Nick glared at his boss. “God forbid we have a sensitive, meaningful conversation about our feelings.”
“Amen to that,” Devil grunted as their waitress returned to their table with another round of drinks. Barely offering her a dismissive nod when she smiled flirtatiously at all of them before sashaying away, he growled, “Continue.”
“I guess after Armando and I got serious I never wanted to inflict my uptight family on him. He’s already been through so much with his own relatives. I mean, my God, they disowned him when he came out to them. I’ve seen his face when he speaks about that time in his life. I didn’t want to put him through it with me. For God’s sake, my parents remember they have a son exactly twice a year: when they send me a card with a check at Christmas and when my mother makes her obligatory phone call the week of my birthday. I don’t know why the hell she’s calling early this year. My birthday is still a little over two weeks away. It was just bad luck that Mannie ever picked up that phone with her on the other end.”
“Or, maybe it was fate all along,” Grant suggested.
“How so?” Nick questioned sharply.
“Christ, Nick, did you think you could hide your parents from Mannie forever or vice versa? How the fuck did you plan to keep a 6’2” Latin man that favors the colors of fuchsia and turquoise in his wardrobe choices under wraps indefinitely? ” Devil asked drolly. “This was bound to happen. Christ, I’m not sure how it didn’t happen sooner. Bottom line: Armando assumes you were ashamed of him. The idea that you were ashamed of your own family hasn’t crossed his mind.”
“No,” Nick denied, automatically shaking his head. “I could never be ashamed of a man whose soul is as beautiful as Armando’s. Not ever.”
“Those are pretty words, Nick, but I think you’re gonna need to back ‘em up with some fairly strong actions,” Devil retorted, focusing his icy blue eyes on his employee and friend. “You didn’t see your fiancé last night, kid. Mannie was crushed. You weren’t around when I almost lost my Molly before our own wedding, but I gotta say, in ways it felt like déjà vu to me. That look of agony. The tears. Your guy was convinced that it was him that you were embarrassed by. He believes that you think he’s defective in some way and that’s why you hid him from your folks,” he added quietly, hating the look of intense pain that crossed Nick’s face. He hated to see good people get crapped on. And Nick and Mannie might be a pain in his ass, but they were good people, too.
“Fuck, man. I knew it was bad, but this shit is fucking tragic,” Grant whispered, averting his gaze from Nick and lowering it to stare at the scarred tabletop.
“What am I going to do? Oh, God, how the hell am I going to fix this?” Nick whispered forlornly, his voice faint, but shaky as he stared into space. “I can’t lose Armando. No one has ever understood me the way he does. Nobody has ever even tried. He’s my lover, yeah, but that’s the least of what he is. He’s also my best friend and biggest fan. I can’t not have him in my life. It would be like trying to live without my heart. A person can’t exist without a heart, Devil.”
“Listen, I know it’s tough, but I sort of know what you’re going through here. When I almost lost Molly just before we were married to a stupid, fucked up misunderstanding, I felt like all the oxygen had been sucked off the planet. The scope of my world narrowed to one singular objective. To get her back…. And that meant doing whatever I had to do to get her back in my arms where her ass belonged. Everything that I thought ever meant anything at all to me lost all meaning. Everything else in my world paled in comparison to what she meant to me. There was no time to lose whimpering about how much I’d fucked up. I knew how much I’d fucked up. Crying about it was a waste of my valuable time. No, the only thing I could focus on was doing whatever I had to do to get Molly back.”
“And…” Nick prompted, listening attentively to Devil’s words of wisdom.
“And he fuckin’ did,” Grant recalled. “He took on those two angry women that are currently flanking your man. He braved Armando’s temper, his Nana’s remarkable combative skills with a mixing spoon, our mom’s wrath, and my not inconsiderable skill with my fists. It was a bad day for the Devil,” he continued to reminisce. “But, at the end of it, he’d battled his way back to my sister’s side and refused to leave her until she forgave him.”
Holding out his arms, Devil grinned. “And I’m still here. Sexually frustrated, but present and fucking accounted for, my man. You’re gonna get through this, too.”