The following day, I still didn’t hear from him, and now he wasn’t answering actual calls either. It wasn’t until I was walking out to the private jet that afternoon—with complete and total conviction I was going to puke my guts out if I didn’t calm down—that I finally heard from him.
“Are you already here?” I asked, looking forward to the solid block of time I would get to spend with him overnight. I hoped to god he’d let me hold his hand. At least during takeoff and landing.
“Teo, fuck,” he said as out of breath as I felt. “Sorry about all this. I’m not going to make it. I need you to—”
I interrupted him with a squawk. “What? What do you mean you’re not going to make it?”
“Listen, this is great news, actually. Last night when we were at dinner, Dad ran into an old friend who introduced us to the CEO of MedPoint. They’re the third largest hospital chain in the US. We’ve been trying to get an appointment with them forever. Anyway, they’ve agreed to meet with us on Tuesday, so I can’t go to Frankfurt with you.”
I’d stopped walking and stood still at the bottom of the airplane stairs. He had to be pulling my leg. “You’re not coming?”
“It’s fine. Grandpa can handle it. The signing is just a formality anyway. We’ve already hashed out the details with their legal team.”
That wasn’t the point.
A uniformed woman about my mother’s age smiled at me from the door of the jet. I recognized the jacket in her hands as Grandpa Banks’s, so I assumed he was already on board. I closed my eyes for a minute and took a deep breath. This was going off the rails. My stomach was going to revolt. There was no way I was getting on that plane without my best friend.
“Chris… it’s not that, it’s… I’m terrified of flying, and… and I just wanted to talk to you about… about us.”
“Us?”
I winced, realizing this was a terrible time to bring it up if I wasn’t going to be able to see him in person again for an entire week. But I couldn’t wait any longer for some answers. And I needed something to distract me from one of my biggest fears. “Why didn’t you ever tell me Uncle Rod was gay? Or Oliver Poole? You made it sound like your family would freak out if they found out you were bi.”
The noise from other airplanes was loud enough for me to put a finger in my other ear so I didn’t miss his response. I was desperate for any little scrap of evidence he hadn’t spent the past ten years stringing me along for some other reason.
There was a pause before he answered. “You said you wouldn’t pressure me, Teo.”
“It’s been over ten fucking years! At what point do I read the writing on the fucking wall and give up? Every reason for your hesitation went up in smoke when I realized it wasn’t your family who were the problem. Tell me what’s holding you back, for god’s sake.” I pressed my palm to my forehead and gritted my teeth against the pain in my chest. I’d been such an idiot. “If it’s that you don’t want to be with me… please just tell me and let me go. Let me stop hoping for something that’s never going to happen.”
His voice was softer this time, the familiar comforting voice of the friend who’d been by my side since I was six years old.
“I love you. You know that. But I’m just not ready to settle down yet. I don’t understand why we can’t just have fun together first.”
I lowered my voice. “Fun, meaning sex?”
“Yes. Just think of all the shit we could be doing right now if you just… Jesus, Tee, if you just relaxed for once. How can you go out and sleep with some random fucking stranger and not me?”
His question surprised me, not only because I hadn’t realized he’d been thinking of me that way, but also because he kind of had a point. It only took me about a second to remember the reason.
“Because I wouldn’t be able to stand sharing you,” I confessed. “And I can’t believe you’d be okay sharing me either.”
The flight attendant caught my eye again, and I realized they were waiting on me to board so we could get underway. I wasn’t going to let the Banks family down, and I especially wasn’t going to let Gordon travel overseas without someone to help look after him. I climbed the stairs and dropped into the first seat, not even bothering to find Gordon until I finished the call with Chris. I didn’t want to give Chris any excuse to cut our conversation short.
I heard shuffling and muttering through the phone and wondered where he was and what he was doing.