“I can’t. You know I can’t. But first, you offered me a tour of this place. I’d like to see the beach too. I rarely get there.”
“Now you’re talking. Think you can keep your hands off me?”
Eli purred, “Not a chance,” before he kissed Lee and squeezed his ass.
The tour started in the kitchen, which was Lee’s favorite room. It felt homey, unlike the other parts of all their homes. The navy cabinets, brass knobs alone he liked, but white tile and lace drapes on the windows make him feel like he was in another place and another time.
“This is a beautiful kitchen,” Eli whispered. “That glass on the shelf there…”
His mother collected colored glass from all over the world. It was in light hues, thick and it was lovely. “My mother has wonderful taste. She really does.”
“See. She’s not all bad,” Eli whispered to him.
“That’s true. And stop that.”
“What?”
“Making me see good in things. It goes against my grain.”
“Sorry,” he laughed.
Through the house that looked more like a museum. Everything was perfectly placed, nothing to be touched by anyone that wasn’t cleaning it or replacing it. Two hemp rugs that were without a bit of lint or touch of dust lay in the middle of the sitting room in the back of the house. The two enormous paned glass doors opened to the patio which looked out to the sea.
“This place, Lee…it’s exquisite.”
“It really is. I forget to see that sometimes.”
They walked out to the patio and there were low Adirondack chairs and loungers facing the ocean. Scattered plants in clay pots painted white, steps that led down and down until it tapered to a stone walk that fell away just before the sand.
Off to the right of the patio was a pool, the tiles around it gleaming in the sun. “We’ll take a swim when the madness calms down.”
“Madness? What madness?”
Eli soon saw, as people poured into the house, caterers and servers, extra house cleaners, and Lee and Eli were pushed from the common areas of the house. They managed to make it to Eli’s room without being swept or vacuumed, dusted, or placed out by the curb to be taken away by the garbage men.
They laughed as Eli sat on the bed and Lee took the desk chair. “It’s hard being this far away from you. I guess I got used to having…”
“Me too, Lee. Me too. I’ll miss you tonight, sleeping in here all alone.”
“Ditto, with me, upstairs.”
It was then that Eli asked the question that was bothering the both of them. “What will we do, Lee, if and when…more if than when…we want to actually be together?”
Eli didn’t mince words and didn’t take humor or avoidance in lieu of an answer. The thing with him was that he wasn’t used to being honest when it came to human interaction or anywhere else, really. “I can’t answer that right now, Eli. That’s the truth.”
“I believe you.”
Lee looked up at him, surprise rattling him. “W-what?”
“I believe you. If you had said you would give it all up or that you would try to just hide us or just about anything, I’d have known you were lying. As it is, though…you don’t know. That’s honest.”
“Well…thank you. I don’t hear that often, in my profession.”
“I believe that too.”
He got up and went to Eli, pulling him from the chair and into his arms. “I’m scared, Eli.”
“Not more than me, I’m sure.”