“Who needs normal when abnormal is the greatest thing in the world?” Darren asked with a shrug.
“That’s some bullshit reverse psychology you’ve got going on there,” I growled at him. “Has that ever really worked for you before?”
“Works on Vince all the time.”
I laughed, even though it felt kind of douchey to do so.
“He’s doing his damnedest, Paul, to keep you away from them, not because he’s ashamed of you, but because he’s ashamed of them. He thought if you knew who they were, you’d judge him based upon their actions and not his own. It might not have been the most levelheaded of thinking, but then Vince doesn’t think like most people. He didn’t want you to see them because he doesn’t like to show when he’s hurting. And he is hurting, regardless of how much they’ve offended him in the past. Vince can’t hate. He could never hate. And losing his mother is still hard on him.”
“I know,” I said, even though I didn’t. I never had to go through what he did. I never had to wonder if my parents cared about me or not. I never had to go through the drawn-out experience of losing one of them. I couldn’t know. I couldn’t have any idea. “Why are you being so nice to me? You haven’t said a damn thing to me in years.”
He rubbed his hands over his face. “Vince is important to me. You’re important to Vince. By proxy, you’re important to me now. If you do anything to hurt him, I’ll kill you. But….”
“But?”
“But what he’s doing to you now makes me want to knock him upside his head. Even if he thinks it’s for your own good, you don’t deserve to be treated this way, Paul. And I’m trying to make him see that.”
I was touched, more than I thought I could be. “You’re pretty weird yourself,” I told him, meaning it as a compliment.
“Thanks. I think. I just want you two crazy kids to make it.” He gave me a small smile.
“Uh-huh. And that’s the only reason?”
He blinked. “What else is there?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I teased. “A certain drag queen? One who happens to be my best friend in all the world? You could be using me to get close enough to spit some game.”
“I don’t spit,” he assured me. Then he blushed. Jesus, what is it about men in that family and blushing? It was pretty fucking hot. Er… from an empirical perspective. “Wow… that’s not what I meant to say.”
I almost choked. “I’m sure Sandy will be happy to hear that.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re such a horrible liar.”
“Vince was right about you, you know. I can see that now.”
I was curious. “What did he say?”
Darren laughed. “Well, when he finally stopped gushing like a little girl, he said you were, and I quote, ‘Pretty damn awesome.’”
“I am pretty damn awesome,” I told him confidently, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the heat of the day.
“Paul?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t give up on Vince, okay? You can’t. You just can’t. You have to promise.”
I took a step back. “I….” I didn’t think I was in a place to promise anything, though I wanted to. Darren could have been full of shit for all I knew, even with the earnest expression on his face that he’d had through almost the whole conversation. “That’s a big thing.”
He eyed me sadly and then opened his mouth and said stupid shit that I really didn’t need to hear. “He loves you, you know. I don’t know what you did, or what went through his mind when he first saw you, but he loves you. Already. He’s never done anything like that in his life. He’s never actually let anyone into his life, aside from me. And that took months before he had any sort of trust with me. You’ve changed him, Paul. And you can’t let him change back.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said as honest as I could, still reeling from Darren’s blunt words.
“You listened to him, which is more than he could say about most people. You didn’t find him to be ridiculous—”
“Yes, I did. Because he kind of is.” Awesomely so, but still ridiculous.
He glared at me. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Pretty much. It’s kind of my curse. I tend to take the road less traveled just to be a pain in the ass.”
“He’s going to need you.”
“So you and everyone else in the free world has said. He doesn’t seem to know that.”