I went home for Thanksgiving. Lafayette went with Michael and Emilio to Emilio's family's home for Thanksgiving. A part of me wished he had come home with me. We had even joked about it, but neither of us committed to it. It would have been weird to bring my boss home to my family's place, but it also would've felt right. That being said, I also would've loved to have seen him host his family in his own place. I knew it wasn't my place to suggest that, and that it wouldn't have worked, but family was one of the only things I had. I didn't have a best friend. I didn't have fame and fortune. I didn't have true love. I had my family, though.
I knew Lafayette had his friends, but it seemed like there were pain points among his family. Did he talk about it in therapy? I would've loved to have seen him reconcile with them. I knew it wouldn't be easy for him to do. As far as I could tell, there hadn't been a big fight in his family. They just grew distant. Was it because of the passing of his sister? I'm sure there was something he had never told me before, about why he was distant from them. If it was something too painful, then I understood why he wouldn't want to reconnect. Not everyone had to be close with their family. Some families were bad families. Nonetheless, the only reason why I really wanted to see him reconnect with his family, was because I think deep down he missed them. I could be wrong, though.
Everyone was at Grandma and Grandpa's place for Thanksgiving. Alicia and I were sitting in the sun room to the side of where everyone else was, scrolling on our phones. "Should I hook up with Robby Peters?" she asked. Robby was a boy from our high school. He was kind of a jerk in high school, but the only reason he was nice to me was because he had a crush on Alicia.
"What's he look like now?" I asked, looking at her phone. She showed me his Instagram where he was messaging her. "I guess he's still cute. Sure, go for it."
"Hopefully he kisses better than he did in high school," she said, messaging him. "Are you seeing anyone?"
"No," I said. "I haven't even hooked up with anyone in awhile." The last guy I hooked up with was the one who was a little rough with me, enough to leave a bruise on my face.
Alicia rolled her eyes at me. "You need to get over him," she said.
"Get over who?" But I knew she knew.
"Your boss," she said. "And don't deny it. I know you have a thing for him. You need to quit wasting your time with this unrequited love."
"Well what if it's not unrequited?" I asked.
"Has he confessed his feelings or something?" she asked.
"No, but sometimes just the way he looks at me or the stuff he says," I said.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. I mean, he said it's easy to miss me and like, he said I was beautiful one time. I don't know," I said, shrugging. Was it all in my head?
"He's your boss, Em. Your boss. If he's doing that then honestly it's kind of shitty, like he's leading you on or something," she said. "Even if you got together, what then? You hook up once and act like it didn't happen? You start dating? You wouldn't be able to date. You'd have to quit your job and you've worked so hard to get to where you are. Do you want to jeopardize that over a crush?"
"No, I guess not," I said. I didn't want to tell her that it was more than a crush.
Alicia frowned sympathetically. "I'm sorry, that was probably harsher than I meant it to be," she said. "I just don't want to see you get hurt by another guy. You deserve someone who loves you for you and not what you do for them."
Alicia had seen me at my worst, so she did know what she was talking about. After Owen and I broke up, she saw how much I wanted everyone to think I wasn't hurt. I started hooking up a lot. And not in the "live while you're young way" but in the "I am crying for help" way. When Jeremy and I started dating, she knew it was a dumb choice and that the relationship would not last, which she was right, of course. She knew I would get dumped and cry about it, which I did. She had seen my heart truly break after Kenneth passed, which was my absolute lowest point, so I knew she didn't want to see me in any of those situations again.
"Dating is hard," I said. "I don't want dating apps, you know?"
"I know what you mean, but then you don't want to meet them at a bar. Why can't we have meet-cutes like they do in the movies?" she asked.
"I thought you didn't want to date anyone?" I asked.
"Well, I don't, but I also do. I didn't want to date when I was in school but I'm graduating next year. I kind of want someone there to celebrate my success with me, other than family."
"I know what you mean," I said. "Actually, I don't, because I don't have any successes to celebrate."
She put her hand on my shoulder. "I know you hate it when people ask, but are you still writing?"
"Sure, but not a lot," I said. "I mean, Lafayette said I can try writing a guest blog post for the website or something."
"That sounds cool. Have you done that?" she asked.
"No. I don't know what to write about," I said, slouching.
"You love the company. Write about what you love."
I zipped up the sweater jacket of Lafayette's I was wearing. "I can do that."
Despite Alicia's warnings as the older sister (by a few minutes), I decided to make a decision I probably should not have made at all. Friday night, I was still in Ossining at Mom and Dad's. I decided to look up Jeremy on Facebook. It said he still lived in town and it said he was single. I still had his phone number after all these years, so unless he changed it, I texted him. I asked him if he was doing anything.
He replied with, who is this?
It's Emerson, I said.
Oh my bad! I lost all my contacts awhile ago. I'm not doing anything tonight, are you?
No, do you want to meet up?
Yeah, come to my place.
So, after sneaking out of the house because I didn't want anyone to ask where I was going (what would I say?) I went across town to the apartment Jeremy lived in. I was surprised it was in a nice apartment complex. I mean, no offense to Jeremy, but he was not a good student and kind of a loser. When we were together, he bounced from job to job. He was a bum.
When Jeremy opened the door, more surprises came. For one thing, he didn't have any piercings except for his nose piercing. He had a slit in his eyebrow. His body was hot. His hair was shaggy around his head. His smile was charming, like always. He welcomed me into his place, which was clean and well decorated.
"This is a nice place," I said.
"Thanks. Do you want anything to drink?" he asked. "I have wine. You like wine right?"
"Yeah, wine is good," I said.
"Take a seat. Let me grab you a glass."
I sat on his couch, glancing at him over my shoulder. Jeremy and I were young when we had dated. I was nineteen and he was twenty. We were immature. It was my first relationship ever. It was his first one with a guy. It was a messy situation, but we were twenty-five and twenty-six now. Six years didn't seem like that long of time, but something about the mid-twenties really changed a person. They say you stop mentally maturing when you hit your mid-twenties, but there isn't really anything founded in that. Still, ever since turning twenty-five I felt like my maturity was plateauing. There's a chance in five years I would feel more mature again, but even spending time at home with my younger cousins who weren't even twenty-two, it made me realize how mature I felt. Even a few years ago when I went to a college party with Alicia and cousin Abby, I didn't feel too old. Now, the idea of being surrounded by people under twenty-two made me cringe. Like, I was too old for that! I still had a lot to learn, but I was nothing like the kid I was six years ago when I was dating Jeremy. I don't think he was the same person at all either.
"Here," he said, handing me a glass of wine and sitting next to me.
"Thank you," I said and took a sip.
"So how have you been? I haven't seen you in forever," he said.
I liked that he was talking to me instead of trying to immediately get into my pants. It was nice of him. Maybe he didn't want to get into my pants, though, so that would suck. "I know, it's been like five years I think? But I've been good. How've you been?"
"I've been good. Still in town, you know," he said. "You live in Manhattan right?"
"Yeah, for the past few years. I have a new studio apartment in the Greenwich Village area. Kind of the village, kind of Chelsea. I like it," I said.
"You still work at Lafayette?" he asked and took a sip.
"Yep, I recently got promoted to executive administrative assistant to Lafayette himself."
"No shit? That's so cool! Is he a good boss?"
My neck grew red. "Yeah, he's a good boss." I didn't want to talk about Lafayette. "What are you doing these days?" I asked.
"I own my own brewpub," he said.
"Really? That's amazing," I said. I never would've guessed Jeremy would own his own business, unless it were an illegal one.
"Yeah, it's been an adventure. I started working at a brewery and loved it, but my boss was a total dick, so I told him to fuck off and tried my own hand at brewing. My ex-wife and I, we started a brewpub together. I made the beer and she ran the restaurant. We still own it and are on good terms and everything. I mean, we have to be, we have a kid together, so."
It was a lot of information to take in. "Wow, you were married?" I took a large sip.
"Yeah, to Cora, remember from high school? We probably dated a little after you and I broke up. We moved way too fast, I mean we were married when I was twenty-two and parents at twenty-three. Then she realized she kind of exclusively likes women and I exclusively like men, so now we're just friends," he said.
"That's nice," I said. "So you have a son or daughter?"
"A little girl, Piper." He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of him with a toddler. She was adorable. "Life was kind of wild after you and I broke up, but it's been steadier than ever this past year or two. Cora's getting married in January. Piper's going to pre-school next year. The pub is a hit. Do you still do drag? We were thinking of doing drag brunches on Sundays, so if you ever wanted to perform, you totally could."
"That sounds great. I'll have to check the place out," I said.
"For sure. What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked, then took a sip, keeping his light blue eyes on me. Was he asking me on a date?
"Well, I guess nothing," I said.
"Maybe we could get dinner, unless you had to head back into the city," he said.
"No, I was going to go back Sunday." I actually did plan on going back Saturday, but I didn't have to.
"Cool," he said with a smile. "You still writing?"
"Yeah, sometimes," I said. I gulped down the rest of my wine.
"Good. I liked what you had shown me, all those years ago. I know I wasn't much of a reader, but I liked that one story about the gay guys in the 1920's," he said.
"Oh," I laughed. "I never finished that one. It's been sitting unfinished for years."
"You should revisit it. I really liked it." He finished off his glass too. He looked at the empty glass, reading the sediments. "Em, I'm sorry for how shitty of a boyfriend I was."
"Oh my god, no, it was so long ago and we were young," I said.
"Still, that's not really an excuse. I mean, I chose to be in a relationship with you but also chose to act like I resented you. It was a weird time. I knew I was physically attracted to guys and liked having sex with them, but I never thought I'd be in a relationship with one. Now look at me - totally gay," he said.
"Well, it's alright, our break up is what prompted me to get out of this town and go to community college," I said. We broke up a month after I turned twenty. I decided to go to college that very fall, lived in the city with Alicia while she was finishing undergrad. Then when I graduated, I started working at Lafayette, Inc. Crazy, what just a couple of years could do.
"That's good," he said. "You look...great. You look...I don't know. Happy, I guess. Peaceful. I'm not the one that's good with words, that's you." He laughed.
"Thanks," I said, smiling to myself. "You look great, too."
"Thank you," he said, keeping eye contact with me.
Jeremy set his glass down on the table, then he leaned in and kissed me gently. His lips were soft, surprisingly plump. Our lips interlocked, his leading mine. He moved closer to me, putting his arm around my lower back to pull me closer. His other hand moved to the side of my neck, his fingers moving up to my hair. He tugged lightly on my hair, tilting my head back so he could kiss down to my neck. Neck kisses were my weakness. I couldn't help but let out a moan when he bit me. He remembered what I liked.
"Let's go to my bedroom," he said, pulling me to my feet. We kept kissing as we walked through his apartment, stripping our clothes off, a trail leading to the bedroom. He pushed me onto the bed and towered over me, kissing me deeply, his familiar tongue exploring familiar places, not just my mouth. Jeremy changed in many ways, but the best way he changed was in bed. Six years was a lot of time to improve, for the both of us, but it was better than any of the random hook ups I had. Maybe I was homosexual but also somehow demisexual. The more I liked someone the better the sex - this wasn't the case for everyone. But for Jeremy, it was so good that I had to hold a pillow over my face to not wake the neighbors.
After, he asked if I wanted to stay the night. I told him I couldn't, because everyone at home was expecting me to return and I didn't want them asking who I was staying the night with. However, since they all thought I was returning to the city Saturday, I told him I could stay the night after our date. So, Saturday, he took me on a date at his brewpub. He took me to the back after hours to show me how a brewery worked. I went down on him at the restaurant, and then he took me back to his apartment and fucked me. This time, I got to stay the night, and I was surprised on Sunday. Sunday came, and I found myself not wanting to say goodbye. He told me he would text me. It wasn't until I was back in my apartment that I realized how much I hadn't thought of Lafayette at all over the weekend. I guess what they say is true - you have to get over someone by getting under someone else.