More Than Everything (Family 3)

“Mmm—” I licked the back of his neck. “I sure do like having goals.”

“I’M HUNGRY,” I said later that evening when we were tangled together in bed.

“Oh, is hunger the source of that noise?” Chase asked, his head resting on my chest. “I thought maybe an alien was about to burst out of your stomach.”

I reached down and pinched his ass.

“Ow!” he squealed.

“Don’t mess with the bull, baby, you’ll get the—”

“Even you don’t have the stamina to give me your horn again this quickly.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” I said with a chuckle. “But you’re right. I need to refuel so I can fuck you into unconsciousness. What’re you feeding me?”

“Umm,” he said thoughtfully. “My fridge is pretty bare. It was a crazy week with the show running its last performance, and I didn’t have time to shop. Oh!” He shot up. “I heard of a fun new place I want to try.”

“Uh, I don’t know, Chase. I’m not big on going out.”

“It’ll be my treat to celebrate the end of your semester.” He curled his fingers around mine. “This concept sounds neat. They call it Guerilla Gourmet and their shtick is that they open at a new location every week, just, like, random places that are vacant, so they rush in, set up for food service, and then a week later, they’re out.”

The restaurant sounded intriguing and my stomach was growling, but I had some trepidation.

“Come on, please?” Chase pleaded.

He was bouncy and excited and begging, and it was impossible to refuse him. So I agreed to go out to dinner, not realizing that would put us smack dab into the defining moment of our relationship: I was faced with the prospect of admitting to someone in my world that we were in a relationship.

It sounds so simple. It was so simple. But at the time, I was twenty-eight going on eight and I blew it. Totally and completely blew it.

The beginning of the meal was great. The restaurant was in a closed-down bookstore, making the atmosphere unusual but fun. The bookstore’s genre signs were still hanging from the ceiling: Nonfiction, Cooking, Self-Help, and the rest of them. The walls were covered in dark wood paneling. And in the middle of the space, the Guerilla Gourmet people had set up a bunch of picnic tables.

We sat down and ordered our food. The salad course was delicious. And then everything went to shit.

“I want to get a picture of us,” Chase said as he got up from his bench, which was across the table from mine, and came over to my side. I moved to the end of my bench. “Scootch closer,” he said. I moved an imperceptible amount. “Closer, Adan, otherwise I can’t get both of us in the shot.” He fiddled with his ever-present camera, completely unaware of my turmoil.

Chase was wearing pink pants, a patent leather belt, and a light-yellow shirt. If he had tattooed “I’m a giant fairy” on his forehead, it would have been less obvious. I’d gotten used to his unique wardrobe by then and when we were at his place or with his friends, it didn’t bother me. But we were in a crowded restaurant in an upscale part of town. “Come on, Adan, I don’t have many pictures of us together,” he said imploringly, still trying to get me to sit closer.

“You have plenty of pictures of us together,” I replied in a lowered voice.

Red heat crawled up his neck. “Fine. I don’t have many pictures of us together while we’re dressed.”

“I fail to see the problem here.”

I waggled my eyebrows, making Chase laugh. Of course, his laughter was infectious, so I was chuckling along with him. The next thing I knew, Chase had moved so we were shoulder to shoulder and he was holding the camera in front of us and snapping a picture.

“Adan Navarro, right?” a voice boomed from behind me.

I jumped away from Chase and spun around to see the source of the voice. It was the managing partner of one of the top paying firms in New York. Actually, they were one of the top paying firms in every one of their many international locations. They had made me a job offer to start after graduation, and I was trying to decide whether I should take it or clerk for a judge first.

“I thought it was you,” he said, slapping my back. “Have you made a decision about next year?”

“Oh, uh, hi, Mark. It’s great to see you.” I reached out to shake his hand. After that greeting was out of the way, he turned his focus to Chase, clearly expecting an introduction. “Uh, Mark this is my friend Chase Rhodes. Chase, Mark is one of the most skilled litigators in the tri-state area.” And one of the highest earners, but I figured that was implied.