Page 117 of Necessary Time

The waiter brought our sandwiches out, slipping quickly away after undoubtedly feeling the tension at the table.

“I did take your advice,” Hendrix said, smashing half of his sandwich down so it was mouth size. “I told him I loved him. He knows.”

What should have been a balm felt more like someone picking a scab off a festering wound.

“I take it that request came from personal experience?” he asked.

I’d managed to skirt around the conversation with him the weekend before, but with nothing more than pastrami between us, there wasn’t anywhere else to go.

“My parents didn’t take the news well,” I said.

“Did they have an issue with Wes’s age?”

I snorted, the idea preposterous. “They don’t even know about him.”

“Shit.” Hendrix scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine. Or it is what it is.” I shrugged, not wanting to linger on it. “How did your parents take your coming out, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I genuinely think it would have been more unexpected to them if I had brought a woman home. But for as old as they are,” he paused, huffing a small laugh. “As old as I am, they took it well.”

“You don’t think they’ll give Wesley any problems about it?”

“Honestly, they’ll probably be relieved.”

I slumped back in my seat, a relief I didn’t know I’d even needed washing over me.

“Even if they weren’t…” Hendrix trailed off. “There’s only so many battles I would let him fight on his own.”

I cleared my throat, righting my tie and giving him a terse nod.

“Thank you,” I said softly.

I hoped he knew I was thanking him for more than just the offer to go to bat when Wesley needed it, but also for the rest of it. For giving me a chance, for trusting that I would be the kind of man his brother needed.

“Anyway.” Hendrix matched my posture, picking up his sandwich and readying to take a bite. “What else has been going on with you?”

* * *

When I got home from work, Wesley was on my doorstep, leaning against the front door, his whole focus on the phone in his hand.

“Hey, you,” I greeted, pulling my keys out of my pocket.

He looked up, hair a little disheveled and his eyes bright.

“Hey.” He went up onto his toes to drag a kiss against the corner of my mouth.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked.

“Not at all. I was just reading a message from David anyway.” Wesley showed me his phone screen, paragraphs of text filling it up.

“That should have been a phone call,” I remarked, giving him a bump out of the way so I could get the door unlocked and let us in.

“An email,” he corrected. “Nobody talks on the phone anymore.”

“You may not,” I said.

“I didn’t.” He used his hips to bump me over the threshold and into the apartment. “But now that I’m dating an old man, it’s unavoidable.”