I Want to Hold Your Hand

 

The guys had just returned home after having had dinner at Gino’s. They were seating themselves on the floor of the loft facing the newly-lit fireplace. For some reason or other, Brian had a funny feeling that Justin was about to ask one of his sometimes odd questions. Brian hoped he was wrong - but he wasn’t.

“Hey, Brian,” Justin quickly posed that question – anticipated but nevertheless unexpected. “Are we still as romantic as we used to be? Are we even romantic at all?”

“You know, Baby,” Brian responded after just a brief delay, “I don’t want to answer that question till you give me a little more detail. OK?”

“Seems like a straightforward question to me,” Justin opined. “I just was wondering if you think we’re still romantic. The question seems clear to me.”

“Well, Honey,” Brian continued to hesitate, “Sometimes you don’t really ask the question you want the answer to – and I’d like to be sure of what you’re asking before I try to respond.”

“Like I maybe don’t know how to ask a question?” Justin wanted to know.

“Nope,” Brian admitted. “You sure do know how to ask a question – but sometimes I don’t exactly understand what question you’re asking. So could you maybe tell me why you’re asking the question in the first place? I think that would help.”

“Well,” Justin thought out loud. “You know we were just having dinner at Gino’s with Brandon and Jason. And several times during dinner I noticed that Brandon was holding Jason’s hand under the table - so I thought….”

“And just which hand of yours was I supposed to hold?” Brian grinned at him. “The left hand that was pushing the stuff around your plate - or the right hand that was shoveling the spaghetti into your mouth?”

“Shoveling?” Justin seemed taken aback. “Shoveling? I ask you a simple question and now you’re criticizing my table manners I guess. Sorry if I embarrassed you. I’ll be careful not to shovel next time.”

“I was not complaining, Sweetheart – just stating a fact,” Brian retorted with a smile on his face. “And I wasn’t embarrassed either. If you didn’t shovel your spaghetti down, we might take like four hours to get through a meal. I was not complaining and I was not embarrassed.”

“So my table manners are OK but I eat too much,” Justin pouted. “I guess that’s supposed to be better – but I’m not sure I see the improvement. I guess you want me to eat like Jason – didn’t even finish his first plate of spaghetti – on all-you-can-eat night too.”

“Jason does not eat very much,” Brian took the kid’s point. “Not much of an appetite – or maybe he’s concerned about his waist line?”

“Like I’m fat or something?” Justin complained. “I’m as thin as Jason is – so I don’t think I need to be concerned about my waistline.”

“My point exactly, Baby,” Brian agreed with him. “You can eat as much as you want to as far as I’m concerned. I can still get my arm around you – and I want to have my arm around you - and I’ve got my arm around you – and I think that’s pretty romantic….”

Brian’s voice tailed off at this point and a prolonged silence fell on the loft - as was often the case during these conversations – and perhaps that silence served better to answer Justin’s question than all the preceding discourse.

“You don’t really think that Jason and Brandon are more romantic than we are, do you?” Brian eventually returned to the conversation though. “I’m a little surprised if you do.”

“I guess not, Brian,” Justin allowed. “And I think they learned most of that stuff from us anyhow. It’s just that maybe we’ve been together a lot longer than they have and….”

“Hey, JT,” Brian interrupted. “We’re gonna be together a long time more – and I kinda think there will be just a little bit of romance left too - even in another forty or fifty years.”

Justin plopped his head down onto Brian’s shoulder – which definitely pleased Brian and maybe even made him think the crisis has been dealt with. Too much optimism, that was.

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, Bri?” Justin wanted to know. “That’s what I was asking, you know.”

“Well I can see that now,” Brian equivocated. “But it just seemed more complicated before, Sweetheart. So I guess we have everything settled now.”

“Wonder what Jason and Brandon are doing right now?” Justin went off on another track.

“Nothing as romantic as we are, I bet,” Brian reassured him. “Maybe they’re even discussing how romantic we are. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not as romantic as what we’re doing. They don’t have a fireplace like we do.”

“Yeah, they do, Bri,” Justin informed him. “I didn’t tell them about our fireplace though so don’t blame me. I think it was Malcolm or maybe Hunter who told them – but it wasn’t me. You know how they always copy us.”

“Well they weren’t copying us when they were holding hands under the table at Gino’s tonight, Baby,” Brian taunted playfully. “So they must figure some stuff out on their own.”

“Cut it out, Brian Kinney,” Justin objected. “You’re trying to make fun of me – like I’m some kind of paranoid or something. You know what? I think I’m going to get that bag of M&Ms that I bought today and eat some of them – or maybe all of them - if you don’t have any major objections. It might cheer me up and help me to forget that you’re always trying to start an argument with me.”

“Geez, Baby,” Brian jested as Justin quickly retrieved his M&Ms and just as quickly returned to his spot on the floor. “If eating junk food cheers you up, you ought to be the most cheerful guy in the whole world. I wonder if we’d get along at all if you didn’t always have some M&Ms or some Pringles or something else to munch on after I start all these arguments. The family that snacks together sticks together, I guess.”

“But we don’t snack together very often, Sweetheart,” Justin reminded him. “You don’t very often snack at all. That waistline, you know. But I love you anyhow – even if you don’t want to share my snacks – or maybe because you don’t want to share my snacks.”

“You know what, Baby,” Brian smiled at the kid. “You know what I’d like to do. I think maybe I want to hold your hand.”

“Sure you do, Mr. Brian Kinney,” Justin told him laughingly. “I bet you do. You know I hold the M&Ms bag in my left hand and ‘shovel’ the candy into my mouth with my right hand. So if you could wait just a few minutes….”

“Yep, I can wait, Baby,” Brian ran his head through Justin’s hair. “I love you, Mr. Justin Taylor, and I’ll be around when the M&Ms are gone. Yep, I can wait. Munch away.”

But Justin cuddled himself in closer to the big guy and let the unopened candy slip onto the floor. It seemed to Brian that the kid had decided that it was the M&Ms that would do the waiting – and that was pretty darn romantic too.

 

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