Maybe at the beginning, but now it's this place and the community they've built here."

Taking a quick inhalation, Greg tries not to wallow over his own community, the one he's leaving behind by making this decision. He banishes Rufus and Jessica's upset into a shadowy corner of his mind. He's making the right choice. Right for him. Right for right now.

"Who's going to come up with all those crafty cocktails, huh?" Augustine asks. Martin seems a tad too bereft to even speak again. "It's your special skill. You're our ace in the hole. Our secret weapon. We'd really like you to stay."

This is music to Greg's ears—Stevie Nicks crooning after a hectic day kind of music—because it's not often that people ask him to stay. People are often pushing him out, away. His parents. Stryker.

"What are they paying you? We'll match it." Martin's gotten his voice back. It's gruff, stern.

"We'll double it!" Augustine chimes in.

Greg tells them.

"On second thought, we'll bow out gracefully," Martin says before sighing and sinking back into his chair.

Greg doesn't enjoy delivering bad news, especially not to two people who took a chance on him when he was at his lowest. "Seriously, thank you for giving me this opportunity and for looking out for me. I really needed it."

They nod somberly. Like someone's died. Greg hates it.

"And if you ever need special cocktails for events or holidays, I can always slip some recipes to you via..." He stops himself before he says Julien. He won't say Julien! "Text. Or email. Whatever works."

Augustine says, "Thanks, Greg. You're a good guy." Greg's throat grows thick as he recalls how Julien said those exact words to him in the shower on Christmas Eve. Back when a future together still felt possible. "We're going to miss you," Augustine adds.

Is Martin...tearing up? "We really are."

"Oh, shut off the waterworks, you big softie. He's moving two hours away. Not to another continent." She laughs while getting her husband up from his seat so they can start getting ready for dinner. "He can come back for Christmas Eve again. You gotta come back for the holidays. I promise I will get marginally less drunk and sing marginally more on key."

Greg laughs, attempting to mask the heat spreading across his cheeks from the rooted memory of that fated night, of the sweetest gift he's ever received and the hottest sex he's ever had. "I'll try my best," he says, making no concrete promises.

Maybe this year will be different. Maybe by Christmas, he'll be formally back together and living with Stryker, enjoying take-out breakfasts every morning and bartending at Bar Deco every night. This time, he'll get it right. This time, he'll plant roots that won't (and he repeats, won't) get ripped up and thrown in his face.

Martin's Place and the prickly sommelier who works there will be nothing more than a blip in his memory bank, slowly disintegrating into sand, poured through a sieve, and blown away on a spring wind.

"Thanks for letting us know." Augustine and Martin leave Greg behind in the office.

After a deep breath, he pulls out his phone and shoots off a text to Stryker, Anika, and Josh: It's official. I'm coming home.

JULIEN

"You're home," Aunt Augustine greets Julien as he enters for his first shift back. There's something off about her. The way she pats his back. The way she's not sipping a seltzer. "How was the...the classes? How were the classes?"

"Great. Really informative, and I met some really nice people." He's been meaning to send a text to Carlos after their affirming conversation.

"You? Meeting people? Color me surprised." Her joke takes an off-kilter tone.

Julien decides not to harp on the oddities. "I'm turning over a new leaf. Have you seen Greg?" He's got just enough time before the dinner rush to get Greg alone, confess his feelings, and maybe, possibly have Greg scoop him up into his arms and kiss him a little bit. A lotta bit, if he's lucky.

She worries her lip. "Let's take a walk to the host stand for a minute."

He doesn't have a minute. They can catch up later. "It's kind of important, what I have to tell Greg." Never in his twenty-six years of existence has he felt this confident in his feelings for someone. It's emboldening, and it can't wait any longer.

"What I have to tell you is kind of important as well."

He has stopped listening because Greg appears behind the bar. Characteristically handsome. Uncharacteristically rumpled. He carries a tray of clean glasses to stack beneath the counter, causing his biceps to bulge in the fancy gold polo he's wearing.

Julien's heart picks up speed. "I'll meet you there in a bit, okay?" Without waiting for a response, he's off toward Greg who is donning a somewhat revamped wardrobe, pieces Julien hasn't seen before. Most notably, a striking gold watch that could blind someone with its huge, ornate face. If Julien were to assign Greg a color, it would be gold. A shiny and hopeful shade.

Though the look on Greg's face when he turns and nearly runs into him doesn't inspire hope. It appears wounded.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"I'm back."

"I see that."

Julien almost loses his nerve. "Can we talk?" The shakiness is evident, but he tries to hide it with a smile.

Greg nods and follows him out back because Braydon is holding court by the lockers, talking about his impending spring break plans to go to Mexico. Outside, the air is crisp with a slight chill, a marked difference from Dallas. Julien wishes he'd worn a light jacket.

"Did Augustine...?" Greg's hanging question lingers in the air as they stand in the alleyway, a poor setting for a romantic conversation.

Julien tilts his head. "Did she what?"

"Never mind." Greg weirdly grabs back his words. Things between them have never been this stilted. Not even after Julien spilled all those cocktail samples on him when they met. "Then I have something to tell you."

"Everyone has something to tell someone it seems." Julien came here with a mission, and now his head is all cluttered. "Do you, uh, want to go first?" He's trying to be polite, unable to properly read the vibe.

"Sure." Greg's eyebrows knit together. "I took the job in New York."

Julien is stunned but refuses to show it. He trains his face into a neutral mask, even though there's an ambush raging inside his brain, a holdup inside his heart.

"The pay was too good to pass up. I even got to connect with some of my old friends while I was there." Greg shifts from foot to foot.

Julien's eyes dart to the watch. Of course. He was so hell-bent on making his lovelorn confession that he hadn't considered who gave Greg that watch. It had to be the very same one Greg once mentioned that Stryker had gifted him.

Did they kiss? Did they sleep together?

Julien's mind is a vat of Gorilla Glue.

Great, just great."That's great!" Julien says, hoping Greg doesn't hear the crack in his voice. "I'm sure you're happy to be going back."

"I am." Julien can't quite tell if Greg's lying. "What was it you wanted to tell me?"

Mouth agape, Julien fumbles for something plausible to say, something not pathetic. "Sangria."

"What?"

Julien shakes his head to try to organize his thoughts. "While I was away, I saw a menu with a wide selection of sangrias. Made me wonder why we hadn't done any of our own yet for happy hour. I...wanted to get your take." It's weak, and he's only barely selling it.

Greg rubs a hand across his chin. "Uh, yeah, sure. Sangria." God, Julien curses the word sangria. "That's really it? That's why you made us come out here?" Greg outstretches his arms.

Julien's eyes dip down to the asphalt, unable to take in the expansiveness of Greg. Desperately wanting to walk into those outstretched arms and have them curl back in around him. Damn Greg for seeing him too clearly, for knowing too well that he is flying by the seat of his pants.

This conversation could end one of two ways: Julien could come clean, or he could lie again. "I..." His mind might be a mess, but it supplies him with Carlos's face and reminds him of the overly familiar hug outside the gate. "Met someone. At the class. While I was away." It's mostly truth.

"Oh," Greg says, expression rewinding back to confusion.

"Oh is my thing," Julien tries to joke, but it comes out more like an accusation.

Greg frowns.

"We didn't do anything! Me and the guy. The one I met. Just so you know." Julien's tongue continues to disobey him, churning out more unnecessary words. "It's okay if you did...stuff. With Stryker. You and I, we were just... It was just sex."

Julien suppresses a sad, uncomfortable laugh. He had asked Greg to come out here because he realized in the last four days that it wasn't just sex. That he wanted it to be more. This day has taken a hard right turn and is barreling toward Julien's personal hell.

"We didn't." Greg's voice is soft.

"That's fine," Julien says quickly. "But it would also be fine if you did."

Greg looks the same way he looked when Julien accused him of sleeping with Braydon and the pilot and not needing Grindr. He isn't trying to hurt Greg's feelings. He is only trying to keep from crying in front of this man that he still, despite this terrible moment, wants to kiss and care for and cook dinner with.

"I just said we didn't." Greg folds his arms across his chest, punctuating his statement. "You and I made a pact. I wouldn't go back on that without telling you first."

"Okay." Julien shrinks himself. Somebody should bag him up and drop him in the dumpster. He feels like trash.

Greg responds to that in kind, loosening a bit, probably trying to look less menacing. "I told Martin and Augustine earlier, about me leaving. I put in my two weeks."

Two weeks.Lord, help him. Julien can't survive two more weeks of work with the guy he's fallen for who is choosing to leave him. He might like to be dominated in the bedroom, but he's not this sadistic.

"Let's do sangria for our last happy hour," Greg says, almost as if he's waving a white flag of truce with those words.

"Sounds good." Julien can barely croak.

Greg starts back for the door. "You coming?"

"Be there in a minute," he says, knowing full well there aren't enough minutes in the world to make this situation better.