Page 21 of Back to You

“Thompson, sorry to bother you. Where are your case notes on the Debardelaben case?”

“I have them typed up and I can send them to you first thing tomorrow.”

“I see,” Cartwright said. Ethan could hear the frown in his voice. “I really do need them tonight. Can you email them to me now?”

Ethan sighed, looking at Brandon’s now-thunderous expression. “Sure, just give me a few minutes.”

“Great, thanks!”

Ethan hung up and smiled weakly. “Just a quick thing, I just need to grab my laptop.”

Brandon held his eyes for a moment before silently turning his attention back to his food.

Ethan ducked into the bedroom to snag his work laptop, glad he’d had the foresight to bring it home, or else he’d be stuck heading back to the office. He sat on the bed and found the notes, then dropped them in an email to Cartwright. In five minutes he was back at the table, sitting down to his dinner next to an eerily silent Brandon.

He didn’t know what to do, what to say. He’d just wanted one day for them not to worry about Ethan’s job. One day without the reminders of how much time he was losing with the man he loved because of his job.

“When does it end, Ethan?”

He almost didn’t hear Brandon, he was so unnaturally quiet.

“When does it end? In a month? Six months? A year?” Brandon’s voice gained strength. “How much longer do I need to wait for our lives to go back to normal? I need to know.”

“Brandon …”

“No. You tell me how much longer I have to pretend like I have a partner when today is the first time we’ve interacted in person in over a month. Did you know it had been that long?”

Ethan just stared at Brandon, mouth open but no sound coming out. Surely it couldn’t have been that long since they did something as simple as talking face-to-face. He desperately wanted to refute it, but the days had blurred into one long string of work and sleep, and he knew in his heart that Brandon was right.

“I have a string of text messages that are just you telling me you won’t be home. ‘I just need a few more hours at the office.’ Or ‘I have a meeting that I just can’t get out of. Sorry baby, I’ll see you soon.’ I haven’t seen you awake in over a month, Ethan. A month. What kind of relationship do we have when I never see you?”

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say what, the truth? How much longer do I need to wait for you to stop putting your job ahead of me?” Brandon’s volume increased steadily as he talked. “How much longer do I wait for you?”

“Please, don’t say it like that, like you’re not going to wait.”

“I love you, Ethan, never doubt that. But you have to see that this is unsustainable.”

“I’m so close,” Ethan said desperately. “So close to making senior associate. Please just bear with me, I promise it’ll all be worth it.”

“Worth it for who, Ethan? What happens when you do make senior associate? Will you cut back?”

“Yes!”

“You can’t make me that promise. I know you, you’ll cut back for a while, then you’ll start gearing up to make partner. And we’ll be right back where we are. Roommates. Not partners.”

“I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I want you to stop killing yourself! I want you to realize you have a home and a family that loves you, and that your job will never be that for you. I want you to come home, to me.”

“I will. Brandon, I swear to God, I will be home. I just need to get over this hump. I just need to make senior associate.”

“Why?”

Ethan stopped, startled. “Why what?”

“Why do you need to make senior associate so badly?”

---