Page 47 of Never Landing

Tom stared at the two of us like we were speaking a foreign language, but Warren had already lost patience, it seemed. “That’s enough. You’re going to fucking get in your car and get back to work, right now. This is bullshit and you know it. Taking three weeks off right when you need to be working on the Crosslife account? If it weren’t for Tom, I’d have fired you by now.”

My car? I glanced at the driveway, where his ridiculous red car was alone. Then I shrugged it off and turned back to the meat of the comment, lifting a brow at him. “Would you have?”

“We need the Crosslife project finished in two weeks, and you’re wandering around small town nowhere playing at—I don’t even know what the fuck you’re playing at. But it stops now. You need to get back to work.” His eyes narrowed and before I could make a snarky comment, he added, “And don’t you even fucking start with me on how I’ve done the work on the Crosslife account. You work for me. Your work is my work. I own it. If you’re trying to sell it to them independently, you’re in for a rude awakening.”

I waved him off. “I haven’t spoken to Crosslife. I haven’t spoken to another firm. I’m not even looking for a job right now. I’m well aware that you’ve fucked me over for future ad work. Funny thing is, you fucked me over bad enough, for long enough, that I don’t even care anymore, James. I don’t want to work in advertising anymore.”

Next to me, Peter gasped. “But Everett, you’re so good at it.”

“Don’t be a child,” Warren snapped, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed. And laughed. Peter had to take the groceries from my arms, because I was laughing so hard that I had to double over, clutching my sides and gasping for breath.

A child. That was me, a child.

In his mind, because I wasn’t folding, wasn’t giving up and giving in and sacrificing my morals and morale, I was acting like a child.

Maybe I was. I’d found Peter again, and while he’d grown up since our childhood, maybe...maybe what I’d needed had been the opposite. I’d needed to be reminded that being an adult wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and I didn’t need to do it like my parents had. I didn’t need to have a job that ate my soul and destroyed my happiness.

I had what I needed. Peter, a home, and a way to maintain both of those things.

And that was it.

I wasn’t a rat, who needed to fight with all the other little worker drone rats over the crumbs of cheese James Warren was throwing into our cage, while he shoved the rest of the block into his own mouth, all at once.

If that made me a child, then so be it.

Peter and I could be children together forever.

Or maybe, more likely, there was something else entirely that we could be. Adults, without sacrificing who we were in order to satiate the machine made by men like James and Tom. I could...

Fuck me, I could paint. Just like I’d always wanted to do as a kid, before eventually dismissing it because whenever I’d said I wanted to paint, my mother had answered, “Fine dear, but what are you going tobe? Not some silly hobby. A real job.”

I could be a painter. Even if I made a couple hundred bucks a month at it...that could be enough.

I pulled myself up to find Peter biting his lip, looking concerned, and behind him, marching across our lawn, was a big, scary looking guy.

Not, like, a random one. He was our neighbor, for sure. I’d seen him coming and going regularly, but never paid muchattention to him. The house had over an acre of land, so it wasn’t like we’d ever been within twenty feet of each other on our own property. He looked youngish, maybe a handful of years younger than me, in his mid-twenties, and dead serious. The squared buzz-cut that I associated with Marines and stiff, purposeful way he strode didn’t soften that impression.

The look on his face, on the other hand, was concerned when he met my eye. “Is everything okay? I didn’t want to interfere if the strangers were your friends, Mr. Bailey, but...” He turned his head and gave James and Tom a cold, calculated twice over that would have sent me running if I were them. Like he was considering how much effort it would require to take them both down, and the answer was probably not much. “They don’t seem too friendly.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re here to fire me, actually,” I told him genially. “See, this one is my boss, who’s been stealing my work for the last few years, James Warren. He owns the Warren Advertising Agency, and he’s tired of me not being okay with him taking credit for my work.”

“You are fired,” Warren said, almost growled.

I smiled sweetly back. A few months’ worth of unemployment based on my salary would help Peter and I get our feet under us for sure.

But then, Warren got a calculating look on his face and turned back to my neighbor. “Are you so sure you want this guy here, though? Small town like this, don’t you care about family values? Tradition?”

The guy quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, just waiting for Warren to get to his point.

Warren motioned from me to Peter, and back. “You’re aware that these two are probably fucking, right? They’re gay.”

Peter cocked his head, considering, then looked at me. “What’s gay?”

“Us,” I said, agreeing with Warren. Funnily enough, I wasn’t even worried.

Because suddenly, I’d remembered something very important. “I’d say I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m really not. Jerry doesn’t give a fuck that I’m gay. He’s known that for more than fifteen years, when I used to babysit him when he was a kid.” I turned back to my enormous tank of a neighbor. “That is still you, isn’t it, Jerry Jensen? I know your mom used to call you Jer-bear, but this is ridiculous.”

Jerry’s whole body went loose, and he grinned at me. “Of course it is. Mom lives out at the beach now, but she still calls me that when we visit for the holidays.”

---