Did I Do That?

The guys had just settled themselves down in front of their fake fireplace – just as they often did. Brian had his arm around Justin and they watched the flickering flames in silence for a few minutes before any conversation took place. Justin began that conversation by maybe saying the wrong thing – but probably it wouldn’t have mattered what he said.

What he did say though was “Did you remember to call your mother, Honey?”

“Of course I called my mother,” Brian told him. “Would I dare not call my mother when I had a direct order from you to call my mother? I’m not crazy.”

“OK, Kinney,” Justin replied. “You’re not crazy, I’ll admit that, but you are peeved at something – or maybe at somebody – and I think I might be that somebody. All I did was tell you your mother wanted to talk to you. She told me that when I was talking to her yesterday on the phone so I just really delivered the message. And what she wanted was to thank you for printing up those posters to advertise her church’s monthly spaghetti dinner. That’s all she wanted to do – just thank you.”

“So how come you were talking to my mother anyhow?” Brian wanted to know.

“Because I call both your mother and my mother once a week so they’ll know we’re still alive,” Justin pointed out. “Maybe you’d like to do that instead of me. Then I wouldn’t have to ‘order’ you to call your mother at all. Let’s try that for a while, Brian. OK?”

“Nope,” Brian decided. “You love to talk on the phone and I don’t, so I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that pleasure. And by the way, Baby, I’m not peeved either – so there.”

“Well you sure sound peeved, Brian,” Justin maintained, “And when you sound peeved, you usually are peeved. Wanna tell me more about your call to your mother? Didn’t she thank you for printing the posters? That’s what I thought she wanted to do.”

“Yeah she did,” Brian admitted, “But she also thanked me for asking Peter to be a leprechaun at the St. Patrick’s Day party this year – and I don’t remember doing that at all.”

“We talked about it, Bri,” Justin reminded him. “You know we did. We talked about it and you said you thought it would be a good idea.”

“As I remember it,” Brian countered. “I said that I couldn’t see anything the matter with it – but for the life of me, I still can’t remember asking Peter to serve. But I guess I must have….”

“Well I might have delivered the message for you, Honey,” Justin said. “You’re so busy and I don’t mind doing those little things for you because I love you and I know how busy you are.”

“Well you could at least tell me what I did,” Brian reasoned, smiling at him. “It’s better if I know what I did so I don’t get surprised. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, that sounds reasonable enough, Mr. Kinney,” Justin grinned at him, “But you’d be safe to assume that if you should have done something, you probably did. You’re a really great guy, Sweetheart, and dependable too. OK, Bri, do we have that settled now? I don’t want to spend the whole evening arguing with you.”

"Hey, Baby,” Brian told him, squeezing him slightly in the process. “I don’t remember us ever arguing for any whole evening – not ever. We might argue, to use your term, not mine, for a while sometimes, but I think we always seem to get together after the argument, don’t we?”

”Yeah,” Justin smiled at him. “I guess we do. So is this argument over now, Brian? I kinda hope the argument is over so we can…..”

“Well maybe it is,” Brian equivocated. “But there is one other thing, Sweetheart. After I talked to my mother, Brandon called - on business – and your name never actually came up – but he did say Jason had told him about the St. Patrick’s Day party plans and he thought it was a real neat idea – so maybe I pretended to know what the plans were. I know I must have come up with something really special this year but I didn’t know what it was - so I didn’t really want to discuss it right then. I wonder when I’m going to find out what I’m planning.”

“Gee whiz, Brian Kinney,” Justin informed him, “Nobody’s trying to keep anything from you. You know I was up to Gino’s a couple of weeks ago with Malcolm and we’re doing the decorations. Well Gino was thinking about some stuff….”

“So all this stuff might not be my idea after all, Baby,” Brian wondered. “Seems like other folks were involved too.”

“Maybe, Bri,” Justin allowed, “But you would have thought it all up if you had taken the time to think about it - but you’re so busy….”

“OK, Twink,” Brian was definitely amused now. “What the hell would I have thought up if I had just taken the time to do it?”

“Well Gino wants to have more music this year so Brandon is finding a couple of musicians and we’re gonna have like a community sing and all the patrons can join in. Mikey says he’ll bring his guitar if you bring yours but that’ll be your decision and we want you to take some time to think about that before you decide. OK?”

“Well. I’ll take some time before I tell you my decision, Sweetheart,” Brian laughed. “So you’ll think I thought about it. That’s what I’ll do. I guess you’ll want me to lead the singing too?”

“We don’t want you to be overworked, Honey,” Justin replied. “So we think Brandon could do that. He loves to sing and he’ll do a good job leading too.”

“And not tone deaf either, I guess,” Brian faked a peeve, “But suppose – just suppose I wanted to sing – off-key and all. Then what?”

“No problem, Bri,” Justin laughed. “None at all. After the community singing, there just might be some karaoke….”

“Karaoke,” Brian recoiled just slightly. “Karaoke. Irish karaoke?”

“Yeah,” Justin admitted. “With a pot of gold for the karaoke-er who wins the vote for best performer. Neat, huh?”

“Well I guess I can tolerate it if I drink enough of that crazy green beer that Gino serves up for the holiday,” Brian conceded. “But maybe I ought to be peeved at myself for thinking this whole crazy thing up.”

“Naw, Bri,” Justin assured him. “You did good. It’s gonna be the very best St. Patrick’s Day ever. There’s gonna be about twenty-eight people at our table and I bet they’ll all agree about it being the best ever.”

“Well it’s going to be the biggest crowd we ever had at out table, Baby,” Brian seemed to accept the plans with reasonable good grace. “So do I know everything now?”

“I don’t think we talked about the spaghetti sauce yet, Honey,” Justin told him. “It’s gonna be green this year too.”

”Green spaghetti sauce,” Brian grimaced. “That’s gross, Baby – just plain gross - but it won’t really affect me since I never order spaghetti - so if you can down that green sauce….”

“I think the green spaghetti is going to come with everything on the menu, Brian,” Justin informed him, “It’s St. Patrick’s Day after all. But since I love you so much, you know what, I’ll eat yours for you. But just cause I love you so much….”

“Bet you’ll love everybody at the table just as much as you love me that night, Baby,” Brian laughed. “I figure nobody will have to eat their green spaghetti if they don’t want to.”

One wouldn’t expect that discourse to lead to a pause in the discussion but it did – and a very long one at that. In fact, it just about closed out the discussion completely – but not quite.

“Well this shindig is really gonna be something else, Baby,” Brian concluded a good while later. “Can’t imagine how next year could be as wild.”

“Don’t worry,” Justin told Brian as he cuddled a lot closer to him. “You’ll think of something.”

 

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