When we sat down at the table, we bowed our heads while Mama said a prayer. I was raised Catholic, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about religion. Mama was passionate about it, but she was still more of an Easter and Christmas service goer. With her, we prayed before every meal, and she was big on telling us to put any troubles we had in God’s hands and He would take care of them.
“So what’s the deal with the roommate?” Eliza asked as we started to eat.
“I don’t like strange men living with you,” Mama said.
“He’s only one man, and he’s not strange. He’s my friend Will’s brother. I met him a few times before he moved in.” I took a bite and nearly died as flavor exploded on my tongue. “Oh my God. This is the best.”
I finished chewing before I continued. “He’s had kinda a hard go of it. He’s thirty-two, and he just recently came out. It’s caused some friction with his brothers—not Will, but the other two. Apparently, his dad had found out when he was young and made it clear he wouldn’t accept Jonathan being gay, which is weird because he accepted Will being bi. I think it was like…some macho thing. Jonathan was the oldest and the one his father expected to be just like him. Anyway, he’s passed away now, and Jonathan is out, but he’s basically lived his whole life for his dad, even took over the business. He moved into Atlanta to try and figure out who he is and…well, I’m trying to help him.”
“Why do people suck? I can’t believe his dad put that pressure on him,” Monica said, but I’ve always wondered if it would have been the same had my dad stuck around…or if he somehow knew and that was why he left.
“You should have brought him here, mijo. We will feed him and love him,” Mama added.
I smiled. My family was incredible. “I would have, but he’s with Will today.”
“You bring him a big plate and tell him it’s from me. And that I expect him home one day with you.”
Warmth filled my chest. “Thanks, Mama. I will.”
We got off the topic of Jonathan after that, but I found that he was always close in my thoughts. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought about him way the fuck too much.
I stayed for a couple of hours after we ate. Mama packed up a bunch of food for me and Jonathan, kissed and hugged me goodbye.
There was traffic, so I had an hour of Jonathan-thought on the way home.
When I got back to the apartment, he was sitting at the bar, writing in a notebook. The second I came in, he closed it and put his pencil down.
“Did you have fun with Will?” I kicked the door closed behind me, then set the bag on the counter. He lowered the notebook to his lap. Clearly, he didn’t want me to know what he was writing.
“Yeah, it was cool. What’s that?”
“This, my friend, is a feast. My mama is the best cook you’ll ever meet—and you will meet her. She said I had to bring you food. Spoiler alert: not a hardship. She also said you have to come home with me one day. She wants to meet you and probably feed you like crazy.”
A foreign look I couldn’t read came over his face. “Yeah, sure, okay. She doesn’t have to do that, though.”
“Oh, she knows. She does it because she wants to. That’s how she is. Just go with it.” I opened the bag and knew I was about to stuff my face again. “I hope you didn’t have dinner, and if you did, then I hope you can handle eating again because unless you fight me on it, we’re going to grub the fuck out of some food and veg out in front of the TV all night.”
Jonathan smiled, his eyes lighting up, and warmth returned to my chest. “I can always eat.”
“Man after my own heart, or should I say stomach?”
He put the notebook on the counter, set his phone on top of it, and came into the kitchen with me.
We warmed up the food and filled our plates. I explained the tacos to him, as he’d never had them like this before. Then we sat on the floor, backs against the couch, food on the coffee table. I watched Jonathan as he dipped his taco and took his first bite and… “Oh my God. Holy fuck, that’s good.” He moaned, and consommé dripped down his chin. My dick might have stiffened slightly as he made that sound again.
“You’re a mess.” I reached over and wiped his chin with my thumb, and Jonathan froze mid-bite, staring at me. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from him either, and then he licked his lip, and fuck, fuck, fuck, I wanted to suck on it—both his tongue and his lip. This was not good at all.
“Sorry,” I told him just as Jonathan said, “Thank you.”
Then, because the universe was weird with us, we did that speaking at the same time yet again with, “You’re welcome,” and “It’s okay,” and cracked up laughing.
Jonathan was fun.
I liked him…a lot.
“I’ll get us napkins,” I told him. “You find something to watch.”
He nodded, and I got up, wiped my thumb, and got paper towels.
“Hey, you watch Gold Rush, right? I think I heard it. Put it on. I fucking love it.”
“No shit?” he replied. “Me too.”
I joined him again, and we continued our carpet picnic, eating messy food and watching TV together.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jonathan
It was Tuesday, and I was waiting for Danny to get home so we could go to our first baseball practice. I was nervous, which pissed me off because it was fucking baseball. What did I have to be nervous about?
I’d already gotten dressed in a pair of old sweats, a T-shirt, and had stuffed my hair up under a backward baseball cap. I was sitting at the counter, with the new sketchbook I’d bought in front of me, working on a hand wrapped around a baseball. It was shit. All I saw were the errors in it. I’d been doing a lot of drawing over the past…week? Had it really only been a little over a week since I’d moved in with Danny? It felt longer, as if this was something we’d been doing for weeks or months instead of days. I wasn’t sure I’d ever slipped into something as easily as I had this friendship with him.
And now his mom wanted to meet me, and she’d sent food home to me, which I got was really food for Danny, but it was nice. It felt like I was suddenly in some alternate universe, or I was an alternate Jonathan who lived a totally different life.
But I was, wasn’t I? I was living another life. I was out and had moved to Atlanta. I had a gay roommate. I was drawing, and I had a new job, and I was getting ready to head out to my first practice on a queer baseball team.
I liked this new Jonathan, this new life, a lot.
The door burst open, and Danny came in quickly. “Honey, I’m home! Gimme a minute to get ready, and we can head out.”
I turned my sketchbook over, unsure why I was uncomfortable with him, or hell, anyone else knowing I drew. Danny cocked a brow—the fucker didn’t miss anything—but he didn’t call me on it. He just whisked past me toward the hallway.
“Honey, huh?” I teased, surprising myself.
“Isn’t that what they do on TV? Is that ever done in real life? I don’t think so. Even when my dad was around, he didn’t say that shit, but I think I like it.”
He smirked and disappeared into his room, leaving the door open. Danny had zero problems with nudity or partial nudity. He got up in nothing but his underwear every morning, and I had a feeling that if he didn’t think it would make me feel awkward, he’d go without those. He was so free, so comfortable in his own skin in ways I never had been…but he made me want to be.