Tell Me It's Real(65)

Dad looked over at Mom. “How else am I supposed to say it?”

Mom shrugged. “Maybe you were supposed to say ‘make love to.’ You know Paul is secretly a romantic at heart. Once you get past that icy cold exterior it’s like his insides are made of marshmallow fluff. You remember those letters we found that he’d written to Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell? I’d never read such beautiful love poems. Paul has such as sweet way with words.”

“Oh right,” Dad said. “How did that one go? ‘Hark! And behold/Your love is but my soul/Us together would be like the greatest art/I would give you the world and my heart/How I wish I knew thee well/Oh, Zack Morris! From Saved By The Bell.’”

“I didn’t write that,” I told Vince hastily as he laughed at me. “That was my twin brother named Toby who died under suspicious circumstances when we were twelve. My parents deny he ever existed, but he’s the one that wrote love poems to fictional characters.”

“Paul, really,” my mother sniffed. “You didn’t have a twin brother. My uterus wouldn’t have survived another one of you coming out.”

“See?” I whispered to Vince. “I told you.”

“You wanted to make love to that guy you spit on?” Vince said, sounding positively gleeful. “And you already told your parents about it?”

Of course he was still stuck on that. “I never said those words!”

“I’m the guy he spit on,” he told my parents.

“Technically, I spit on the twinkie barback,” I reminded him.

“It was meant for me,” he said, absolutely sure.

“Oh, that is so lovely!” my mother said, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Certainly an interesting beginning,” Dad said.

Apparently, Vince had no problem with meeting parents because he wouldn’t shut the fuck up. “This is our first real date, even though I consider it our second, or maybe our third.”

“Your first date?” my mother exclaimed. “How wonderful! And you brought him—”

“Are you guys finally ready to order yet?” Santiago interrupted.

“My wife was talking,” Dad told him sternly. “It’s not polite to interrupt, young man.”

Santiago rolled his eyes. “All I want to do is my job.”

“We’re not ready,” Vince told him as Santiago glared at me sitting on his lap. “I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Whatever,” the waiter said, spinning on his heels and going back inside.

“Well, he was a rude little bitch, wasn’t he?” my mother said. I grinned at her.

“Language!” Dad snapped at her, but I could see his mouth quirking at the sides.

“He was trying to get in Vince’s pants,” I told them, only because I tell them pretty much everything. Well, some things.

My mother narrowed her eyes as she glared inside the restaurant. “Is that so? He looked like the type. Little floozy. I hope you saw right through that, Vince.” Her voice was hard, as if daring him to contradict her.

“I did,” Vince assured her. “I have a one-man heart.”

Oh Jesus Christ.

“That is so sweet,” my mother said, wiping her eyes.

“Why do you have a black eye?” my father asked me suspiciously, reaching over to turn my face so he could see it better. I’d totally forgotten about it.

“Dear,” my mother whispered loudly. “Isn’t it obvious? Vince is the Dominant and Paul is his submissive. Look how Vince is holding onto him like he owns him. It was probably just from a rough scene in Vince’s playroom. Vince may have made him pretend to be a pony, like on that one HBO show that we watched. You remember? Where that one man put that bit in the other man’s mouth and made him wear a saddle? We promised ourselves we’d always support Paul with whatever he chose to be. It just so happens he’s kinky. We’ll support him no matter what.”

My father nodded as if this made complete sense. “You a pony, son?” he asked me.

I tried to keep from screaming. “No, Dad. I’m not a pony.”

“I don’t like horses that much,” Vince said, obviously not understanding at all. “They scare me a bit. I don’t like the noises they make.”

“It was Wheels,” I explained. “He tripped me and I hit the wall.”

“With your face?” Mom asked sympathetically. “You do have hands, you know.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” I promised her.

“He does that a lot,” Mom told Vince. “He’s always been a bit klutzy. This one time, he was trying to walk down the stairs, chew gum, and talk on the phone at the same time. Ended up with a broken arm.” She shook her head. “He always runs into things or falls down. It would be endearing if it wasn’t so painful. And expensive.”