Page 235 of Untouchable

The minute Parker takes an enormous bite of his cinnamon roll, Gil clears his throat again and asks, "So, um, remind me what you do, Parker?"

"He's a massage therapist," Harp says, bristling again. "I told you that."

"Oh right. What's that like?"

* * *

Parker wonders what—ifanything—Harp has told Gil about him. Then his heart sinks, and he wonders if Harp has even told him that Parker exists, or if this trip is the first time Gil is hearing about Harp having a boyfriend. He scans his mind, trying to remember, but he can’t remember one way or another. It’s not the end of the world, Parker knows, but it’s another thing that runs uncomfortably parallel to the start of his relationship with Cole, when Cole had dragged his feet to call Parker his boyfriend—or even to be seen with him in public—for months after they started dating.

Still, though, Gil seems interested in knowing about something that Parker loves, so he forces himself to put away his insecurities and be his normal, friendly self. He quickly chews and swallows, choking slightly, and smiles shyly at Gil.

“I love it,” he says. “I’m on my feet all day, and the place where I work—Rocky Mountain Bodywork Center—is really awesome. And I like helping people, y’know? It’s like, I can really see the difference I’m making with someone and the pain or stress I’m taking away just by how they move after a session.”

"Sounds like you really have a calling. How long have you been doing it?" Gil says. It’s hard to interpret his tone—he has a deadpan affect, like Harp sometimes does, but, unlike Harp, Gil has subtle cues and quirks that Parker hasn’t learned to read.

Assume the best, he reminds himself.

Parker smiles. "A couple of years now. This was the first place I worked when I moved up here and I’ve been here ever since."

* * *

Harp can barely keeptrack of the conversation as they make small talk in front of him.

What the fuck was Gil thinking, showing up like this? Harp hadn't talked to Gil since he told his brother he was spending Christmas with his boyfriend, and he'd figured either Gil decided not to come down for the holiday or he'd come in January. Yeah, Gil was impulsive and a little self-centered, but Harp had been very clear about the fact that Gil wasn't invited for Christmas this year.

So what the fuck?

Harp knows Gil well enough to know that he's only pretending to be nice to Parker.

The tightness in his jaw and Gil's lilting tone of voice are enough to tell him that Gil couldn't care less about the answers to the questions he's asking—and that seems bizarre, too. Gil has never even been around to know anyone that Harp has dated—was too young to really ever get to know Cherry, and then there had been no one since her. But Gil had encouraged him to find someone, to get into town more.

Harp had done what he wanted, and Gil had swooped into town like some suspicious landlord come to inspect his property for unwanted guests. He'd told Harp to date and now Gil was, what, dissatisfied with the person Harp had chosen?

What. The. Fuck.

* * *

If Parker had beenuncomfortable before—half-naked, yelling about Harp’s dick size to his younger brother—it’s nothing compared to how he feels now. Gil quizzes him politely about Parker’s job and Parker, of course, can’t help babbling on and on about the difference between spa and medical massage, different types of massage modalities, the interaction between the muscular and skeletal systems of the body—not that Gil asked, of course.

And though Gil nods as he listens, there’s something that puts Parker on edge. It’s not Gil, exactly, though Parker sees in his eyes the same closed off hardness he’d seen in Harp those first few sessions last fall. It takes Parker a moment to realize it’s Harp that’s making Parker nervous—not because of anything Harp has or hasn’t said and done, but simply because it’s clear Harp is unsettled. Parker can sense it from the way he has to stop his fingers from drumming against the table, the deepening of the furrow between his eyebrows, the tension in his shoulders. It’s simply radiating from him.

Parker wonders if there’s something he’s missing, and it’s making him anxious. He has that old familiar feeling he hasn’t felt around Harp in quite some time—the sense of being one step behind a conversation, a little too stupid, a little too naive to really understand what’s happening.

“So, um, you’re—you’re from Portland?” Parker asks.

“No,” Gil says slowly, shooting a glance at Harp. “I’m from Florida.”

“Er—yeah, um, haha, I meant, you’re, um—living in Portland now?”

"Yeah, I've been there for almost a year now. Thanks to Harp,” he says. His words come out clipped, but in a way that suggests this is simply how Gil talks to everyone.

“Nice,” Parker says with a smile, glad to get the topic off him. He knows he gets tunnel-vision when talking about something he’s interested in, and the last thing he wants to do is bore Gil to death with the intricacies of the muscles in the shoulder girdle. “Did he, um, help you move?”

Gil smirks. "I guess you could say that. Seeing as our parents were never going to foot the bill for their second queer kid out of the batch to get out of that conservative backwater, Harp stepped up and financed my escape."

Harp clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably.

Parker grins over at Harp, feeling strangely proud of his boyfriend, of how generous he is, not just with Parker, but with all the people he loves. It just reinforces the knowledge that his mother had been wrong. Harp isn’t using him for anything. Harp just happens to be one of the few genuinely decent people in the world, and Parker was lucky enough to find him.

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