Icouldn’t wipe the grin off my face, even if I tried. I pulled into the apartment complex where my interview would be, smiling from ear to ear and tapping away on the steering wheel to the beat of the pop song playing on the radio. I’d been smiling since I woke up, after reading the “good morning” text from Oliver, attached with a picture of his two cats sunbathing in the morning sun. He had said we needed to join them later in the day. I told him I was down for some naked sunbathing, so long as it was with him.
Oliver, the man who’d stormed into my life and pushed away all the clouds with that illuminating smile of his.
It was scary. I was falling hard and fast, and that scared the piss out of me. I’d been mugged off plenty of times before by guys who I had wrongly assumed were as into me as I was them. Instead, they just used me for some good sex and stability, and then they’d drop me the second they felt an ounce of boredom.
What if Oliver got bored? He could download any app and have ten dates lined up within the hour. What if I wasn’t good enough to keep him around? The fear had planted itself in a dark, dusty corner of my brain, but it was growing louder and louder as the days went on. As things started to seem almost too good to be true.
I parked in front of a tall pale yellow window, the walls chipped and needing a new coat of paint. There were kids riding up and down on the street on their Razor scooters, chasing after each other. There was a lake next to the building. A family of ducks waddled out of the water and straight toward me. With no bread to offer them, I walked around them and up the steps to the apartments’ call box. I dialed in the number I was given and waited a few rings until someone answered.
“Hallo?”
“Hey, Greg. This is Beckham with Stonewall, here for the interview.”
“Ah, of course! Come right up.”
A loud buzz followed. I opened the heavy door and stepped inside. He was already waiting for me outside his apartment door, smiling and waving.
“Beckham! Hi, hello.”
Greg Williamson did not look like the man I’d been expecting to meet with. From Oliver’s account, I painted a picture of a gruff older gentleman with a brash attitude, a beer belly, and a permanent scowl on his scarred face.
Instead, I got a brightly dressed man with a sharp haircut and a warm smile. He was wearing a pair of light-blue shorts held up with a neon yellow belt, a pink polo shirt tucked into his waist, wrapped together with a pair of blue Sperry boat shoes, encapsulating the essence of Miami in one outfit.
His apartment was as eclectic as his wardrobe. There were dozens of vases holding brightly colored fake flowers and plenty of books strewn about the small living room, most of them appearing to be self-help books. There was an old couch still upholstered in a flowery fabric. There was one window, and the thin red blinds were shut. The only light was coming from a thin floor lamp that appeared to be leaning against the wall. It also smelled like mothballs and lavender.
This was going to be interesting.
“Sorry I couldn’t come to your offices,” Greg said, flopping down on the couch and patting the cushion next to him, inviting me over. “I’ve been having such a busy week. I have an outdoor fund-raiser in an hour and a half; that’s why I’m dressed so spiffy today.”
I contained the eyebrow arch. “Well, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, then. Let’s get right into it.”
“Let’s.” Greg clapped his hands and angled himself to me, sitting with a foot underneath him. This was not how I expected this meeting to go.
“Like we discussed over the phone, I’m here because I’m investigating the assault that occurred on Oliver and his boyfriend.”
“So tragic,” he said, taking a deep breath. “My heart broke when I heard the news of Derrick’s passing.” I normally felt confident in my judge of character, but Greg was throwing me off. He seemed sincere, but he was also suspect number one currently.
“How did you find out that he had died?” I knew Oliver wasn’t using Greg as a shoulder to cry on.
“At first, I overheard a few of Oliver’s friends talking in the hallway before they went into his apartment. That was when I first found out.”
The next question was one I knew the answer to. “Were you and Oliver close?”
“Oh no. Not at all, no.”
Okay, I was expecting a lie to be what came out of Greg’s mouth, but instead I seemed to be getting nothing but the truth.
“I was a walking shitbag of a human back then. I had prejudices and I was terribly homophobic. I was such a shit neighbor.” He paused and dabbed at his eyes. I noticed them glistening in the dim light of the living room. “I was running. I ran so hard that I trampled over everyone in my way.”
“Running from what?”
“My own sexuality.” He couldn’t dab at his eyes fast enough. A couple of tears overflowed their banks and spilled down his cheeks. “I saw Oliver and Derrick, and I saw how proud and happy they were together, holding hands and kissing and living exactly the life I wanted to live. It was an anger that made me lash out.”
“In what ways did you lash out?”
Greg took a moment to compose himself. I could see the visible pain this caused by talking about it. Surprising, especially since he was still a homophobic twat up until the day Oliver moved out of the apartment, which had been three years ago. Plenty of time to change, but suspicious timing if he was looking to throw people off his trail.
“I was a dick. I’d make dumb comments as they walk by, and I’d… oh God, I was just terrible. I don’t even want to say the things I did out loud. I’d take down their pride flag. Leave it on the floor like trash. It was horrible.”