Siempre (25 page)

“For one thing, he’s not an asshole. He wouldn’t fuck with your head on purpose right now.” Sean knew it came out harsher than it should have, but it wasn’t the first time he’d had to point that out to someone, and he had kind of thought Jaime knew better.

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to insult him,” Jaime said after a second. “I know he’s a good friend to you. I just don’t get him. He’s pretty much shunned Lupe entirely. She’s very upset about it. She texted him and offered to apologize for ever being rude to you, and he pretty much just told her not to talk to you. It’s hard not to be pissed off at him for that. I know he wants to protect you, and it’s not like I disagree with that. But then I get here and he just leaves without saying anything, but he makes me dinner. I don’t get it. It feels like he’s trying to make some kind of point, but I don’t get it. So it feels like he’s messing with me.”

“Okay, but he’s really not meaning to,” Sean said as he pushed his own empty plate aside. He rested his hand on Jaime’s left wrist and left it there after he felt some of the tension leave Jaime with his touch. “With Lupe, he’s trying to protect me, and he also just doesn’t like her opinion. He’s doesn’t want to give her the idea that her beliefs are excusable—which I know you disagree with, but you also know I agree with him, and I’m only putting up with her for you.”

“So why the food?” Jaime said.

“You pretty much said he’s not allowed to help, so I told him to back off. He’s trying to respect that, but it bothers him. He likes to fix things or try to fix things or at least feel like he’s doing something. So he made dinner. It’s something he can do, so just let him do it, okay?”

Jaime was quiet for a few minutes before he nodded.

“Sure, okay.”

“I should probably tell you that when I asked you to come here this weekend, it was because Alana wants to do something tomorrow morning, and while Travis doesn’t have any other motives, she probably does.”

“You didn’t think you should tell me this before I was already here?” Jaime asked.

“I wanted you to come. I missed you.”

“Stop with the pout.” Jaime groaned, but his annoyed expression had melted.

“If you don’t want to see her, I can get Travis to make her go away.”

“I don’t really want all your friends to hate me.”

“None of my friends hate you. If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t be so pushy.”

“A
LANA
’
S
HERE
!”

Sean groaned and rolled over in Jaime’s arms so he could hide from the light in Jaime’s chest.

“Alana says if you don’t get up in ten minutes, she’s coming in,” Travis said through the door when he didn’t answer.

“What time is it?” Sean mumbled.

Jaime pulled away enough to reach behind him to look at his phone.

“It’s seven.”

“Tell her to go away. She didn’t say anything about waking me up when she said she wanted to hang out.” Sean settled back in Jaime’s arms and closed his eyes.

“Get up. I didn’t tell you because you would have said no.” Alana pounded on the door in between speaking. “Jaime, make him get up. I will come in there even if you’re naked. You probably care. Sean doesn’t. I’ve already seen him naked.”

“Why has she seen you naked?” Jaime sat up even though Sean tried to pull him back down.

“Quick changes. She’s just trying to get your attention.”

“Jaime, I have coffee,” Alana singsonged.

“Cheater!” Sean yelled, but he gave up pulling on Jaime’s arm and let him get up to get dressed.

He’d just started to drift off again when Jaime came back in. His hand was still damp when he shook Sean’s shoulder. When he leaned down to press his lips to Sean’s cheek, Sean breathed in Jaime’s scent mixed with his own body wash.

“Alana says she came over early because she knows how long it takes you to get ready. It would be nice if you started while I got dressed so I’m not trying to make small talk for half an hour. Also, I’m not new, and I know exactly what she’s doing. I’m just pretending I don’t because I want backup when I tell her I’m not going.”

“If we’re not going, why do I have to get ready?” Sean asked, but he sat up in bed after he opened his eyes and saw the tension on Jaime’s face. “What does she want? I’ll go out there and tell her we’re not going. You can get back in bed. Why did you even get dressed for her?”

“I needed to think about it. The shower kind of cleared my head.”

“Okay. So tell me what you think she wants, so I know what I’m up against. I promise I’ll back you up, but it’s Alana. She breaks down Travis on a regular basis. I need to at least know what I’m walking into.”

“I think she wants us to go to church or mass with her.” Jaime shrugged. “It’s Sunday morning. She’s dressed nice. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Is she Catholic?”

“I don’t know? I don’t think so. I know her church is gay friendly.”

“So probably not Catholic,” Jaime said.

“Does that mean you’re not allowed to go? Is that a rule? Am I allowed to go? I don’t even really think I believe in God.”

“You don’t believe in God?” Jaime asked.

“Is that bad? It’s not that I think you’re wrong. I think it’s possible. Maybe there’s a God. Maybe there isn’t.” Sean shrugged. “Does it bother you that I don’t care more? I mean, I care about your thoughts on it because it’s important to you. I’ve just never really thought about it a lot.”

“It’s fine. I don’t really want to think about it anyway—which is why I don’t want to go. I know she’s probably trying to help, but I don’t want to go to a different church. I’m still Catholic—even if they don’t want me.”

“So we can tell her that.” Sean slid out of the bed and picked up his T-shirt off the floor before finding pajama pants. There was no point in getting dressed when he was just going to drag Jaime back into bed.

“You already figured me out, didn’t you?” Alana said when they stepped into the living room. Travis glanced at them from the other side of the kitchen counter, but he stayed quiet.

“Probably,” Sean said. “We just came out to tell you we’re going back to bed.”

Alana turned all the way around on her stool to face them.

“I thought you might say that. You want coffee. I know you want coffee. Can you just hear me out over one cup of coffee?” She glanced at Sean, but she was clearly asking Jaime.

“Alana. If he doesn’t want to go, you’re not going to guilt him into it somehow.”

“No guilt. Just listen, and then if you still don’t want to go, I’ll leave. I promise. I won’t even use up all the time I planned to talk you into it and then factor in Sean taking an hour to get up and use every product in the bathroom. I won’t even argue if you say no at the end of it.”

“You always argue.” Sean glanced at Jaime next to him. “It’s up to you, but she’s lying. She always argues.”

“I won’t. I promise,” Alana said. “Besides, I explained this to Travis just now, and he also doesn’t believe me. So I’m pretty sure he’s going to jump in if I start arguing. So you’ll have time to run. It’ll be like the time I tried to talk you into getting a tattoo with me.”

“You still ended up getting a tattoo,” Sean pointed out.

“But you didn’t.”

Sean couldn’t argue with that, so he just pulled Jaime aside into the hall by the bathroom.

“You don’t have to listen. She’s not even really going to be upset if you don’t.”

“I’ll give her five minutes. She got up early and came all the way over here.”

Jaime led them back to the kitchen, where Alana had already left a cup of coffee and a bagel in front of the seat next to her. Sean debated pushing it down the counter to the next place so he could put himself between them, but Jaime sat down before he could make a decision.

“Awesome.” Alana smiled without the normal smirk he was used to, but Sean knew that was actually more dangerous. “So, I’m not trying to convert you or anything, I promise. I’m not trying to say my church is better, and you’ll just decide you want to be Episcopalian. I know that’s not how it is. I couldn’t exactly go to a Catholic church and just decide that worked for me either. Maybe that’s a bad example, but you get what I’m saying, right?”

Alana waited for Jaime to nod before she continued.

“I just think that it might be comforting for you to have a safe place to worship. I know you don’t believe all the same things, but we’re talking to the same God and reading the same Bible. We’ll sit in the back, and you can only participate as much as you want. And I’m not going to pressure you to come back or come often, but you’re always welcome. I know you haven’t really been going to mass regularly anyway. I might not if my mom didn’t guilt me every time I skip. But I know sometimes when things really suck, it helps me, so I wanted to offer.” Alana paused to take a breath before she added, “Also, the plan was to make Sean come with you so if you ever want to talk to him, he’ll have more of a clue what you’re talking about. I think I lost him somewhere around saying I won’t try to convert you. I don’t think he’s been inside a church when there wasn’t a wedding.”

“I’ve been inside churches,” Sean said.

“Was it in Europe with a tour group?”

“Possibly.”

“I just don’t think I really want to answer questions from a lot of new people,” Jaime said.

“You don’t have to. I told my mom I was just going to sit with you guys and we’d probably skip the coffee hour. I can block anyone that tries to corner us. Plus, Sean’s totally going to make us late anyway. We’ll end up sneaking in right before the service.”

“I don’t really have nice clothes here.”

“You can wear jeans. You won’t even stick out. There’s a lot of people who have jobs where they have to work Sundays, and they leave from mass.”

Jaime turned away from her to look at him. Sean tried to figure out if this was his cue to refuse so Jaime didn’t have to do it, but there was more of a question in Jaime’s eyes than any plea to save him.

“Whatever you want to do,” Sean said.

“Can we leave early if I want to?” Jaime asked Alana.

“Whenever you want.”

S
EAN
STUDIED
Jaime from his side of the bed as Jaime stared up at the ceiling. He was trying not to push, but other than the few words Jaime had exchanged with Alana after the service, he’d been quiet on the ride back to the apartment.

“Did you tell Alana you were glad you went just because you didn’t want to make her feel bad?” Sean asked after a few minutes.

“No,” Jaime said. “I’m not going to convert or go all the time, but she was right. It was nice.”

“I don’t really get it,” Sean admitted when Jaime didn’t explain. “Not that you have to explain it to me. You don’t, but I might ask her about it. I’m going to avoid saying she was right about anything, because that’s really going to make her gloat for months, but I do want to understand better.”

“It’s complicated.”

“I got that. I didn’t even get what was going on most of the time.”

Jaime laughed and shook his head.

“I know you didn’t just mean the service,” Sean added. “But it might help me to start there. Don’t worry, Alana won’t care if I ask her all the dumb questions. She likes explaining things to me like I’m an idiot.”

Jaime turned his head to smile at him, but he looked back to the ceiling before he spoke.

“It’s kind of like she said this morning. It wasn’t exactly the same as what I’m used to. But it was similar, and it was safe and just kind of going through the routine and listening to the same scriptures and the sermon. It’s comforting.”

“When you were gone and out of touch, Travis opened the studio for us. When I couldn’t concentrate on anything new, he just made us run through a couple of my favorite older pieces that he still remembered because he remembers everything. It helped to just kind of go through something familiar and let everything out.”

“Yeah. It’s something like that. I can see that when you dance.”

“Do you think Alana bribed them to do that poem thing?”

Jaime laughed before he said, “The Psalm? No. I actually asked her, but she said the scriptures are picked out far in advance for them, and they don’t just skip around.”

“So the whole part about how if your parents leave you, God will take you or something was just a really fitting coincidence? Because that’s weird.”

“I guess it depends on how you think about it,” Jaime said.

Epilogue

S
EAN
LEFT
Alana and Travis outside with Aleksandra so he could enter the gallery alone. Aleksandra said she needed air before the opening reception officially started, but Jaime was already somewhere inside agonizing over his part of the exhibition. Sean knew he couldn’t make any changes, but he was never going to believe it was perfect. Sean took his time moving past the pictures he’d already memorized from the nights he’d woken up alone in bed and watched Jaime sort through and edit each picture again and again until it told the right story.

Jaime was leaning against the wall by the final picture. Sean knew Jaime had taken it in the alley behind a motel. He’d gone to the motel planning to take pictures of Anastasia in the room, only to find her hiding outside after the guy she had met tried to insist on paying the second half of her fee with cocaine. There was a bruise visible on her wrist as she stomped out her cigarette with the toe of her red high heel. Jaime had wanted to just take her home, but Anastasia told him that if he was going to put all the work into changing his thesis exhibition in the last semester, he might as well tell the whole story.