Page 63 of Out of Nowhere

“My name’s Harry. I’m a friend of Johnny’s. We had a little misunderstanding earlier and I wanted to talk to him,” Haru said.

“I know who you are, Haru,” Dex said.

“I supposed you’re the new boyfriend,” Haru said, looking Dex over.

“That’s right,” Dex said. “And there’s no way in fucking hell I’m letting you see him. Now get the fuck out of here before I lay you out on the floor.”

Haru hesitated.

Just give me a reason, motherfucker, Dex thought.

But Haru seemed to decide Dex meant what he said and backed up a couple of steps.

“All right, then. But you tell Johnny—“

“I won’t be telling him about this little visit,” Dex said. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll never contact him again.”

He closed the door quietly, then watched out the peephole as Haru stood a moment, seemingly unsure what to do, then walked toward the elevators.

Dex took a long shower. The confrontation with Haru had lessened some of the rage he’d been feeling, and the shower helped to relax him. When he came out of the bathroom, he checked on Seo-jun and found him still sleeping soundly.

Watching the man he loved fall apart had done something to Dex. He didn’t want to deal with the bullshit any longer. Crossing to the couch, he stared at his cell phone on the table.

“Fuck it,” he finally said, and picked it up.

“Dex? Why are you calling me this late?” his mother asked when she answered his call.

“How long are we going to do this, Mom? How long are you going to not speak to me for being gay?”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It was a shock. I needed some time. Garfield tells me it’s not something you can grow out of, so I suppose I’ll have to deal with it.”

Dex wanted to laugh. Did she really think it would go away?

“I’m gay for life, Mother. And I have a boyfriend that I love very much. If you want to see me over the holidays, he’s coming with me. And you’re going to be nice to him.”

Saying that felt good.

“By all means, bring…”

“Seo-jun.”

“Seo-jun. Right. Bring him. But I want you for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. No arguments. Garfield’s family will be here for Thanksgiving. And who knows? Maybe little Sky will be, too.”

Dex let out a breath. Was it really going to be this easy? “I heard you went to see Anna. That was nice. It meant a lot to her.”

“Well, of course I went to see her. She’s my daughter.” She launched into a tirade about the delays on her flight home, and Dex listened, a headache building behind his eyes. Now all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and hold Seo-jun.

“Mmm,” Seo-jun murmured sleepily a few minutes later when Dex hung up with his mother and did just that, pulling his boyfriend into his arms.

“Hey. Do you want me to order you some food?”

Seo-jun shook his head. “No. I just want to lie here with you and sleep.”

“How do you feel?” Dex asked.

“Better. Telling off Haru and then crying it out helped a lot. You know, the entire time I lived with him, I didn’t understand what was happening. I even thought I was happy.” He laughed bitterly. “It wasn’t until later that I realized that something wasn’t right about the whole thing. I don’t even think it was until I met you and started developing feelings for you that I realized that what Haru and I had had wasn’t a normal relationship.”

“You were very young,” Dex said, playing with Seo-jun’s hair.

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