Beta Test (#gaymers) (24 page)

“She wants to give us time.” Maria patted his arm as they settled themselves in the plastic chairs. “She knows you come by with treats when you’re troubled.”

“I’m not troubled,” Tristan protested. “And I visit plenty.”

“I know you do. You’re a good boy to us.” She smiled indulgently. “But Lilit’s right—you
are
troubled today. Is it about your mother’s campaign?”

“You know about that?”

“Of course.” Maria made a gesture like the news arrived on the wind. “It is everywhere. But the real question is, how you are dealing with it?”

“I’m not.” Tristan groaned, and then just like he was ten with a school problem, he poured everything out to Maria while they had their muffins and tea.

“I do not have good advice,” Maria demurred at last, same as she always used to. “You must find your own path here,
jan.
But I do know this—I’ve waited a lot of years for this moment.”

“My mom to run for governor?”

“Do not be silly.” Maria’s laugh always sounded like wind chimes. “For you to find someone you care about and who cares about you. I’ve prayed for you, you know?”

“You have?” Tristan blinked.

“Oh,
jan
, how I worry for you. You are too alone, always too serious. And now there is someone who makes you smile. That is a very good thing.”

“Except we broke up.”

“Everyone fights.” Maria waved her hand again. “The key for you is
what
are you going to fight for? That’s the whole question, isn’t it? It’s not what you fight over, it’s what you fight for.”

* * *

An hour later as Tristan was buzzed up to his parents’ downtown Pasadena condo, he was still mulling over Maria’s words. He pulled out his phone to check his messages as he waited for the elevator. He had a voice mail waiting from a familiar number. He almost didn’t listen, because the last thing his muddied emotions needed was to hear Ravi’s voice, but his fingers didn’t listen to logic, and he clicked Play.

“Hey, so it’s me...and I know you’re on your way to your mom’s...” Ravi sounded uncharacteristically nervous, speaking too fast. “But I wanted to wish you good luck. Listen, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I wasn’t...I didn’t do a good job of being your friend. And I want to be your friend. I want to be the guy who supports you when you do the hard thing, even if it’s not what I’d do...” Ravi trailed off and swallowed audibly. “Basically, I want to be the guy. The one you call if things go horribly tonight or if they go well. So, let me be the friend guy. Call me later, okay?”

Oh man. Tristan both needed this message more than he needed oxygen and needed it like he needed an ice bath. What the hell was he supposed to do? Call? Don’t call? Call tomorrow? But Ravi had a thing tonight too, and he’d been awfully nice...

Before he could overthink it, Tristan typed off a fast text. Good luck at your gala tonight. You deserve that award. I’ll call.

There. Now he’d pretty much locked himself into calling. His stomach lurched like he’d stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl.

Ding.

And now he had to ride up to his parents and act like the whole rest of his life might not hinge on a phone call later. Act like he wasn’t going to be dissecting that voice mail message the entire darn evening, hearing Ravi’s voice in his ear, longing to get rid of that tentative tone and replace it with Ravi’s swagger.

* * *

He made the predictable greetings and small talk with his parents, but he hadn’t been in the condo more than ten minutes when his mother gasped like someone had tried to feed her canned ham.

“
What
is that?” She gestured at Tristan’s body. The ice cubes in her tumbler clinked, dangerously close to sloshing. And Irene Lily-Jones never spilled.

“What?”

“
That.
On your arm.” She took a long sip. His mother never liked to drink much in public, so she and his father always enjoyed a pre-event cocktail or two together before heading to an appearance. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Oh.
That.
” He’d honestly forgotten he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and had gotten used to his tattoo peeking out. He kind of liked it, in fact. But he’d totally meant for her to never see it. “Sorry. Got it in Seattle. I meant to wear a different shirt—”

“How about you meant not to deface your person?” His mother sank down on the white linen sofa and fanned herself with an opera season ad. Once upon a time, she would have called him weeks earlier, asking which shows he’d want to go to with them, but that hadn’t been on the table for a few years now.

“I don’t know. I thought it was kind of fun—”

“You brought your tux, right son?” As always, his father was right there to smooth things over. “And you can remember to wear long sleeves at other campaign events.”

“
Other
events?” Somehow Tristan hadn’t thought that far ahead. Or rather, he had, but he hadn’t let himself dwell on how awful the next six months were likely to be.

“This is simply one of a dozen reasons why this job is not suitable for you.” His mother made a dismissive gesture with the brochure. “But your father and I have been talking. You can work on my campaign in marketing, and then afterward, Uncle Frank says he has a position opening up in the fall.”

“I don’t want to work for an accounting firm.”
Or a campaign.

“Of course you do. You’ve got an MBA from one of the best schools in the country. And Uncle Frank is a vice president at one of the most prestigious firms in LA. It’s a perfect fit.”

Not hardly.
And he only had the degree because they’d insisted. “I can’t leave my job hanging,” he said instead.

“Oh you’ll give appropriate notice,” his father said affably. “You’re a good kid, Tristan. But you’re wasting your talents at this...
toy
company. Let us help you out.”

“I...I don’t...” he stammered.
Let us help you out.
It was why he’d ended up at an exclusive private school instead of the public high school down the hill from their house, why he’d ended up at Stanford instead of UCLA, despite loving his UCLA visit, and why he’d ended up at graduate school instead of looking for an entry-level job.

“You can think about it while you change.” His mother gestured at the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He didn’t have a room here, only the tastefully appointed guest room that had exactly none of the coziness of his childhood bedroom. They’d kept almost no nostalgic items from the old house, and he’d had to fight to have his favorite things boxed up and put in storage amid a lot of heavy sighs.

The hall wall had a few select family pictures—his high school graduation, a shot of the three of them at Stanford’s alumni weekend, another of the three of them on the Canadian adventure vacation. God, things had been so much simpler then. Farther down the wall was a picture of his mother’s swearing-in for the federal court of appeals, and one of her earlier swearing-in for the district court, the only picture with Derek in it, and even then, he was at the edge of the frame, a dark-haired blur.

I
miss who you used to be so much.
His fingers skated over the younger version of his mother, the one who had snuck in museum visits and plays with him and Derek on her conference trips, the one who had introduced him to opera and the arts.
I
miss your smile
,
even when it wasn’t for me.

On the guest bed, his mother had laid a box with a simple white rosebud boutonniere and a campaign button:
Family First!

He mulled that phrase over and over as he changed clothes, Ravi’s message running through his head too, all tangled up with the discussion with his parents about his job. He tamed his hair in the mirror, getting the part straight. He’d been wearing it more natural to work lately. Ravi’s doing, he supposed, but like with the tattoo, the more casual look had grown on him. Fixing his cuffs, he came out of the room to find his parents still on the couch, his father adding opera events to his calendar and his mother shuffling papers, quietly rehearsing her speech.

“Hey, Mom?” he said as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge in the kitchen that opened to the living area.

“Yes?” She looked up from her papers, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Those would be gone by the time she gave the speech for real.

“Are you really going to include an anti-gay platform in your campaign?”

“Anti-gay?” She shoved her glasses back into place.

“The stuff about businesses and private schools being able to discriminate, and your support for the ‘religious freedom’ amendments in other states.”

“Oh
that.
Yes, the party is rather insistent about a traditional values platform and I agree that that’s what the state needs.”

Each word hit Tristan like a piece of gravel kicked up by a truck leaving with his ideals and hopes on board.

“I...I can’t stand behind you on stage and listen to you say things against people I...care about. Against
me.
You’re saying that I deserve fewer rights—”

“I’m saying no such thing.” His mother made a clucking noise. “Most of the things in the platform are a plea for a return to the sort of textualism and traditionalism missing from today’s liberal activism. It’s not anything against you personally.”

“But it
is.
And if the Supreme Court hadn’t ruled for marriage equality, you’d still have marriage discrimination in the platform.”

“But they did rule, and I don’t argue that the country is headed a certain direction. But the people who want me to run want to push back against that—”

“Why can’t
you
push back against
them
?”

“Tristan. Your mother has some very important people asking for her help in this matter. It’s nothing you need to get worked up over and take so personally.” His father set aside his phone. His darker hair had gone almost entirely silver now, but his voice was as firm as ever.

“This button you want me to wear, does it apply to me?” His heart pounded in his ears.

“What do you mean?” His mother’s nose wrinkled.

“Do I get a family? A partner? A right to live in whatever neighborhood we want? Adopted children if we want them? A right to stand on the stage with you with that family?”

“Tristan.” His mother’s voice was chillier than the ice in her cocktail. “
We
are your family. And whatever you do
discreetly
is your business—”

“So that’s a no, then?” Bile rose in his throat. He didn’t know much right then, and nothing felt certain other than the fact that he couldn’t do this.

“You’re young. You’ll have plenty of time for...
whatever
after your mother’s campaign and public life is through,” his father soothed.

“
Whatever
is my life, and I’m sorry, but I can’t go to this thing. I can’t stand up there and know that my own parents see me as some sort of second-class citizen, or even worse, as a negotiable platform point.” His hands were shaking, the stupid way they always did when he got this nervous.

“We’re done helping you.” His mother’s face was stony, no trace of emotion on her sharp features. “No money. No job help. Nothing.”

“It’s okay.” It really wasn’t, and he was perilously close to vomiting. “I make a decent salary at my job. I don’t need your help.”

And sure, he might be about to lose that job for any number of reasons—to keep Ravi from bolting first, backlash against his mom, or if he messed up the next project—but adrenaline surged through him. He could do this, could be on his own at last.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got somewhere else I need to be,” Tristan said shakily before hurrying to the bedroom to grab his stuff. He tried not to focus on the enormity of what he’d done, and only on the logistics of how quickly he could get from Pasadena back to Santa Monica.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ravi slowly made his way from his apartment to his car. He looked damn good according to his mirror—his hair had reached unprecedented heights, his retro-style tux looked swank, and his wingtips shone. A light breeze made his tux comfortable in the perfect early summer evening weather. In short, he was as ready as he could be. Yet he still felt like he was missing something.

And it wasn’t a cheering section. Meena and Dale had gotten tickets, and there were rumblings some of the management including Robert would be there too. And Avani and Balan would be there too, along with some of his friends. He had plenty of support, but it didn’t stop him from missing a certain someone.

“Wait!” The sound of someone running up behind him took Ravi out of his funk. He turned around to find a tuxedo-clad Tristan dashing up the path.

“Wait!” Tristan called again, coming to a stop right in front of Ravi. “Am I too late?”

“Too late?” Ravi repeated dumbly. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I know.” Tristan’s determined expression wavered a bit. “But I got your message and...”

“The message wasn’t a passive-aggressive plea to get you to show up.” Ravi tried to stay stern but couldn’t stop himself from touching Tristan’s arm, verifying that he was really there.

“I know, but a lot of stuff went down with my family and...am I too late?”

“Never.” Ravi gave in to the impulse and closed the distance between them, kissing Tristan firmly. Tristan kissed him back eagerly, not even glancing around to see who might be around. That was new, and Ravi loved it. He broke away reluctantly. “I’d wait forever for you. That’s what I was trying to say.”

“I know.” Tristan didn’t step away, instead keeping his hands on Ravi’s waist. “And you shouldn’t have to.”

“I was too pushy, and if I pushed you into fighting with your parents, I’m sorry.” Ravi grabbed Tristan’s arm and hauled him toward his car.

“You didn’t make me fight with them. I did. She wanted me to wear this Family First button and I...I couldn’t. I just kept thinking how I deserve a family too.”

“You do. You absolutely do.” Ravi stopped long enough to kiss Tristan again. He was never getting enough of that. Never.