The Other Foot

Chapter Six

That Friday afternoon Brian surprised me when I got off the plane in Newark when he handed me a single red rose.

I started laughing and put my arms around him and kissed him and said, “You’re not still mad at me?” Brian didn’t say anything but he smiled and took my hand and walked me out to the car.

I’d been worried since Monday about that. I knew when I’d called him that he would be pissed. I knew that, but I was worried about him when I couldn’t get a hold of him for like all weekend. I don’t know how many messages I left at the hotel and with his voice mail. I know I e-mailed him like twenty times and even tried the agency, but there was no answer anywhere.

Shit. I was afraid that he was sick or had been mugged or something. OK, I knew that was a long shot but I was scared since I’d never not been able to get a hold of him before.

Then I started thinking that he was out tricking and he might have been—we don’t have an exclusive thing, even though we really are together now—but I don’t know. If he were it wouldn’t have been all weekend. That would only take a couple of hours.

Shit.

I know. I was being a twat and a fucking housewife. When he said that he’d been working I thought at first that he was bullshitting me but I know that he’s under a huge amount of pressure getting the merger to run smoothly while still having to bring in big accounts and make some kind of a mark in New York all at the same time.

I know, don’t say it. I was an asshole.

I had the weekend to make it up to him, though.

The drive into the city was a fast one and I was happy that the visit would probably go well. I felt like I could breath again.

I knew there was something bothering him, we had been sort of distant all week on the phone since we’d had that sort of argument Monday, but I figured that he was just under a lot of pressure and I hoped that I might have some ideas to help him unwind. I had lots of ideas, in fact.

Anyway, we get back to the Plaza and went upstairs and within like thirty seconds were naked and on the bed and he was inside of me and it was just so damn good to be back together where I could hold him and touch him and kiss him—God I just love him so fucking much that I can’t fucking believe it half the time.

I look at him and I can’t believe that he loves me—ME. I mean, he’s smart and gorgeous and he could have anyone he wants and he wants me.

Even after the shit I dished with Ethan, he still wanted me.

I still can’t fucking believe that.

Jesus, that just blows me the hell away.

I know how badly I hurt him and he forgave me and took me back. A couple of times I’ve wondered what I would do if the positions were reversed and I honestly don’t know. I mean, I think I’d take him back if he had an affair, but it would be hard.

Now, I’m not talking about some trick or some twink or something. I’m talking about a real affair of the heart, like what I thought I had with Ethan.

Say that happened, what would I do?

I’ve thought about it, sure. I mean, how could I not with Brian looking the way he does and living in New York while I’m in Pittsburgh. I know he goes out—Hell, I want him to, I guess. I don’t want him just going to work and then back to a hotel room day after day—but what if he fell in love with someone else?

It really scares me, you know? I want him to be happy and if that’s what it would take, then—I don’t know.

If it happened and then he wanted to come back after it ended, what would I do?

I’d—take him.

I think.

I love him, you know? And I want to be with him, but if he wanted someone else—shit.

Anyway.

We’d fallen into a routine when I was in New York visiting. We would spend a few hours in bed and then we’d get cleaned up and head out for dinner and maybe a show or something.

It was after the shower, which had taken another hour…you know how it is, and he was still primping so I said that I would go down and pick up a New York magazine so I could check out what exhibits were on at the museums. God, I love the exhibits in New York.

I was walking thorough the lobby when the desk clerk called me over. I’d been there enough that I knew some of the workers there and he asked me if I would be seeing Mr. Kinney and would I mind taking up his messages for him. Every time they asked him about them he just said “Later.”

I didn’t care, but when the guy handed me a stack that was like two inches thick I guess I got a look on my face and he said that Mr. Kinney hadn’t picked them up in a few days.

That was odd. Brian is pretty compulsive about stuff like that since it could have been business stuff. I said something like that to the guy and he just shrugged and said that Mr. Kinney hadn’t been in and out too much that week and I told him that Brian had been working a lot of hours on a new project. He smiled, nodded and that was that. I glanced through them on the way up to the room and most of them were personal and from the ‘family’ or me, asking him to call and where was he. There wasn’t much business stuff. I guess that Cynthia stays pretty much on top of things for him at work.

I handed him the messages, he took about thirty seconds to thumb through them and we went out to dinner. He said that there was this great Japanese place he’d discovered that he thought I’d like. It was about forty blocks away, so we let the doorman to get us a cab and as we were pulling away from the hotel I looked at the hansom cabs lined up to take the tourists through Central Park and thought that it would be fun to do that—you know, just the two of us and the driver with a horse. It would be great.

I didn’t say anything about it, of course. Brian in a horse drawn carriage? He’d snark and call it lezzie. No, don’t even go there.

The restaurant was good, no surprise, and I love Japanese food, which Brian knows. Afterward we cabbed back to the hotel and, since it was still early, he put his arm around my shoulders and steered me over to the horse carriages.

I never thought that that he’d ever do that and when I saw the hansom that had the rainbow flag tucked into the front seat; I knew it would be OK.

That has to be one of the best hours of my life. Actually the guy liked us—OK, he liked Brian, let’s not be stupid here—so we got to stay out for like an hour and a half. We didn’t really go anywhere, just wandered around the paths that snake through the park. Brian had his arm around me and we were holding hands. We kept kissing and I kept telling him how happy I was and how much I loved him and that I was sorry about the stupid argument on the phone.

He was so fucking—romantic. He kissed me and he was stroking my hand and my arm and it was like he wasn’t thinking about sex or getting laid later, but that he was just enjoying being with me. He asked me about what I was doing without him, about school and my friends. He asked me if I had gone to the clubs or the bars or anything like that. I told him the truth, that I’d been out a couple of times with the boys, Em and Ted and Michael and Ben, but mostly I just danced and had only been to the back room once, which he didn’t mind at all. I mean, Hell—this is Brian we’re talking about here. In fact, he laughed and asked me if it had fallen off or something and he’d have to check that out when we got back up to the room,

He was really listening to what I was saying, too. He seemed to want to know what I was thinking about things and what was going on in my head.

God, I love it when he does that.

I asked him about his work, too, but you know Brian. He just says everything’s fine and not to worry. I asked him if the people were nice and had he made any friends (God! I felt like a mother asking about how school was going—“Are you wearing clean clothes everyday and do you have your lunch money?”) but I didn’t like to think about him alone.

I know, he projects that loner image, but he really craves being with people.

He said that some of the people were alright and sometimes a couple of them would go out to grab dinner or a movie or something but that there was so much work to do that he was pretty tired when he was done for the day and usually just went to sleep.

Shit.

I know he works hard. I feel like I’m a drag on him sometimes, but I know that he loves me and that it won’t always be this way. When I graduate and get a real job, I’ll be able to contribute. We both know this.

So, we finished the ride, which was fabulous and headed back to the room.

Speaking about fabulous. I’m surprised that I could walk the next day.

We didn’t get up early—OK, we did get up early, so we stayed in bed til like eleven, ordered a brunch thing and then headed back across the street back to the park and rented roller blades, spending just about the entire afternoon on the paths with the crowds.

Back to the hotel after for a shower, sex and then out again for dinner and a show.

God, have I told you how much I love this man?

Sunday I really wanted to hit one of the museums since it was raining and the outdoor stuff was out of the question. There was this incredible thing at the Met—Da Vinci’s sketches, shit. After that we just roamed around the place, which is enormous and checked out the Tiffany window’s over in the American wind then headed up the stairs to see the Sargents and the Homers and a few of the other kids.

Fuck me, I could get hard just looking at those paintings.

We held hands the entire day, just about and I was just so loving him.

We got an incredibly overpriced lunch at the cafeteria there then Brian said he had to stop at the office to get some report or other he had to go over that night after I left to go home.

He used his keys to let himself in and when we got up to his office Cyn said, “So, you couldn’t wait til tomorrow to see me?”

Shit, I jumped so high I thought that I was going to have a heart attack. She scared the shit out of me.

Brian went into his office to get whatever it was he needed and I asked Cyn if they worked every weekend. She kind of looked at me funny and said that this was the first one, she just wanted to clear a few things before the morning, but no one worked weekends that she knew of.

“Brian did. He said he was working here all last weekend.”

She gave me a funny look then said, “Honey, the place was being fumigated last weekend. No one was allowed in at all.”

Then Brian came out of his office with a couple of files, told Cynthia that he’d see her in the morning. We went downstairs and took the cab to the airport.

On the ride out to Jersey Brian was quiet, so was I. I mean shit—what had happened just then? Everything was going along so great and then it fucking popped like a balloon. He knew what I had said to Cyn and he heard her answer. The door was open and he was only like ten feet away.

I couldn’t help it. I should have just kept my fucking mouth shut, but I couldn’t. “Where were you really?”

We were looking at each other and I knew that he didn’t want to answer and I was hoping to God that he’d just tell me that he was working in his room and had the phone turned off.

“Justin—I’ve met someone.”

Ah, shit…Fuck me.

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