“I did want you.”
Oh, past tense now. Andy breathed through his mouth for a few seconds.
“What exactly are you saying, Victor.”
Victor pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m saying don’t rub it in my face. I didn’t get your life. I didn’t get to fuck whoever I wanted, whenever I wanted, as long as I wanted.” He turned away sharply. He couldn’t look at Andy. Not at that face, pale under the tan, eyes wide and wet. He couldn’t believe he’d said those things. Had never recognized that resentment. He gave me a fucking year, it’s my own fucking fault, Jesus Christ what have I done.
Andy studied Victor, standing with his back turned, vibrating with some powerful emotion. He was too angry himself to go on with this. Nothing was likely to help right now, except maybe space. “I am going next door,” he said quietly. He couldn’t quite keep the bite out of his tone. “Don’t come in.”
Victor didn’t say anything. He thought if he tried, he’d break down. He heard Andy stand up, the soft clink of tableware as the chair was pushed aside. Heard him cross to the door and go out. Heard him speak to the security guy outside. Then the door to the adjoining room opened, and closed.
Andy spoke to Molly. Victor remained standing, tears streaming, trying not to scream.
Andy curled up on the bed with Molly. She was doing that telepathic dog thing, as if she knew something was wrong. He was pretty sure he knew what set Victor off, and very sure if he’d tried to talk it through it would have turned into a genuine fight. Got out, yay me.
At the same time he was congratulating himself, he was wondering if this had been inevitable. He and Victor hadn’t dug deep into the history. Maybe they should have, but there was never time. Or there was time, but it would have been taken away from one of the ten thousand things they wanted to do together that there already wasn’t time for. They’d skated around it, for more
than six years now. Would it help Victor to hear about Andy’s past? About the long string of lovers, casual and not-so-casual? About the guy who beat him up twice in high school before Andy managed to turn that around, the guy who was still enough of a friend that he’d come to the memorial? Would it help him to know about the long stretches of being alone, when being alone had seemed preferable to trying again? Maybe it would, Andy realized. He might have played that down. Might have thought it would make Victor feel like Andy wanted him so that he wouldn’t be alone, not for himself.
Maybe Victor didn’t realize that Andy had that same thought occasionally. He always dismissed it, because there was no chance Victor would be alone unless he chose to be. But because of the way they’d met, because of that first wonderful night and the disastrous morning after, because of putting Victor through that year of ‘no’ – even though it really meant ‘not yet’ – maybe Victor felt he was still being tested. As though his long-delayed coming-out made him untrustworthy. “Why are humans so complicated,” Andy said to Molly. She licked his face. “Yes, we should be like dogs. I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for being a huggable size.”
He didn’t expect to sleep, and he didn’t. He lay there with his arm around Molly and his face against the top of her head, hoping he and Victor could fix this. He wished they had two dogs because he knew that guy needed something to hug right now, but it couldn’t be Andy. Not till they were really ready to talk.
Somehow Victor got through that night without actually screaming.
Without banging on the door begging Andy to let him in. He had his own key, of course. He wasn’t going to use it until – unless - he was invited to. He didn’t know what Andy had said to the security guy, didn’t want to admit they’d had a fight. That wasn’t a fight. He was thinking of the morning after their first night, when he’d told Andy they couldn’t see each other again.
When he’d lied about why. Not even realizing until much later that he’d prayed Andy would take charge the way he had in the night, make him talk, make him tell the truth, make him stay.
He couldn’t tell Jonathan. Couldn’t tell Loretta. No-one else there was a friend, not that kind of friend. All their friends were back in Los Angeles. He couldn’t get to sleep, had to somehow, he had a six o’clock call for another heavy day of filming and they had no time to spare now, because of his trip to
Miami. Thank God I went, he thought, even though that trip had precipitated all this.
Eventually he turned off the room lights and got down on the floor in the dark, stretching, breathing. If he couldn’t sleep, at least he could stay loose.
The makeup people could fix his face in the morning. Tomorrow’s work wasn’t action. If he was slow it wouldn’t matter. When the knock came it was still much too early to try to reach anyone in L.A., but if he sent a text now, maybe he’d hear back when he had a break. So he wrote to Dana: Help, I’ve fucked up in a big way, tell me what to do
There was no return text when Victor checked at noon. None at three, or at six. Finally,
