Page 38

Tommy

“Dude, I told you I’m okay,”

I said to Owen, feeling frustrated over his overprotectiveness.

“Well, you always say that even when it’s not true.”

“Listen, I’m writing, I’m trying to keep myself busy and I have a project I’m working on that’s… well, it’s what I need to be doing right now.”

He waited a bit then sighed. “Promise me you’ll come over at least once this week to hang out with us. I don’t want you getting too caught up… okay?”

“Whatever,”

I said but smiled. I was lucky to have such real friends. He and now Jason really were that for me. People who I’d come to think of as my family.

When we hung up, I grabbed my laptop and went back to writing.

I became obsessed. I mean, it wasn’t hard. I tended to get hyperfocused when writing. The moment I let myself write my manuscript to include my feelings for Amos, everything fell into place. I wrote from sunup until sundown, only taking a break to visit my grandma at the nursing home.

My old mentor, Crusty, once said, “If you got some secrets or information you don’t want to get out, then write it on an old laptop with no fancy internet connection. You might lose your secrets to a hacker if you’re hooked up to the world wide web or some such.”

It’d been good advice, and after a couple of colleagues had had their stories stolen by our rival magazine, more of us listened to him.

I documented all my emotions: I wrote how I felt when I first saw Amos, how Owen had all but twisted my arm to join the fraternity, and how I’d have quit if Amos hadn’t shown up.

I wrote how I had fallen for him even though we’d just been friends. I wrote how I longed for him when we’d been roommates.

I also wrote about how amazing he was at football, and how he really introduced me to the sport. My grandparents hadn’t cared much for it, but I had fallen in love with the game through him and because of him.

Then, I wrote about his unique ability as an actor and performer. I used examples of how he would rile up the fans, getting an entire stadium of tens of thousands of people to scream and yell, even those on the opposing team.

I leaned back in my chair and chuckled at the memory. I’d been reporting on Lewis Jenkins, a rookie on the other team, but Amos had done his crazy routine, and I remembered how much my heart swelled watching him that day.

He loved his fans. He loved the limelight that went with his career. It hurt my heart knowing he might lose it forever. That was a major reason this novel would never see the light of day. Amos wasn’t for me. I’d come to accept that he never would be, but I’d never do anything to jeopardize his career.

I saved it, shut the laptop, and ate lunch. I’d restocked the kitchen since getting back to Texas. I looked around the cute kitchen and smiled. Grandma had done all the work without my knowledge after my grandpa had died.

It was still a small galley kitchen with no walls removed, but the new floors, the painted cabinets, and new appliances turned it into an adorable space.

The whole house was renovated in the same way, and knowing she’d done it for me made a big difference.

The house sat on over an acre of land, which, to be honest, I didn’t care much about. It was a ton of work to keep it up. One of the first things I did when Grandma moved into the nursing home was to hire a landscape company to clear it all out and discard anything that would make it difficult to maintain. It was a significant investment up front, but I knew we saved a bundle in maintenance costs now.

I plopped down on the porch swing, something I would never have the heart to get rid of, and looked out at the now mostly barren yard. I’d loved growing up here. Giant oak trees dotted the neighborhood, keeping it shaded in the heat of a Texas summer.

A nice breeze always seemed to flow under those trees. Grandma had flowers growing everywhere when I was young. The memory brought a smile to my lips. I didn’t have a green thumb, although I’d pulled more than a few weeds under her watchful gaze.

My neighbor was quite a distance from us, but she had a rosebush that bloomed this time of year, and the smell was so intense it reached where I was sitting. If I was to move back… Wow, where did that thought come from?

I had sworn I’d never come back to this part of the world. Texas was better about the gay thing than it had been, but that didn’t mean it was friendly. My little town wasn’t horrible, better than many places, but still.

Now, my grandparents no longer lived here, and Grandma’s mind was getting worse—it seemed fewer and fewer things drew me here. Where would I move to? I had no idea. New York? Maybe… Although it was too cold and crowded, it was where the jobs tended to be.

I leaned back in the swing and thought about Amos. Where would he end up? And, more importantly, why was I even wondering? So much for letting him go.

I popped the rest of the sandwich into my mouth and returned to the laptop. It was time to write about the drag show, the article, and how that had ended both of our careers. I’d been resisting that story, knowing how loaded it was for me to write.

I guess if I were really a journalist, someone who deserved that title, I’d have thrown Amos under the bus and saved my career. But I knew that would never be me. So here I was, unemployed, living alone in the suburbs of Houston, in basically Nowhere, Texas, and writing my memoirs at age twenty-eight.

Therapy… that’s what it was about, putting the demons I had about Amos to rest, so I could refocus on my life and my career and maybe have some hope of a future lover who lasted more than a couple of weeks.